Pigua

I woke up early yesterday to meet with an old friend, and former madricha, counselor from my Jewish camp, Keren. She is also involved in peace education here in Jerusalem and had worked with a number of incredible organizations, as well as done her own peace program freelancing. We sat at the nearby Aroma and talked about her work, and my work, and then she gave me a list of people to contact and fun things to do. This included the "Dialogue in the Dark" museum, which I hope to go to very soon.

From there I headed down to one of her other recommendations, the Begin Museum. While waiting at the bus stop up on Har Hasofim, I met a Japanese-American woman, Harumi, who was heading to the same area and needed help with the buses. I offered to ride together, and we had a really nice conversation about peace work (she had worked for the Rotary Foundation), the vast differences between Japan and Israel, and the fun of being a tourist. We got off at the Mashbir on King George and then I guided us over to Jaffo Street to change buses. I couldn't find the number we wanted, and so I asked a woman where the 18 was. She gave me a long answer, which I know imagine included "the roads are closed because there was a terrorist attack" but I honestly didn't understand her emphatic response and so I smiled and nodded and then said we should try up at the shuk. Then we realized the road was closed, that something was happening, and we began to hear the people around us talking about a pigua.

A pigua is a terrorist attack, and I have always associated the words with a car- or suicide-bombing in Israel. I began asking people what happened, had the been a pizuz, an explosion? No, there had been a man in a tractor running people over. My first instinct was to think "How do they know this is terrorism and not a crazy person?" my second is "How do you get a tractor onto Jaffo?" We found a little shop with a television that people were crowded around and joined them to learn what was happening. The scene was awful; flattened cars, broken glass, an overturned bus. Just up the street, but I was seeing it on tv. The reason the media was there so fast is that the attack actually occured just below a building which hopuses foreign and domestic media services. In the aticles I learned that a man working on a construction site in a bulldozer, drove the wrong way down on-way Jaffo, hitting as many vehicles as possible, and rammied and turned over a bus. Itw as thought that he was then going to turn onto Mahene Yehuda, the outdoor food market, and begin crashing through the crowded little streets. A policeman was able to climb onto the bulldozer and kill the man. On the news services that I saw in the evening, they were offering videos of the terrorist being killed. I find that a bit horrifying, I can't believe that is something you can watch on the news.

Harumi and I decided to continue with our plans, which would take us far from the area. We walked through the City Center and onto King David Street to head towards Mishkenot HaShananim. It is remarkable how normal Israel, and maybe Jerusalem can be even in the midst of an attack. I expected to see people gathered around televisions or radios, but life goes on and people were sitting at cafes or window shopping in the City Center. Later that day, in the afternoon, I went to Mahene Yehida to buy some salads, to feel like I was doing something to support the people who work there. I wasn't sure if it would be open, but every store was except for one. The only hint that something had happened were the cleaning crews scrubbing blood off the streets.