And yes, I'm a little sorry about that. Basically we've been bumming around Tel Aviv, exploring secret-garden cafes, chillin' at the beach, visiting with American and Israeli friends of yore, and taking field trips around the North. Not too much to report. Finally last week we started a little bit of the volunteering, and I've been to two of my five locations so far.
Short recap:
"Ironi Hey High School" - I have a group of three seniors who I am supposed to be prepping for the Bagrut, which is like a high school exit exam but in English. The score on this test determines how good of a job they can get in the army, and also acts as an SAT type score for when they apply to college. However, my three, as amazing as they are, really don't even know enough English to practice the first entry-level book that they have, so it's been interesting. They did, though, tell me that working with me is the first time they've had any interest in learning English, and in my opinion, they're going to be great since they finally have someone who thinks they can do it. Their teacher (who is American, by the by) told me that it doesn't matter what I do because they'll probably fail the test anyway and they'll never learn to speak. She also said that we had to help her out because her classroom is overcrowded, but the truth is that she only has six students, and I took three and the other volunteer took three so actually during those hours the teacher goes shopping and gets her hair done.
"Therapeutic Riding School" - here I have been once, and for about forty minutes we helped autistic kids ride horses, which was pretty cool actually. One of them smiled at me, and his teacher told me that he is so depressed that he hasn't smiled in the six months she's known him, so that was a really awesome step for him. Unfortunately, after that, we spent about two and a half hours being ordered around by the people who work there (as they sat around smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee) to basically clean the entire barn and do everything they've been too lazy to do in the last, oh, I don't know, year or so? Final tally: stalls cleaned - 42, horses cleaned - 32, times a bird pooped on one of us - 2, horses we accidentally set loose - 1, amount of laughter - priceless.
Also on my schedule is "ASSAF" which is working with refugees, "Bait Bateva" which is giving underprivileged kids the chance to be responsible for and learn about all types of plants and animals (and the entire place is swarming with them, from frogs to cats to ducks to fish), and "College for All" which is working with Arab middle school students in math, Hebrew, and English to help give them the same opportunities that Israeli students from higher socioeconomic levels get. Stay tuned.
Top 3 Most Amazing Moments in Israel Thus Far:
3. Trying to join a gym. The issue here was that I didn't know we were going to attempt this when we left the house so I didn't prepare my gym-related Hebrew vocabulary. As a result, I did not know the words for "gym", "rates", "join", "sign up for", "exercise", or "machines". Since the old man did not speak any English, which was fine since I'm always looking for ways to practice my Hebrew, it was amusing nonetheless. The word for gym, we found out, is "cheder kosher," which to my roommate and I sounded a lot like a room where there was no trayf, as "cheder" by itself means "room" and "kosher" means, well "kosher". This was incorrect, and led to much prolonged confusion. In the end, though, it all got figured out, and will lead to Most Amazing Moment in Israel Thus Far number two.
2. Israel spin class. As a good way to practice Hebrew while also getting a fun workout, we decided to go to a spinning class tonight. Luckily, the Hebrew word for "spinning" is "spinning" but with a heftier accent, so that was no issue to figure out. And for your own personal edification, "stationary bike" is "ofanayim sh'lo zaz" which means "a bike that doesn't move". So we got there, found bikes, and waited for it to begin. And oh, how it did begin! The rest of class was nothing like the stay-at-home-rich-moms at Del Mar Workout, no no no. They were much larger, hairier, louder, and with children that did not have nannies to watch them during this time. When the teacher came in, she immediately turned off the lights, turned on a colorful disco ball, extraordinarily loud salsa music, and started shouting excitedly and quickly in Hebrew. About what, I can only tell you my interpretation, but all I knew was that I had to start spinning, and fast. I have never been so afraid of a woman in my entire life, especially since she didn't even ever sit on her bike but instead ran around, yes ran around, yelling and grabbing at peoples' various body parts to correct them if it became evident that they could not here her instructions over the blaring speakers. In case you were wondering, "ometz", when yelled repeatedly in your face, means "with a lot more power and strength now now now!". It was probably the best workout I've ever had, since I was in no way going to slow down, decrease the resistance, or even wipe my face. And such was my first experience with which we have dubbed, "Israeli Screaming Disco Spinning".
1. Almost being a hooker by accident. So my very generous Israeli friend helped one of my roommates and I get a job as caterers. (Can't see where this is going, can you?) For our very first job, which is also all in Hebrew since they don't speak any English so was nerve-racking enough as it is, since we don't have a car, they sent a girl to come pick us up. She was very nice, from Ukraine, and had been living in Israel for the past ten years. She spoke very minimal English, so as a result we conversed in the car in Hebrew. After asking her how long she had been working as a caterer, she said that in fact she wasn't, and she had her own business that was hired for this particular bar mitzvah as well. She told us the name of her business, or what type it was, rather, but I didn't understand the Hebrew so I asked her to explain. This was the description, word for word, "I am very pretty, and I have very pretty girls that work for me. They smile a lot, flirt a little, and help the gentlemen." As you can imagine, it appeared that she was a madam, and had a hooker business. Fine, to each her own. We smiled, nodded, and tried to move on. After arriving at the location (Rishpon, which is incredibly beautiful), getting moderately settled and into uniform, she approached me again. "You, pretty one, come on, you're with me tonight." Uh, excuse me? I had no time to respond, she was apparently in a huge hurry, and snapped her fingers at me and continued to tell me to follow her, as I stood grounded and shocked. I had no choice. I looked at my roommate, and she gave me an "I wish I could help you but what can I do?" look. This was it. I was about to become a hooker for old Israeli men. I had heard that often at weddings they hire escorts, and while I was flattered that she found me attractive enough to be one, I was absolutely mortified. With no other option, as everybody else was staring at me in confusion about why I wasn't obeying, I rushed behind her, frantically trying to figure out how to get my phone back from where I had left it, and decide if in this situation it was better to call my American madrich Dan (who would probably laugh at me more than be helpful), my Israeli madricha Sivan (who would probably be a little bit irked that I had gotten myself into such a situation), a taxi, an Israeli friend with a car, or to just bolt. As it turned out (and I almost hate to tell the ending, as right now in the story is definitely the climax), what she had meant was she was a hostess, or greeter. Since in the States this job is traditionally done by a member of the host's family or friend group, or the event planner takes care of it him/herself, I was not aware that it was a separate business. All I really had to do was stand at the table with the name cards, smile, flirt a little bit, and help the gentlemen (and ladies) find their name, where to leave their gifts, and their table. Relief.
Peace, love, and BARACK OBAMA '08!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
if dogs run free
It turns out there are a few important things one should know about Israel, particularly about Kibbutz Gal On. First of all, every evening at 7:30, there is what we call "bird rush hour." This means that every single bird within a mile radius takes off from whatever tree they happen to be on, squawk a lot, and fly to wherever it is that they sleep. The second thing one should know is that milk comes in plastic bags. This is problematic if you do not like milk, particularly if you do not like touching milk, as opening a bag of milk is nearly impossible to do neatly. Third is that industrial sized cleaning supplies have not been introduced here. This one is applicable when you have to cover for somebody and volunteer in the dining hall, and are handing a toy-sized broom and mop and instructed to sweep, mop and wax the entire place. The side note to this one is that Drano also doesn't exist here. You may recall that the shower in the bathroom has no barrier between it and the rest of the bathroom. Well our drain is clogged so not only does the water puddle at our feet, but at this point, it overflows into the bathroom, under the door, and into the rest of the room. And as an additional side note, I can't remember if I've mentioned this before or not, but an uneven bathroom tiled floor is impossible to squeegee out. Fourthly, "r"s, or "resh"s, if you will, are very difficult to pronounce and even if someone tells you that they will help you practice and won't make fun of you, they are lying. The fifth, and one of the most important, is that they love music that was popular ten years ago. Case in point: there was an Ace of Base music video marathon on TV yesterday. The sixth thing is that on Kibbutz Gal On, there is a pub called the Silo Moo Pub, and this is because it is actually in a silo. A silo is "a structure for storing bulk materials. Silos are used in agriculture to store grain or fermented feed known as silage. Silos are more commonly used for bulk storage of grain, coal, cement, carbon black, wood chips, food products, and sawdust." It looks like a windmill without the windmill. You go through a tiny little door into a tiny round room that is a pub. They have lots of salsa music and pictures of French prostitutes on the ceilings. A side note to this thing is that when you go to the Silo Moo Pub you get a chance to see cows at night, because you're at the refet, the cow barn, and it turns out that cows sleep lying down.
The last thing you should know is a little less funny but was told to me bluntly by an Israeli two nights ago, and that is that, "not all Jews are equal." You'd think that since we're in the Jewish home country, we would learn how to be accepting and not oppress our neighbors, and although I of course am, and always have been, aware of the inequalities and injustices here, it was still moderately shocking to hear it stated quite so nonchalantly, and he demonstrated no interest or belief in the possibility of change.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Wednesday we went to Tel Aviv to check out some of the internship options that we will have this year. I was floored at how many people give so much in the community, how many people devote so much of their time, money, and life to causes that they aren't a part of to have it look good on a resume, or to make themselves feel better about being a rich homemaker. These are people of limited means themselves, who truly believe in the causes that they work with, and in the power of giving. Particularly those Israelis that work with at-risk Arabs, and well-off Arabs that are a huge part of the organizations themselves, astounded me with their dedication to and belief in equality, education, and peace. I'll keep you posted on exactly what I decide to do.
That afternoon we went to the beach! At first I was so relieved and at home to see the ocean and lay in the sand, and then I got a little bit homesick for San Diego, but it was okay because I remembered that there are no sharks here. I took a nice nap, and then we ate a hummus, veggie, pita, and french fry platter that was one of the greatest things ever at this cafe that had the tables literally on the sand. The cafe was putting up a screen to show a "eat-in" movie when we left, but we wandered around and found a lovely fountain next to a falafel stand that my friend Taryn found out sold shots of Vodka under the table. And by shots we mean plastic glassfuls. It was a nice break from the kibbutz, and also sort of a tease.
Last weekend we had free, so I went to Jerusalem to stay with Jordyn and celebrate Suzy's birthday! We took what turned out to be a fantastic bus ride from Kiryat Gat to Jerusalem, and met some funny soldiers who talked to us about penguins, both the animals and the Orthodox. We spent the afternoon hanging out on Jordyn's balcony, and then when Suzy left for services, Jordyn and I baked TWO cakes! One was a marble cake from a mix, and when we swirled the dark parts into the light parts it looked like a passion fruit. We also made a "healthy" chocolate cake where we had to boil down apples instead of oil. This worked out well until we thought the batter was too soupy so we added lots more flour (kemach) which unfortunately we found out only made it extremely dense when it came time to taste it. "A" for effort, though. Oh, and there was a frosting we made from scratch! We thought we would spread it on the top and let it drip "artistically" down the edges, but it didn't really work out. Delicious nonetheless. On Saturday morning we watched ants move pieces of food, which now that I write that seems like we had smoked or something, which we definitely hadn't, but it seemed more reasonable to do at the time. Then we took a lovely stroll into downtown Jerusalem, and then back to make a delicious pasta dinner before heading back down south (drom).
Once we got back to Kiryat Gat, I used some excellent Hebrew to tell the cab driver that we needed a larger car for the four of us from the bus station, to stop at the train station for one more, and then to Kibbutz Gal On. So we met Uri. He was nice, and then he told us that knew a "k'tzar", shortcut, to our kibbutz. This involved the Israeli agriculture. We ended up on a dirt road in the middle of a field, and we kept driving, and then he excitedly turned to me all of a sudden and shouted, "sabra!" (cactus!) and lo and behold, there were cacti, as if that were supposed to make me feel better. There was also some excellent Alanis Morrissette on the radio, and I was sitting in front, and kept turning around making half amused, half worried faces at my friends in the back seat. If it were the United States, I would have been gravely concerned, but for some reason it seemed okay. Finally we drove up to some cows and Uri told me that we were at Kibbutz Gat. I said, excellent but we want to go to Kibbutz Gal On. And he said, this is Kibbutz Gat. And I said, they have nice cows here but I live on Kibbutz Gal On. And he said, okay. And we got home safely.
Other than that, mostly life is just ulpan, and, oh yeah! I started running! I've never run before in my life, and actually I (thought I) hated it, but turns out running a few miles in the fields every evening is amazing. The views are unbelievable, and it's nice and windy which is a change from stuffy hotness on the kibbutz itself. This weekend we're staying around the kibbutz and going on a hike tomorrow evening. Hopefully we'll finalize the Tel Aviv roommate situation in the next few days, because we're moving next Friday (a week from today)! We'll spend the weekend settling in, do an urban ulpan on Sunday, and then have off until Wednesday night for the holiday. We'll be back on the kibbutz Thursday and Friday to finish cleaning up and go to our goodbye party, and then in two weeks from today I will officially be a resident of Tel Aviv. Word.
Peace, love, and better internet access.
The last thing you should know is a little less funny but was told to me bluntly by an Israeli two nights ago, and that is that, "not all Jews are equal." You'd think that since we're in the Jewish home country, we would learn how to be accepting and not oppress our neighbors, and although I of course am, and always have been, aware of the inequalities and injustices here, it was still moderately shocking to hear it stated quite so nonchalantly, and he demonstrated no interest or belief in the possibility of change.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Wednesday we went to Tel Aviv to check out some of the internship options that we will have this year. I was floored at how many people give so much in the community, how many people devote so much of their time, money, and life to causes that they aren't a part of to have it look good on a resume, or to make themselves feel better about being a rich homemaker. These are people of limited means themselves, who truly believe in the causes that they work with, and in the power of giving. Particularly those Israelis that work with at-risk Arabs, and well-off Arabs that are a huge part of the organizations themselves, astounded me with their dedication to and belief in equality, education, and peace. I'll keep you posted on exactly what I decide to do.
That afternoon we went to the beach! At first I was so relieved and at home to see the ocean and lay in the sand, and then I got a little bit homesick for San Diego, but it was okay because I remembered that there are no sharks here. I took a nice nap, and then we ate a hummus, veggie, pita, and french fry platter that was one of the greatest things ever at this cafe that had the tables literally on the sand. The cafe was putting up a screen to show a "eat-in" movie when we left, but we wandered around and found a lovely fountain next to a falafel stand that my friend Taryn found out sold shots of Vodka under the table. And by shots we mean plastic glassfuls. It was a nice break from the kibbutz, and also sort of a tease.
Last weekend we had free, so I went to Jerusalem to stay with Jordyn and celebrate Suzy's birthday! We took what turned out to be a fantastic bus ride from Kiryat Gat to Jerusalem, and met some funny soldiers who talked to us about penguins, both the animals and the Orthodox. We spent the afternoon hanging out on Jordyn's balcony, and then when Suzy left for services, Jordyn and I baked TWO cakes! One was a marble cake from a mix, and when we swirled the dark parts into the light parts it looked like a passion fruit. We also made a "healthy" chocolate cake where we had to boil down apples instead of oil. This worked out well until we thought the batter was too soupy so we added lots more flour (kemach) which unfortunately we found out only made it extremely dense when it came time to taste it. "A" for effort, though. Oh, and there was a frosting we made from scratch! We thought we would spread it on the top and let it drip "artistically" down the edges, but it didn't really work out. Delicious nonetheless. On Saturday morning we watched ants move pieces of food, which now that I write that seems like we had smoked or something, which we definitely hadn't, but it seemed more reasonable to do at the time. Then we took a lovely stroll into downtown Jerusalem, and then back to make a delicious pasta dinner before heading back down south (drom).
Once we got back to Kiryat Gat, I used some excellent Hebrew to tell the cab driver that we needed a larger car for the four of us from the bus station, to stop at the train station for one more, and then to Kibbutz Gal On. So we met Uri. He was nice, and then he told us that knew a "k'tzar", shortcut, to our kibbutz. This involved the Israeli agriculture. We ended up on a dirt road in the middle of a field, and we kept driving, and then he excitedly turned to me all of a sudden and shouted, "sabra!" (cactus!) and lo and behold, there were cacti, as if that were supposed to make me feel better. There was also some excellent Alanis Morrissette on the radio, and I was sitting in front, and kept turning around making half amused, half worried faces at my friends in the back seat. If it were the United States, I would have been gravely concerned, but for some reason it seemed okay. Finally we drove up to some cows and Uri told me that we were at Kibbutz Gat. I said, excellent but we want to go to Kibbutz Gal On. And he said, this is Kibbutz Gat. And I said, they have nice cows here but I live on Kibbutz Gal On. And he said, okay. And we got home safely.
Other than that, mostly life is just ulpan, and, oh yeah! I started running! I've never run before in my life, and actually I (thought I) hated it, but turns out running a few miles in the fields every evening is amazing. The views are unbelievable, and it's nice and windy which is a change from stuffy hotness on the kibbutz itself. This weekend we're staying around the kibbutz and going on a hike tomorrow evening. Hopefully we'll finalize the Tel Aviv roommate situation in the next few days, because we're moving next Friday (a week from today)! We'll spend the weekend settling in, do an urban ulpan on Sunday, and then have off until Wednesday night for the holiday. We'll be back on the kibbutz Thursday and Friday to finish cleaning up and go to our goodbye party, and then in two weeks from today I will officially be a resident of Tel Aviv. Word.
Peace, love, and better internet access.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
you're a big girl now
Too much has happened in the last few days for me to wait to post, even though my thoughts on blogging are still up in the air. Mostly, we have to journal for one of my Hebrew teachers, Sharon, twice a week and I don't really know what to write so I decided I would just translate what I wrote here, because that's apparently things I would want to say in English which means they're things I may want to say in Hebrew so maybe I should practice.
Well Sunday we had our first day of ulpan, which is intensive Hebrew. There are five of us in the advanced class, which is actually pretty much just level bet but we try. The first day was a little bit overwhelming, and we mostly discussed everything that happened in the year 1909, particularly the founding of Kibbutz Daganya, the first kibbutz in Israel. We also talked about everything there is to know about kibbutzim, and my first night of homework was to write a paper (in Hebrew) about the similarities and differences between my life growing up in San Diego and kibbutz life. My Hebrew is a litte rusty, but I had only a few errors and got a "tov m'od!" (very good!) and a smiley face, so we're off to a good start. Also that first day we had a lot of trouble with the words for laundry, laundromat, to do laundry, washing machine, etc, which are all incredibly similar, and Yifat, one of our teachers, was basically just laughing hysterically at how much we couldn't get it. The ulpan is great, but it's completely in Hebrew, no English allowed - even if we don't understand a word, it's explained to us using other Hebrew words. They also don't really talk slower for us, so it's tricky to keep up, but definitely doable, which is good because I was a little concerned.
Yesterday, Monday, we had our first morning of volunteering. The way it works is that Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays (well Fridays until noon only) we have ulpan all day, with grammar/literature with Yifat in the morning and practical/conversational with Sharon in the afternoon. Mondays and Wednesdays, though, we volunteer in various locations on the kibbutz in the mornings. So my job is working in the refet, the cow barn, with the parot, the cows. There is one other girl, Susy from Puerto Rico, on my program that also works there with me, and we had quite the experience.
First we showed up bright and early, and they made us take off our shoes and gave us these huge muck boots that were at least four sizes too big, so we clomped around trying to find the man we were supposed to be working with. The first thing he did was hand us buckets and sponges and told us to wash a wall in the milking aisle (we found out that cows aren't milked by hand anymore, but rather they're put on a conveyor belt type of thing and attached to a machine that milks them) that looked like it hadn't been washed in years. It was hard because the cows kept coming up to us and mooing, but they did play some excellent American pop music. After an hour of that, we learned how to bathe cows, and how that works is that you put them all into a huge pen and turn on fire sprinklers and fans so that all the water gets flown around and gets on all the cows. Then we sat inside taking a break with the rosh refet, head of the dairy barn, and talked to him about the economies, defense budgets, and government subsidies of both Israel and the United States - what a stretch for the Hebrew! After that they handed us a piece of paper with four numbers on it (the cows are all branded with numbers), pointed to a huge pasture of literally hundreds of cows, and told us to get those four and move them to a pasture across the way. The man who was working with us had this wicked grin on his face, and we soon found out why. We had to walk into the middle of all the cows, who kept moooving and mooing all over the place, to find each of the cows. This was tricky because cows pretty much all look the same, and they don't know when you're trying to find a single one. It's one thing to do this on horseback, but much more intimidating from foot! When we would finally find one that we needed, we had to get its attention and shoo it into the holding pen, without letting the other cows get in too. This took forever, and a lot of, "go cow go, no not you cow, the other cow!"s and waving arms around and clomp-running on our huge boots, dodging cow pies, dogs, and other cows. The man just laughed and laughed. Finally we separated our cows, and had to herd them across a street, up a hill, and into the other barn thing. Susy lost one of her cows and had to run all around that part of the kibbutz trying to get it to go back with the others! The man just laughed and laughed. Finally it was finished, and then they let us go bottle feed a cow that had been born just two hours earlier! We found out that cows get separated from there mothers after only an hour, the cows on this kibbutz are only used for dairy, and that baby cows are very very cute. The ulpan yesterday afternoon was also hilarious, as we spent a good two hours discussing in detail everything you would or wouldn't do, say, go, ask, wear, or anything else if you were on a date with Tom Cruise. Apparently Yifat has a huge "fetish" as she calls it. I also learned the word for "being up in someone's grill" which is mitlavesh.
Last night one of my friend's uncle also came to visit with his friend, and they took a small group of us to the South African pub, which was amazing. They bought us sodas and then the couple who owns the restaurant kept bringing us out tons of South African appetizers (which ended up being our dinner) - we had roasted leeks, these spicy squash things, amazing bread with some sort of fruity dip, a lentil and couscous mixture, spicy french fries, and they were so sweet and friendly. They told us to come back with everyone on Thursday night and they'd cook us all dinner on the house, as "their tikun olam, since our group is called Tikun Olam." We're very excited!
This morning's ulpan was really frustrating, because we were studing the Hebrew equivalent of Shakesperean poetry, and none of the words were anything that anybody would ever use in real life, so nobody had a clue what was going on. She spent a really long time on it, and then we read a biographical essay of the life of Rachel Bluwstein, a Russian poet who moved to Israel at the age of 19, wrote lots of poems and songs, had a huge part in the kibbutz movement in the early 1900s, and then passed away of tuberculosis. Well we divided up the essay so we could each translate a portion of it and then give a summary to the rest of the group. My section was of course the most irrelevant to her life - it was about a piano that was brought to her from some guy in Russia but they took it to the wrong place and then had to use camels to transport it from Tsfat to somewhere else, and it was hard for them to get there because there were lots of kids who had never seen such a large piano before and they chased them the entire way. Huh? I missed one word though somewhere in the beginning and thought briefly that the camels had taken away Rachel's sister. Yifat laughed a lot at me, which is apparently the theme of my stay here in Israel so far.
This afternoon though, conversational was lots of fun. We learned lots of slang, and talked about our favorite books and movies at one point, and had to describe in detail. The thing is that the book that I'm reading right now is "This Book Will Save Your Life" which, by the way, I highly recommend, but it's a little tricky to explain. But I love it so much and I was so excited they were just laughing at me as I was telling them about the man who was really rich but had no life, and then one day a hole appeared in his backyard and a horse fell in it, so he had to run to his neighbor's house who was a famous actor, and they got his stunt man and helicopter and a harness to air lift the horse out of the hole, but then his house falls in the hole and he has to rebuild his life and become a new person, essentially. Difficult and hilarious enough to explain in English, imagine Hebrew. Then one of the other guys said his favorite movie was Superbad, but he couldn't explain it, so I had to. Sharon thoroughly enjoyed my explanation of McLovin, nerdy high school boys trying to get laid, corrupt policemen, and lots of people who were high, which by the way in Hebrew is mastul.
Everything on the kibbutz is slow, but I'm getting used to it. We eat a cold breakfast every morning, lunch in the chadar ohel, the kibbutz dining room, and then cook dinner. We have a nice table on the lawn/picnic area outside of our rooms, or the "American Ghetto" as we call it. Everyone is taking turns cooking their specialties for the rest of the group with one or two helpers, and we go to the kibbutz store, the Kol Bo everyday to get fresh veggies and ingredients. People have been cooking things like homemade sauces, pumpkins, and lots of side dishes. Tonight Susy is cooking a Puerto Rican dish that smells really good. The only real problem we've had is that we found really cheap beer at the Kol Bo, like 50 cents worth, which we thought was wheat beer, but it turned out to be some non-alcoholic beverage for old people that tasted nothing like beer! There are also lots and lots of cats that howl at each other a lot, and dogs that follow you everywhere you go. We haven't really gotten a chance to interact with many of the kibbutzniks other than our volunteer supervisors, since we're in ulpan most of the day, but the woman that serves the food in the chadar ohel knows that I like only rice with the salads and cole slaws, but she always makes me eat more by tossing on my plate whatever veggie option she cooked too. The bathroom situation isn't getting any better, but as we've gotten to sleep more it's gotten funnier rather than irritating. This afternoon I went with two friends to the outdoor gym and then we swam laps - well, that's kind of a loose way of putting it. We zig-zagged across the pool, stopping after each lap to laugh and talk, but it was fun and refreshing nonetheless.
Dinner time. I'll leave you with a list of Hebrew words that I think might be helpful in your life. Some are review:
to wash clothes in a lake - m'chavsim b'kinneret
be in someone's grill - mitlavesh
I have no idea - ain li musag
someone who is high - mastul
fake ID - maz'yif ID
Peace, love, and cows.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
the times they are a changin'
Shalom (shaaaaalom)! Well I'm here, and finishing up my first weekend. It's only a little bit strange since it's only Saturday evening, but our madrich, Dan, who has lived here for over a year, says it still mixes him up every week, so I don't feel so bad. Well, maybe a little bit for him, but I digress.
The flights over here were great - who knew that a Continental overseas flight has power outlets at each seat, tons of seat reclining ability, and hundreds of free movies and tv shows to watch on your own personal screen? Of course, I slept the entire time so I couldn't really enjoy it, but still! I had planned to sleep the entire San Diego-Newark flight and the first few hours of the Newark-Tel Aviv flight, and it was going swimmingly. I woke up three hours into the second flight and decided to watch the Batman movies, but I only got about ten minutes into Batman Begins before the next thing I knew, they were announcing an initial descent. Oh well. My bags actually all arrived, and quickly off the claim belt, which was a rare pleasure. But then I had no idea what to do, so I stood in the middle of the baggage claim area like an Olimer (paging Sarah Weinstein?) for a few minutes until Bekah found me, which was a few moments of relief. We walked out and saw tons of people waiting to pick people up, but nobody for us. We wandered around for an hour (actually I spent several minutes trying to freshen up in the bathroom which took a wrong turn when I washed my face before realizing that the only dryer option was the airdryer, so I got some strange looks from the other people in the restroom when that had to happen) and then sat down and started just calling out the names of people we knew, hoping someone would come. It didn't work out so well, and I was taking another lap when I realized that a man had his computer out and was on the internet, so I ran back to get my laptop and used Skype to call our madrich, which was working out great until I said, "okay just tell us where to go and we'll stay there and wait for you" and he said, "sounds great!" and hung up, with no directions. But we found him shortly, and headed to Tel Aviv.
So the organization owns three apartments in Kiryat Shalom, which is in southern Tel Aviv, well actually about a 15 minute walk from a fun part of Jaffa and it's port, and just a short bus ride to downtown Tel Aviv and the beach. The bus comes on the corner, but I still have no idea how to tell when it will get there. The neighborhood is poor, but Bina has renovated our apartments so they are actually very nice! Air conditioning in all the rooms, everyone has their own large room with a large bed and lots of closet and dresser space. There are huge kitchens and living rooms, and even nice bathrooms. We're in the neighborhood that we're in because we're here to volunteer, and many of the sites are with underprivileged families/kids/people, so we're close to many of the sites and also getting a small taste of what living in those neighborhoods are like. To those of you familiar with the area, it's definitely a few steps up from the neighborhood around the Central Bus Station, but no Van Ness. Anyway, we were randomly assigned to apartments and rooms the first night, but now we're on the kibbutz (which I'll get to in a moment) and when we go back to Tel Aviv at the end of the month, we'll decide who wants to live with who, five people per apartment, and in which ones. Personally, I hope that I get my same room, but I'll keep you posted.
After arriving and settling in that first evening, Dan gave us, well, wrong, directions to get some food, which let myself and Bekah get to know another girl on the trip because we wandered around for over an hour completely lost. We did find a Bank Hapoalim ATM though, which turned out to be on our street corner, we just didn't know at the time, and it was great because it didn't charge me overseas fees. Then I saw Sarah across the street, and Jordyn was hiding in the bushes because she came from Jerusalem to surprise me! You'll have to talk to her to get the full story of how she found me, sans phone, because it's pretty hilarious, in a way that could only happen to Jordyn and me. I had only given her the street we were living on (Rachov Dick - hey David and Mom, remember Kfar Penis?), my flight information, and the name of the organization. Her story involved talking to a bunch of people from the organization, which will from now on be known as Bina, some buses, some public restrooms at both Central Bus Stations, hiding in the bushes, getting in a car with Dan who she didn't know, and a developmentally challenged elderly woman. It was great to see her! Jordyn, that is, not the woman.
The next day we took care of some office work at the Bina office in Tel Aviv, took a short walk through Jaffa, and then came down to Kibbutz Gal On, which was established on Erev Yom Kippur in 1945 by Hashomer Hatzeir. Now though, they say that many of the people who live here aren't actually members of the kibbutz, and those who are often don't work here during the day. The kids live with their parents and go to school in Kiryat Gat, so it's not really traditional anymore. There is, however, a South African restaurant which is supposed to be delicious, a chadar ohel (dining hall), a pub, and lots of cows, which we may get to volunteer with! The tricky part was that they wanted us to bring all of our stuff, which was really a lot, but they only got this one small bus and the luggage didn't really fit so it was an interesting ride. Again, I slept through most of it. Kibbutz Gal On is just outside Kiryat Gat, about an hour southeast of Tel Aviv and about 45 minutes southwest of Jerusalem, and that's the best I can do to describe really where we are. It's beautiful here, but the rooms that we are staying in are not. Now, I don't want to really complain since I have many friends who have lived in Tanzania and Uganda in the last few years, and compared to that, this is a five star resort. But Joanna once quoted The Perks of Being a Wallflower as saying something about your personal experiences are your reality, and that's all we can really ask of people to define as reality. It was obviously a lot more articulate than that, but I hope you get the idea, and forgive me because I'm sure you really didn't care to hear this back story. Anyway, there are three people to each tiny room with tiny midget beds, which wouldn't be too bad, but there is literally no space to put clothes or anything. Remember how they made us bring everything that we brought - bedding that definitely doesn't fit on these beds, winter clothes, the whole thing. This was a little bit of poor planning. There is one tiny dresser that wouldn't even hold my under garments (do we still call them that?) to share between us, but basically our clothes are folded into piles on the floor, my "under garments" are stored in my backpack, toiletries, chargers, and other small things I may need are stuffed into my duffel, and the clothes that I won't need are shoved into a suitcase that took some serious pushing to get under the bed. The bathroom barely fits one person at a time, and the shower is just a small curtained-off are of it. When you shower, the entire place floods, and as an answer, the kibbutz handed us a squigie, which on uneven tile, does pretty much nothing. Typical of an old kibbutz though, and using the bathroom has been quite the comical event. I'm definitely looking forward to going back to Tel Aviv and being able to unpack for real.
We arrived here on Thursday late afternoon, and for the most part since then we've exploring the kibbutz, sleeping, and doing more orientation-type activities. Last night one of the directors, a reform rabbi, graduate of the HUC Israel program, led a lovely kabbalat shabbat, followed by dinner in the chadar ohel, and an oneg on a huge lawn with all the families that live here. Then we (everyone in the group, which I suppose I should have mentioned before is 15 people, all in their early twenties, and half from California) sat around in our own little courtyard near the rooms and smoked hookah and shmoozed for a few hours until it was time to go to "The Silo Moooo Pub Party." This is an apparently infamous annual party that the kibbutz holds in the middle of their fields, about a ten minute drive from the main kibbutz. Asher, the man who drove us there in his pickup, told us that there would be anywhere from, "two or three hundred, or six" people there. He also said that the places he had visited in the States in 1984 were California, New York, Nebraska, and Louisiana. Interesting range of choices. The party was a hilarious mix of Madonna, Ricky Martin (I had to call Suzy for that part and she put the phone on speaker so her students could hear the ridiculousness), Soulja Boy, and lots of 90s pop. I peed on a hay bale behind a glow-in-the-dark outerspace mural, soberly accepted a drink from a man who warned Sarah and myself "nosh tooo geth tooo drunksh," and true to form, went back to my room early for bed (SB - be proud).
This morning we woke up early for a short teul (trip) to some caves in the Midras ruins. We drove through a national forest called "Great Britain," though nobody appeared to know why, and hiked up to a point overlooking the Elah Valley at the base of the Judean Hills, the pace where David slayed Goliath. An Israeli man whose name remains unknown, who works for Bina, was talking to us but I couldn't really understand most of what he was saying. Then he abruptly decided we were done there and walked off, back down the hill. We got in cars and drove along the road that connects Jerusalem with Ashdod and Ashkelon up to the Midras ruins, where we heard another story from the nameless guide, and then hiked up to the caves. They told us there wouldn't be room in the caves for our backpacks or water bottles, and boy they were not kidding! It was a hilarious experience of crawling, scooting, and snaking through tunnels. Every once in a while the space opened up and we were able to all sit together and talk. In one such location, we heard another story about Bar Kochba and the Romans trapping the Jews inside the caves (which apparently lead all the way to Jerusalem if you go the right way, but they are a huge maze filled with dead ends and turn backs, and completely pitch black, except the tea candles that Guide lit when we were in the larger areas) and lighting fires at the entrances, something about the Jews surviving for three years, and then I stopped paying attention. I think that eventually they were destroyed, but I could be wrong. So then Guide went first with his little flashlight, and there were one or two other flashlights toward the back of the line, but the order was Guide, Mike (who is very tall) and then myself, but it took Mike and I longer to get through the spaces, which included steps, drops, rearrangement of your body from head first to feet first, and all in complete darkness, and Guide had no interest in waiting for us, which also led to an incredibly entertaining adventure in the dark. After we found our way out and decided there was no way to get rid of the layer of limestone and chalk that we were all sporting, we moved on to another cave, this one more just a large pit in the ground. I think Guide said something about pigeons, but it's hard to say, and it smelled really bad. The last place we stopped was a family tomb, and Guide's English was poor and he told us that when people were "dying" they were placed in tomb, which was mortifying to all of us, and our exagerrated reactions caused some confusion between us, but we got it straightened out. Then we went back down to "have a coffee" and hang out under a large carob tree. The experience was really fun but a little too touristy and group-activity like for me, though they said that starting tomorrow we'll get into our routine with Ulpan and volunteering on the kibbutz, and then Tel Aviv, and it's not like that at all, so that's something to look forward to. We got back and I took a nap and now we're going to barbeque.
I'll try to post pictures as soon as I can. Well, as soon as I take some at least. To clarify, you can still reach me the following ways:
-Israeli cell phone: 011-972-52-525-5282 (from Israel it's just 052-525-5282)
-Skype: my regular old American cell phone number: 858-336-7175 (to which you can also send text messages!) or my Skype name is "abroida"
-Email: abroida@gmail.com
-Facebook
-Posting comments here!
Well tomorrow we start ulpan, our intensive Hebrew instruction, so that should be interesting. Probably not as interesting as this novel I just wrote for you, but interesting nonetheless.
Peace, love, and lots and lots of hummus.
The flights over here were great - who knew that a Continental overseas flight has power outlets at each seat, tons of seat reclining ability, and hundreds of free movies and tv shows to watch on your own personal screen? Of course, I slept the entire time so I couldn't really enjoy it, but still! I had planned to sleep the entire San Diego-Newark flight and the first few hours of the Newark-Tel Aviv flight, and it was going swimmingly. I woke up three hours into the second flight and decided to watch the Batman movies, but I only got about ten minutes into Batman Begins before the next thing I knew, they were announcing an initial descent. Oh well. My bags actually all arrived, and quickly off the claim belt, which was a rare pleasure. But then I had no idea what to do, so I stood in the middle of the baggage claim area like an Olimer (paging Sarah Weinstein?) for a few minutes until Bekah found me, which was a few moments of relief. We walked out and saw tons of people waiting to pick people up, but nobody for us. We wandered around for an hour (actually I spent several minutes trying to freshen up in the bathroom which took a wrong turn when I washed my face before realizing that the only dryer option was the airdryer, so I got some strange looks from the other people in the restroom when that had to happen) and then sat down and started just calling out the names of people we knew, hoping someone would come. It didn't work out so well, and I was taking another lap when I realized that a man had his computer out and was on the internet, so I ran back to get my laptop and used Skype to call our madrich, which was working out great until I said, "okay just tell us where to go and we'll stay there and wait for you" and he said, "sounds great!" and hung up, with no directions. But we found him shortly, and headed to Tel Aviv.
So the organization owns three apartments in Kiryat Shalom, which is in southern Tel Aviv, well actually about a 15 minute walk from a fun part of Jaffa and it's port, and just a short bus ride to downtown Tel Aviv and the beach. The bus comes on the corner, but I still have no idea how to tell when it will get there. The neighborhood is poor, but Bina has renovated our apartments so they are actually very nice! Air conditioning in all the rooms, everyone has their own large room with a large bed and lots of closet and dresser space. There are huge kitchens and living rooms, and even nice bathrooms. We're in the neighborhood that we're in because we're here to volunteer, and many of the sites are with underprivileged families/kids/people, so we're close to many of the sites and also getting a small taste of what living in those neighborhoods are like. To those of you familiar with the area, it's definitely a few steps up from the neighborhood around the Central Bus Station, but no Van Ness. Anyway, we were randomly assigned to apartments and rooms the first night, but now we're on the kibbutz (which I'll get to in a moment) and when we go back to Tel Aviv at the end of the month, we'll decide who wants to live with who, five people per apartment, and in which ones. Personally, I hope that I get my same room, but I'll keep you posted.
After arriving and settling in that first evening, Dan gave us, well, wrong, directions to get some food, which let myself and Bekah get to know another girl on the trip because we wandered around for over an hour completely lost. We did find a Bank Hapoalim ATM though, which turned out to be on our street corner, we just didn't know at the time, and it was great because it didn't charge me overseas fees. Then I saw Sarah across the street, and Jordyn was hiding in the bushes because she came from Jerusalem to surprise me! You'll have to talk to her to get the full story of how she found me, sans phone, because it's pretty hilarious, in a way that could only happen to Jordyn and me. I had only given her the street we were living on (Rachov Dick - hey David and Mom, remember Kfar Penis?), my flight information, and the name of the organization. Her story involved talking to a bunch of people from the organization, which will from now on be known as Bina, some buses, some public restrooms at both Central Bus Stations, hiding in the bushes, getting in a car with Dan who she didn't know, and a developmentally challenged elderly woman. It was great to see her! Jordyn, that is, not the woman.
The next day we took care of some office work at the Bina office in Tel Aviv, took a short walk through Jaffa, and then came down to Kibbutz Gal On, which was established on Erev Yom Kippur in 1945 by Hashomer Hatzeir. Now though, they say that many of the people who live here aren't actually members of the kibbutz, and those who are often don't work here during the day. The kids live with their parents and go to school in Kiryat Gat, so it's not really traditional anymore. There is, however, a South African restaurant which is supposed to be delicious, a chadar ohel (dining hall), a pub, and lots of cows, which we may get to volunteer with! The tricky part was that they wanted us to bring all of our stuff, which was really a lot, but they only got this one small bus and the luggage didn't really fit so it was an interesting ride. Again, I slept through most of it. Kibbutz Gal On is just outside Kiryat Gat, about an hour southeast of Tel Aviv and about 45 minutes southwest of Jerusalem, and that's the best I can do to describe really where we are. It's beautiful here, but the rooms that we are staying in are not. Now, I don't want to really complain since I have many friends who have lived in Tanzania and Uganda in the last few years, and compared to that, this is a five star resort. But Joanna once quoted The Perks of Being a Wallflower as saying something about your personal experiences are your reality, and that's all we can really ask of people to define as reality. It was obviously a lot more articulate than that, but I hope you get the idea, and forgive me because I'm sure you really didn't care to hear this back story. Anyway, there are three people to each tiny room with tiny midget beds, which wouldn't be too bad, but there is literally no space to put clothes or anything. Remember how they made us bring everything that we brought - bedding that definitely doesn't fit on these beds, winter clothes, the whole thing. This was a little bit of poor planning. There is one tiny dresser that wouldn't even hold my under garments (do we still call them that?) to share between us, but basically our clothes are folded into piles on the floor, my "under garments" are stored in my backpack, toiletries, chargers, and other small things I may need are stuffed into my duffel, and the clothes that I won't need are shoved into a suitcase that took some serious pushing to get under the bed. The bathroom barely fits one person at a time, and the shower is just a small curtained-off are of it. When you shower, the entire place floods, and as an answer, the kibbutz handed us a squigie, which on uneven tile, does pretty much nothing. Typical of an old kibbutz though, and using the bathroom has been quite the comical event. I'm definitely looking forward to going back to Tel Aviv and being able to unpack for real.
We arrived here on Thursday late afternoon, and for the most part since then we've exploring the kibbutz, sleeping, and doing more orientation-type activities. Last night one of the directors, a reform rabbi, graduate of the HUC Israel program, led a lovely kabbalat shabbat, followed by dinner in the chadar ohel, and an oneg on a huge lawn with all the families that live here. Then we (everyone in the group, which I suppose I should have mentioned before is 15 people, all in their early twenties, and half from California) sat around in our own little courtyard near the rooms and smoked hookah and shmoozed for a few hours until it was time to go to "The Silo Moooo Pub Party." This is an apparently infamous annual party that the kibbutz holds in the middle of their fields, about a ten minute drive from the main kibbutz. Asher, the man who drove us there in his pickup, told us that there would be anywhere from, "two or three hundred, or six" people there. He also said that the places he had visited in the States in 1984 were California, New York, Nebraska, and Louisiana. Interesting range of choices. The party was a hilarious mix of Madonna, Ricky Martin (I had to call Suzy for that part and she put the phone on speaker so her students could hear the ridiculousness), Soulja Boy, and lots of 90s pop. I peed on a hay bale behind a glow-in-the-dark outerspace mural, soberly accepted a drink from a man who warned Sarah and myself "nosh tooo geth tooo drunksh," and true to form, went back to my room early for bed (SB - be proud).
This morning we woke up early for a short teul (trip) to some caves in the Midras ruins. We drove through a national forest called "Great Britain," though nobody appeared to know why, and hiked up to a point overlooking the Elah Valley at the base of the Judean Hills, the pace where David slayed Goliath. An Israeli man whose name remains unknown, who works for Bina, was talking to us but I couldn't really understand most of what he was saying. Then he abruptly decided we were done there and walked off, back down the hill. We got in cars and drove along the road that connects Jerusalem with Ashdod and Ashkelon up to the Midras ruins, where we heard another story from the nameless guide, and then hiked up to the caves. They told us there wouldn't be room in the caves for our backpacks or water bottles, and boy they were not kidding! It was a hilarious experience of crawling, scooting, and snaking through tunnels. Every once in a while the space opened up and we were able to all sit together and talk. In one such location, we heard another story about Bar Kochba and the Romans trapping the Jews inside the caves (which apparently lead all the way to Jerusalem if you go the right way, but they are a huge maze filled with dead ends and turn backs, and completely pitch black, except the tea candles that Guide lit when we were in the larger areas) and lighting fires at the entrances, something about the Jews surviving for three years, and then I stopped paying attention. I think that eventually they were destroyed, but I could be wrong. So then Guide went first with his little flashlight, and there were one or two other flashlights toward the back of the line, but the order was Guide, Mike (who is very tall) and then myself, but it took Mike and I longer to get through the spaces, which included steps, drops, rearrangement of your body from head first to feet first, and all in complete darkness, and Guide had no interest in waiting for us, which also led to an incredibly entertaining adventure in the dark. After we found our way out and decided there was no way to get rid of the layer of limestone and chalk that we were all sporting, we moved on to another cave, this one more just a large pit in the ground. I think Guide said something about pigeons, but it's hard to say, and it smelled really bad. The last place we stopped was a family tomb, and Guide's English was poor and he told us that when people were "dying" they were placed in tomb, which was mortifying to all of us, and our exagerrated reactions caused some confusion between us, but we got it straightened out. Then we went back down to "have a coffee" and hang out under a large carob tree. The experience was really fun but a little too touristy and group-activity like for me, though they said that starting tomorrow we'll get into our routine with Ulpan and volunteering on the kibbutz, and then Tel Aviv, and it's not like that at all, so that's something to look forward to. We got back and I took a nap and now we're going to barbeque.
I'll try to post pictures as soon as I can. Well, as soon as I take some at least. To clarify, you can still reach me the following ways:
-Israeli cell phone: 011-972-52-525-5282 (from Israel it's just 052-525-5282)
-Skype: my regular old American cell phone number: 858-336-7175 (to which you can also send text messages!) or my Skype name is "abroida"
-Email: abroida@gmail.com
-Posting comments here!
Well tomorrow we start ulpan, our intensive Hebrew instruction, so that should be interesting. Probably not as interesting as this novel I just wrote for you, but interesting nonetheless.
Peace, love, and lots and lots of hummus.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
t-minus twelve days . . .
The closest I ever came to blogging was writing "THIS time I'm going to write in you every single day" in the first page of every diary I've ever been given. They say that writing is therapeutic. I don't know about that. I just know I'll try to keep you posted on my adventures in the home country. To be truthful, I'm not off to a great start - it took me nearly an hour to even pick a name, which, to those who may have forgotten, references our awful counselor t-shirts in 2005. This is actually my blog in English. Enjoy it.
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