This and That and Virtual Friends

Image by catbagan via Flickr

I am sick. I have a awfully sore throat and I fell weak and shaky. I think that the past couple of weeks I lived on pure andrenaline and now that the levels of it are low, all the viruses and illneses are on me...So I went out - I had to take Maya out for a walk, she's so restless - and bought myself some vitamins and ginko biloba, because my brain doesn't function the way it should. An example: today I forgot my key in the mail box and thank God a nice neighbour took it and called me...You see?
Maya is well and we're still waiting, for test results and for other tests...This morning, for breakfast, she asked for "dots". I didn't understand what did she want, so I took her to the fridge and asked her to show me. It was the dish that I cooked yesterday, some sort of tiny round pasta in three colours that she loved. So, she had lunch for breakfast, and then I gave her what was supposed to be her breakfast at lunch. Speaking of being confused...But as long as she enjoyed it, I didn't really care.
In one of my previous posts, my friend Simha said something like "I hope you have a community there, in Ashdod, with friends who are helping you out during your rough patch". Well, the truth is, I don't have. I am alone here, in Israel, very much alone. One of the reasons I started writing this blog was to find a way of coping with this loneliness. My family is living far away, in Romania, Germany and England...my best friend from high school and junior high is in Romania, another good friend is in Canada...and I'm here, with my family. My husband's parents are dead, he is an only son and he has relatives in Romania and Hungary. Here in Israel he has two cousins, but they live in the north and have enough problems of their own. Maya's godmother Nora is the only friend I have here, in Israel. But she is working in Tel Aviv and by the time she's back in town she is very tired (she is a cancer survivor and she has to take care of herself more than others) so we meet sometimes during week-ends...I have another good friend, Louise, a fellow book lover, but she lives in another city and it is really dificult to find time to meet up. And that is all. My friends are, more or less, "virtual", we don't drink coffees together, don't go out with the kids...There is one more problem here: all the mothers that have children Maya's age are younger than me. Here in Israel people marry young and have kids quickly afterwards. Also, Ashdod's population has a high percent of Russians and usually they keep inside their community. Not to talk about the fact that I am a Christian, and in Israel Christians are the foreign workers and a certain percent of the Arab population. The religious thing doesn't bother me much only when it comes to holidays and traditions, but I can live with that...I love Jewish holidays as much as the Christian ones and we celebrate them all...It is harder to live without friends...It happened a lot of times that I was at home with Maya when she was sick, or I was sick and we didn't have bread or milk or coffee at home and I simply had to wait for the evening, for my husband to come from work because I didn't have anybody to ask this kind of favour...It is sad, really...
Oh, but who cares? I have so many good friends that I've "met" through my blog and Facebook! And thank God for internet and Yahoo Messenger and Skype and international calls and e-mail! I live in a virtual world but that world is chock full of good friends and positive vibes that empower me!