There are no trees or grass in this home to 2200 people; however, there is a surplus of broken glass and trash on the ground. You soon learn that one of the main problems with temporary housing (whose managers keep scaling back services to encourage residents to leave) is that it does not inspire its people to keep it in good shape.

During the clubhouse days you begin portraits of the children who drift in and out. Two a day-a good rhythm of trying to draw and concentrate on a vivacious little moving face while the hordes of wonderfully curious kids tug at your clothing and pencil, all wanting in on the action. You look around and see some of them imitating you, doing their own drawings. Everything flows back and forth, and after these days you feel good.

Soon there are a couple of ten-year-old boys who come by for afternoon drawing lessons. During these times, you draw cows and each other, and the evening emerges. The community awakens, opening their homes and visiting one another.

And as this public time wanes, the darks deepen and the folks retire home. You have the peace in which you can make pictures of charcoal and tempera paint.

In the quiet spaces between evening and light, Mount Carmel turns to gaze quietly over the ocean; you feel yourself hugging its- roots

the day ends on this quiet note rolling into the next morning and more to learn

Amazing faces of amazing people who pulling themselves out of the hole created by immigration, the hole created by culture and technology shock, of outsiders demanding you observe your Judaism in certain ways and send your children to certain schools. You live in this ugly place, looked over by wealthy neighborhoods up on the mountain. Some of your family and so many friends are far away in Ethiopia. You must learn a strange new language, must acquire the ability to be an Israeli.

You have no money, have a hard time finding a job and some of you are already or will soon be alcoholics and almost lost. The police come late to your neighborhood when you call and some Jews and Arabs call "cushi," nigger.

Still, your children are growing into this place, have already learned which buses go where and which songs are popular. You are Ethiopian,

and you are Israeli, and you are Jewish, and now you are in Eretz

Yisrael, the Land of the Covenant.