1984-1985 Rothberg Yearbook

TO TRAMP OR NOT TO TRAMP
I spent my first weekend in Haifa going home with my roommate, Tikva. Her family lives in Ashqelon, which is a small town about
55 km south of Tel Aviv. Aside from having a wonderful time while in Ashqelon —meeting my roommate’s family, being fed “real”
food, and being in a “home,” I also had quite an exciting experience getting here.
Tikva asked me to go home with her about half an hour before she was planning to leave. Okay, that wasn’t a problem —I
had money to take a bus and the Ulpan hadn’t begun, so I didn’t have any homework yet. 1 was ready to be on my way. Tikva said
it would take about three hours to get there. We began our escapade on a city bus that left from the University. She had mentioned
something about getting a “tram” after taking the bus to what I thought she called “Freud” street.(Oh no, what a name to mention
to a psychology major!) Okay, a “tram.” I hadn’t been on one of those yet. I had images of the shuttle buses in Santa Cruz, or the
cable cars in San Francisco. What did she mean, a “tram”?
It only took me a few minutes to figure out what she meant by tramming. She was actually talking about that age-old
phenomenon (illegal in the US) of “hitchhiking.” All right, I was getting the picture (as my mother’s voice lingered through my
mind, “Don’t hitchhike, and...”) and was quite calm about the whole thing. After all, I was an experienced Israeli trammer who
travelled this way quite often. I found myself standing at what used to be a bus stop with my index finger pointing in the direction
of Tel Aviv, from where we would continue to “tram” till Ashqelon! It took quite a while before we found someone going to the
right place. Many cars stopped, Tikva asked them something in Hebrew, received either a “yes” or a “no” answer and we hung
around until we found someone going to Tel Aviv. I was still calm. Tikva assured me, and I trusted her.
We ended up getting a ride with a soldier. Tikva got into the front seat with him and I sat in the back of the truck with my
backpack and camera, the wind blowing in my face and, in the background, a Hebrew conversation between Tikva and the
somewhat obnoxious soldier.
This was an experience I’d never forget, I thought, even before we got to Tel Aviv, and I didn’t realize how many more
“trams” it would take to get to Ashqelon. Some people would stop and only be willing to take us a short distance. We finally got to
Tel Aviv and it took about three more trams before getting to Ashqelon. At one point we got a ride from a man driving a big-load
truck. He seemed nice enough to me. He asked Tikva, in Hebrew, where I was from and she explained what I was doing here. I
found Tikva sitting very close to me, although we seemed to have a lot of room. She appeared a little uneasy and the next thing I
knew, she had asked him to pull over and I found myself on the side of a foreign highway, not really knowing where I was. It turns
out the man was an Arab and Tikva didn’t feel safe. Her uneasiness was getting me a bit unsure of myself, but I assured myself that
it would all work out, as it, in fact, did.
Tikva didn’t think I had enjoyed our escapade to Ashqelon and the whole weekend she kept reminding me that we would be
taking a bus on the way back. Although I found the tramming trip quite exciting, new, and unpredicable experience, it was a bit of
a comfort to know that we take a more “conventional” means (in American terms anyway) on the return trip to Haifa.
Hitchhiking, or tramping (it is tramping, not tramming, as I was corrected a few days later) is a prevalent means of transportation
here for both the Israelis and the many students and tourists, though it’s not really for me.
EMILY LEVINE
Monterey, California
23