Shalom l'culam! Ma nishma? Haya harbe ha-zman she ani katavti l'chem! Translation - if correct - hello to everyone! How are you? It's been a long time since I have written. I am awesome, I know. That wasn't included in the ivrit text. Anywhoooooooo.......I will start off by speaking about the Judean Desert trip!
The trip was pretty much a month ago! It was amazing. We got the rental cars in the morning and set off to our first destination - rapelling. Did I spell that right? I got feedback from several members of my family. English is my second language - I will use this excuse forever, as most of you know! I have never done this before. I had an opportunity to do so about 5 years ago on Mt. Lemmon but I remember I chickened out and just went around the mountain. Pretty standard because I hate heights with a passion. We got to the place and I started getting nervous when I saw the wall of rock in front of me. I knew I had to do it because I didn't know when the opportunity would be here again. We took turns wearing helmets and harnesses, as soon as I put the harness on I realized that I would be going down on a rope on a side of a cliff. My roomate and I decided that we would do this at the same time. I got over to wear the guy would loop me in and offer some encouraging words. He tied a fugure 8 to my harness and clipped on the caribeaner (sp?) and told me to take a step backwards and just "trust" the rope. Yeah effin right! Are you serious?? I started panicking. I finally took a deep breath and slowly stepped backwards and started feeding the rope through the figure eight and started coming down. I almost needed a pair of clean shorts after this excercise but it was amazing!
After the whole group was done, we took off to Ein Gedi, to the Dead Sea. We were supposed to visit some kind of Spa but ran out of time and just went to the regular Dead Sea beach. It was really fun actually! I'm not going to lie but during Taglit, the Dead Sea was my least favorite part of the trip. Maybe because a cut that a millimeter wide turned into a gash after the salt. Now it's a scar but it will always be a reminder for me. So anyway, we all got in the water. It was so fun to float on our backs and stomachs without even making an effort. I noticed that suddely people started latching on to each other and soon we had a giant floating circle of Tikkun Olamers. Someone told me later that the lifeguard growled "Good job" to us. Hahaha!
We spent about an hour and a half at the sea and then it was time for our next destination. We were headed to the Bedoin tent that we were going to sleep in. It was in a Kibbutz about 10 miles away from the sea. We got to the sit and unpacked our stuff and proceeded to make a campfire and chop up the stuff for the meals. Our first snack was home made pita and labane and zatar. Yum! Then we made Poike which could be veggie and meat, basically you cook veggies and rice and sometimes chicken together for a long time in kettles. It was amazing! For dessert we made banana boats - cut up banana, put chocolate, marshmellows and graham crackers in the slits, wrapped in foil and let it cook on the campfire. Wow. After dinner we sang songs for Shabbat. Our friend Leah was a song leader for a temple so she has a great voice and can play the guitar really well so that always ads to the experience. It was actually really fun because right next to us was a Jews for Jesus group. They came over to us and gave us flags and so we started dancing with them. They later asked us if we can sing some Christian songs.......yeah......good question! Oh Israel!
The next morning we all woke up to watch the sunrise. The sun was rising from Jordan, which we could see, it was amazing. I will try to post some pics. We were also cutting up food for lunch and breakfast. We had an intense day hike coming up so we all made sandwiches, trail mix and three liters of water each. The Yehudia is no joke! The hike was amazing. The pictures will show more. Hiking in Israel is different that anywhere else. I don't know why and I don't really want to try to explain. For those of you who haven't been you just have to see for yourself! :) It was an amazing weekend. Our next monthly trip is actually next week and we are going up North to the Galilees. So excited!
That next Tuesday we had an all day seminar. Different speakers came in and talked to us about the Arab Israeli issues, we also went to Jerusalem that day to speak to a panel of people our age that participate in intense dialogues between the Arabs and Jews. They are called Face to Face Faith to Faith - talking about tough issues like the coexistence and constant tension between the two groups of people, the lack of support from their families and friends for doing so and other issues that come with the territory They were all really cool and inspiring. It just goes to show that it all has to start at the roots. People must want change from deep down, and if people can start talking about problems and not just avoiding them and pretending that they are unfixable, things could get better. It's not impossible. Just very difficult.
I might have mentioned this already, but at the Physicians for Human Rights Clinic, I was assigned to help out with making a tracking tool for HIV patients - if there is something that I took away from Amex is how to make tracking tools and how to look at processes more efficiently - Thanks Bob! Basically compliling information on about 220 HIV patients that the clinic knows about - putting their names, numbers, their HIV stats on one speadsheets - idea of tool is to keep moving every patient up the list for the Vaad - which is the medicine that can supply a patient up to six months. It's better than nothing and is really expensive. I am quickly realizing that I do love to analyze and track but only when it makes an actual difference, is that so much to ask for??
That Thursday was the American TG, but we decided that because a lot of us volunteer until late that we would carry it over to that Friday so that we can start at about 4:30PM, just like we do in the US. We did a deep cleaning of the house. Lisa and I were responsible for the terrace. Since the state of Israel does not believe in mops, and only believe in squeegies, Lisa made herself into a human squeegie. I would filll up a bucket of water, throw the water on the terrace, start mopping the water and Lisa would wipe it down. We decided that the only thing that would make this beautiful day better would be to drink beer on the terrace while cleaning. I love my roomates! The day before that Lisa and I made sweet mashed potatoes, that Friday we put the finishing touches to the potatoes, we added marshmellows to them and put them in the oven. We also made a salad with arugula, pomagranite, parsimon and pear and put lemon juice and oil in there. The downtairs kitchen of our house was bustling! It was so great to see everyone hard at work, cooking to contribute their share to the dinner. Somehow nine people all managed to make this work! People from Yafo and the other house starting pouring into our house. Eveyone brought soooo much food and wine, pictures were sent on Picassa and some will be here. We ate for a long time and then everyone came into mine and Lisa's room, because we have the best room in the house and we were all just hanging out and giving each other backrubs and just shooting the shit, it was so amazing and even though we were all so far away from home, we felt home with everyone around us. I think for how unconventional it was, this was one of my favorite TG's!
Saturdays are sacred volleyball days for Vanessa and I. We all went to the beach, Lisa had to borrow our other roomie's bike because hers was stolen, we went to where all the nets were so that I could meet Vanessa, Lisa went to lay out with Sara and Marissa and Vanessa and I started attracting people to play, didn't take all but 5 minutes for 3 sets of people to ask us to play with them. It did feel pretty obvious that we def overdid it on eating stuffing and 5 sets of amazing desserts, and not to mention the leftovers in the fridge! Oy vavoy! Anyway, the people that we played with started sucking so we went down to the water and after that played with guys that were amazing at vball that were both about 6'4, and I got really intimidated so I started playing REALLY bad!! God figure.
That Sunday we did house visits for Brit Olam. It was a nice coincendence that the whole something was wrong with our phones and none of our phones got any reception. I had to use Skype to schedule the house visits, what have we resorted to? Finding both houses was sort of a trainwreck when we got lost and the cell phones were down so we had to borrow random people's phones. Makes you stronger right? The house visits themselves were ridiculous. With most of the people there are language barriers on both sides. We don't speak much Hebrew, and then don't speak Hebrew or English, mostly Tigrinia, so you don't even know if you're getting through to them with the information. It's always fun to explain breastfeeding when you have to show on yourself. Oh the life we live. But we make it happen, so that's good.
December 1st was the first night of Hannukah so I decided to email everyone a couple of days before to throw something together at our house, which has become the center for all celebration, which we really don't mind because it gives us a reason to clean and we don't have to go anywhere. It all came together so smoothly! We had a Menorah, dreidle and candle committee, latke committee and sweets committee, sorry that I am misspelling everything right now, spell check does not really work here for some reason! Celebrated Hannukah - homemade latkes, sufganiot and wine, can't get better than that! It was amazing. We were all cooking together in the kitchen, like a big, happy family. We had three large bowls of shredded potatoes, 3 boxes of sufganiot and wine. It was a great night to say the least. Leah once again got her guitar out and we sang songs and hung out. We have all turned into a bunch of hippies, or so it would look like on the outside! I love our big family!
That Friday I did round 2 of Hannukah. I went to Hod HaSharon, where my dad's cousin lives, so a lot of us got together there - it was really great! The food was amazing! I was quite proud of myself because I actually understood a lot of things that they were talking about - considering 80% of the convo is in Hebrew. It can be very frustrating, but then again, my sister and I always speak English, even in front of my grandma, so I can't blame people who have lived in this country for 20-40 years for speaking Hebrew with each other!
Played volleyball on the beach yesterday and today - yesterday I was hungover so playing was awful but today we met up with the guys we played with before so it was amazing. I am starting to hit now, so I am less afraid to hit the ball so I am not just the "setter". You can't do that in two on two. Also, got on a paddle board and the guy paddled in the middle of the water, it was scary but sort of calming. He said he was going to give me surf lessons but then I never saw him - met a 6'7" Russian volleyball player named Igor, hilarious.
After vball, we went to our favorite burger place with them, Moses Burger, so I was speaking Russian with Igor. He is from Ukraine and got recruited for the Israeli volleyball team.
Went to Jerusalem after study day last week. Vanessa knows some friends of a friend who do couch surfing, so they offered us their couch to crash on while in Jeru. We left after study day on Monday. We were both so excited! Jeru has a completely different feel than TLV. It's paved with cobblestone and is just prettier and feels holy. I am not the one to be religirious so that must mean something. We picked this amazing restaurant that we ate at. It felt very European. I kept forgetting where I was the entire time. It was cold outside so we got soup and these amazing meatballs in plum sauce with mashed potatoes. Yum! We were supposed to hear back from V's friends and didn't yet so we decided to go for a walk in the Old City. We went to the Kotel - the Wailing Wall. It seemed to me that the women's area got even smaller since the last time I was there. This is not surprising. Walked near Via de la Rossa, the path of Christ and then Tom (V's friend) called us and we hailed a cab to meet them. The cab driver was Arab and VERY attractive. We were speaking Hebrew to him and what Arabic V knows. He also spoke Russian because his girlfriend is from Moscow and also spoke English very well. He finally dropped us off but we still didn't know where we were. V got on the phone with Tom and gave her phone to a random friendly looking Israeli so that he could explain to us where to go. We finally found Tom and followed him to where they were having dinner. They were about to light the Hannukiah and were eating latkes and couscous, to which I didn't say no even though we just ate! We lit the Hannukiah and sang songs. It was so cozy and amazing! The hosts of the house were born in Israel but lived in England for about 10 years so they spoke with Brittish accents but Hebrew was their first language, very conflicting, but their Hebrew was amazing. It was actually a lot easier to understand them because their pronounciation was not as harsh as the Israelis'. They asked us what we were doing the next day and we mentioned something about going to Bethlehem, something that V and I discussed on the sheirut to Jeru. The hostess Shani and her brother Ben both said that it is something that they have always wanted to do but we were nervous about doing it because Israelis can't go to the West Bank. We agreed that we would take a chance and play it by ear. We had back up plans. We were sooooo excited!!!!!
The next day, we woke and Shani and Ben grabbed us at 8:30AM. Luckily V and I had our passport copies from our previous trip in our backpacks so we were all ready to go. Bethlehem is only like 15 minutes from Jeru. Go figure. We got to the border and all we had to do was flash our passports. Nice tight security we have here. Aaaaand we were in! Yes! We were able to drive through even though the books said we wouldn't be able to. The second we crossed into the West Bank, some Palestenian guy ran up to us and started saying over and again that we were no longer in Israel and that we were in Palestine and that we needed a tour guide to get us around. He was creepy. We drove off. We wanted to see the Church of Nativity and just see the city. We left our car in front of some hotel and would pray for the best that the car would still be there upon our return because we had Israeli plates. We walked through the market and everyone was soooo welcoming. It was weird because all I wanted to do was try to speak Hebrew but this was not the right time. It was weird to see X-mas stuff because I had been removed from that culture for 3 months now. It was a clash of Muslim and Christian religions. We went into the Church of Nativity, the oldest Church in the region, or so I think that's what it said. Pictures were sent of that as well. The whole city of Bethlehem is gorgeous because it is built on rolling hills, just like Jeru. The only different is the religious and cultural aspect. Very interesting. We walked around more and went back to our car and it was still there! Baruch hashem! On the way out of B-town, we passed a couple of interesting things: Yasser Arafat St, security partition that we saw a discussed at the Issues seminar - the temporary barrier that is responsible for lowering successful terrorist attacks by 90%, and lastly, a small mural of a dove with a bulleproof vest on and with a target on him, pretty intense message if I say so. When we got to the crossing they asked for our visas to get back into Israel, and the two Israelis that we were with called them out for messing with us and then they let us in. Racial profiling at its finest when they didn't even ask for mine or V's ghetto passport copies! We got back into Jeru and went to the biggest shuk in Jeru. It's called Mehaneh Yehuda - has everything there and is so beautiful. Guess what?! I also have pics of this. There we ate an amazing meal: hummus and pita, shukshuka, soup and Israeli salad. I also found a kitten that I seriously contemplated on adopting! I still can't stop thinking about him, but something was wrong with his eyes. We finished off the day with sufganiot and rugula that melted in our mouth. Very healthy day to say the least! We walked through the maze of the Old City until we ended back up at Shani's house. By then we had to start heading back to TLV because I had to tutor. They were kind enough to drop us off near my house and I went straight to tutoring. I was high off this mini vaca!
The next day I went to Human Rights clinic and continued working on the HIV project. I was looking through physical files of HIV patients and he more I looked at the file the more upset I got because I know that a lot of these people aren't even being treated for this and a lot of them have left the country so g-d knows what kind of help they're getting wherever they are. This just shows the reality of the situation and opens my eyes to so many things that I have only seen on the news or read about in books. I feel fortunate to see this in person. Everyone at the clinic seems to be very impressed with my Excel skills. I find that hilarious, because according to my standards I am ok. Anyway, somehow word spread that I am amazing at Excel and last minute one of the girls asked me to analyze surveys of people that came through the Sinai border to show that the Ethiopian and Eritrean population gets treated a lot worse by the people at the border. This data would be used for a position paper that would be sent to the UN, but the great part was I only had an hour to do it. Start the clocks! I felt pretty important I'm not going to lie and then I saw my numbers used on the webside, here is the link:
http://www.phr.org.il/default.asp?PageID=4
We did our usual Thursday ritual of going out and when we left the club, Adam and I were on a mission to find falafel. We must have walked around the whole city and could not find anything! It was so devastating. We ended up walking home from central TLV. Nothing seals a great evening like falafel. I will implement this way of living when I get back to the States!
On Friday, there was a Human Rights March that was organized by many organization, some of which we volunteer for. Most of us went. It was amazing. It was so real and once again something that I would only read on CNN if I didn't come here. This is a real problem and it's getting more complicated by the minute. I am so torn about this whole situation and will perhaps never figure out the right thing to do, but at least I can say that I am here now and I am seeing this through my own eyes and am hearing stories and doing research. I have videos of the people screaming "We are refugees, we need protection!" It was nuts, to say the least.
After we left the march we went to the store to get snacks for Katie's birthday party that was happening in the evening. We got labane, vegetables, pita and someone was making Napoleon cake. Other people we responsible for the alcohol. We played beer pong, yes, just like in college, ate cake and snacks and had a great time. We all went out at about 1AM to Florentine, an area with a lot of bars. It was fun but I was so tired. Two nights in a row going to bed at four, I'm an old lady, I can't hang like I used to anymore!
Today all day it has been storming. I did absolutely nothing. I am still sitting in my PJs actually and it feels so good. It's an excuse to slow everything down and just relax. Unless next time chaverim sheli (my friends). It might be a while until I write more, but at least it will be a lot! Miss you and love you all!
Monday, December 13, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
אני אוהבת את החיים בישראל! I love the life in Israel!
Shalom! Hope everyone is doing well! Ani meule! I am great! Volunteering is going really well. I am getting my butt kicked in Nofim by the crazy kids who like me, but are very rowdy. However, I am finding that they are now settling in their schedules and are calming down a bit.
I was informed a few weeks ago that I and another girl from the Yafo track will be schmoozing a Swiss man that has been donating money annually to Bina (The neighborhood community project which Tikkun Olam is part of). Last Tuesday, I was picked up by one of the Madrichim and taken to the Ramat Efal Bina office to meet this guy. The meeting went really well. I was told that I was making everyone look bad because I actually looked nice and wore a dress, while everyone else still adhered to the Israeli casualness. I cannot assimilate to that because I know that a lot of occasions I would feel uncomfortable if I were completely casual. The man brought his son just for the hell of it, no big deal, and his friend. Oh the lives of the wealthy..... So anyway, this man basically wanted to know where his money was going and what it was being used for. He took turns asking both Amy and I, why we chose this program and not another, why we chose Israel, how we feel now about Ulpan, our Jewish identity classes and the program overall. Everyone was please after we were done. Of course at the end of the meeting I couldn't help myself and nudged the guy on the shoulder and asked, "So these Alps, are they really that great? I am trying to see if I want to go snowboarding there after this program." Right away, the guy called his son over, who couldn't have been more that 13 or 14 and we had a nice discussion about snowboarding and the Alps. Just a typical Tuesday morning.
After I got dropped back off at the house, the director of Tikkun Olam called me to tell me to tell everyone that the news were wanted to do a bit on our program and that a newscamera would be in Ulpan that day. What a trainwreck! It was hilarious. They gave our teacher a microphone and so she decided to set us up with easy questions and ask us why we/people come to Israel. Whenever someone would speak, the camera man would literally get in their face. My ridiculous roomate could not stop laughing. I tried my best to keep a straight face and not look at the camera when I stupidly uttered something. The reporters also interviewed a couple of people from the Yafo track and got a couple of testimonials from them.
The next day, I went to my new volunteer assignment, Brit Olam. That day we were doing intakes. Which meant that we would come into the refugee clinic which is located in the Central Bus Station and help refugee women fill out forms which requested either pregnancy care and follow up or the need for an abortion. What a great experience. The two of us sat in a small examination room while we asked whoever was next in line to be seen by us to give us their visa, their need for the intake, name, age, how far along they were if that applied and instructions of next steps. These women all have translators. Most of them are from Eritrea where they speak Tigrinya (no I will not be learning that next because my Hebrew still sucks) so they usually bring a tranlator who either speaks Hebrew or English. In the first case the woman did not have a translator so there happened to be a man in the waiting room that lives near her and knows her. We kept telling him/nagging him to always translate to her because he seemed to be answering the questions without even asking her. It was sort of funny. After we were done, that night the small news special was supposed to air. A bunch of us gathered in the TLV house to watch it. It was cool! We were sort of famous! Here is the link, not sure if it will work:
http://www.mako.co.il/news-channel2/Channel-2-Newscast/Article-baece9a88facb21004.htm
Mah od, mah od. What else, what else.....I tutored three kids last week! For three hours. I made 200 shekdogs (shekels hahaha) This is enough for a week of food and possibly entertaining. Yes, that's right, I quit a good paying job to go work for free and sometimes if I am lucky make about $50 a week. But guess what, I am actually happy for the first time since graduating college, something to write home about. I have also been going on dates, more dates that I have been in the states. It's easier here. The Israelis are more forward here and they love blond girls. This makes life entertaining and my Hebrew better. Everyone wins!
There is a girl here in TK that plays volleyball which makes me really happy and excited. We finally got together on Friday and went to a sports store to get a volleyball. The volleyball was overpumped but we figured it would be ok. We went to a small store and bought some food for the beach and headed to the beach. It was a perfect day. We ate and peppered. Peppering is bumping, setting and spiking. An amazing past time for volleyballers. We were resting and eating when some random guy just walked up to us and sat down and started saying "nahon, nahon" which means true or correct in Hebrew. He was Italian and ended up spending an hour with just bullshitting. This is why I love Israel, because of this randomness. He invited out to get some burgers with him but we declined the offer. Vanessa was making dinner at her house that night and invited me to come. I told her I was going to hang out on the beach for a few more hours and then go to the drum circle that happens on every Shabbat.
After Vanessa left I went to the boardwalk, put my iPod in and just started walking. I wanted to go to the area where they play volleyball. Very attractive men playing beach volleyball. It was the happiest place on earth, it's NOT disneyland, it's TLV. Hahaha. But anyway, there is really nothing better than walking anywhere with music and walking to its beat, people watching and just hanging out. After that, I started walking toward Yafo to the drum circle. They were all gearing up. I had so much stuff with me that I couldn't dance but the beat was so great! I met other volunteers there. German and Italian guy, working in a rehabilitation center. Cool dudes. After that I walked to Yafo to Vanessa's. She made an amazing meal and we went out after. I ended up running into Ben, which is super random because he lives north of TLV, it's called a mikre - coincedence, however you spell that word!
The next day, we woke up and made banana pancakes and went to the beach. We went to Yafo beach which has a completely different feel that TLV beach. It's very secluded, the water is colder and there are less people. You really do it just to get away. It was amazing. It was just the three of us, Vanessa and Dante and I. Sometimes, ok, a lot of the times, it's good to get away from the group. I enjoy it a lot. Don't get me wrong, I love everyone in the group but you don't get a chance to grow when you're with everyone all the time. It's a proven fact. That night I was all about going back into town and just getting lost but I had no energy from the weekend so I just stayed in and chilled and caught with my house mates. It was good and relaxing.
The next day was Yom Rishon, Sunday, work day. For 26 years I have been told that Saturdays and Sundays are the weekend, so I don't know if I will ever get used to "other idea" of the weekend, such as the one in Israel. Anyway, the kids at Nofim are settling down a little bit. Thank god. We have to cut them some slack though, the poorly organized education system in Israel, and a lot of other things that are poorly organized, they're the ones stuck in the middle so it is good that they are calming down, even if it's a little bit. After Nofim, literallu back to back, I had Brit Olam. We were doing house visits that day. This means that we go and visit new mothers and make sure that the surroundings are good for the baby and the mother. The first family we went to literally live in secluded rooftop area of a building that was sort of made into a room. I really have no idea what it is, but the space is literally the size of my room in PHX. The baby was only 2 weeks old and so tiny. They named her Bethlehem. We sat with them and asked how she was feeling and how everything was going. After the first visit we went on a much needed coffee break. Got to know our trainer, Rinat a little more. She is amazing. She is my idea of a well rounded person. Lived in London, travelled the world, had a job in TV for like 15 years and one day realized she hated and started volunteering. Amazing, but also easy for someone to say who can afford to have the husband bring home the bacon AND raise 5 kids! We went to our next house and the baby was also 2 weeks old. Anglel was her name. Her family was so cute, they brought our drinks and fruit for us. It's cool in the situations like this because they only speak Hebrew and Tigninia and in this case there was no English and it felt good understand mostly everything! There was a four year old girl there, she was the new baby's cousin. At one point she gave me a huge kiss on the cheek. She was soooooooo CUTE!!! What a rewarding day.
Ooooooooook so I have been looking forward to Monday as long as I have known that we were going to go to Idan Raichel in Jerusalem! Mondays are our study days usually so we used to have a travel day. We started our trip by going to an Arab village called Abu Ghosh. It is a village where Arabs, Jews and Christians peacefully coexist. Yes, this does happen. Apparently, Abu Ghosh is also known for being in the Guiness Book of World Records for the worlds largest plate of hummus. Dream come true! Anyway, we all piled into a room and Arab man talked to us a little bit what it is like being an Arab in Israel - he got questions such as "How would you divide Israel if you could?" and "Do you get mad that you are fluent in Hebrew but most Israelis don't speak Arabic?" Interesting topics. After that we went to a monestary, made up mostly of French people. Here are some pics.
Our last stop at Abu Ghosh was a Arab Women Empowerment circle. A lot of this sounded very shocking to me because I know nothing about the culture, but apparently, really religious Muslim women cannot leave the house and do sport. When I say sport, that's what the Israelis call excercise. This circle gets together every Monday, and they power walk and spend time together. At first it was very hard to handle that these women were going against their religion but soon the men in their lives realized that giving these women their day made everything go smoothly at home. To fathom this concept makes me really sad and feel fortunate that I don't live in a world where I have to step on eggshells.
*I want to apologize that a long time has passed since I last blogged so hopefully this still flows together!*
We left Abu Ghosh and we straight to Jeru. We got an hour to walk around and get dinner. Jeru has such a different feel to TLV. It has rolling hills and pine trees and the weather is much cooler. I guess this would make sense - it's a completely different part of the country. I always forget this because Israel is the size of New Jersey. Yeah. Scary, I know. My friend Vanessa and I went to some cafe where we got coffee and literally a ball of chocolate. Wow, meule! (Great). Needless to say I was bouncing off the walls when it was time to go to the concert. Oh the concert-----words cannot describe the music that this project makes. I am in love. This is my favorite song right now - but this is so much better in concert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0lX9pIMpX4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbWxg4asm_A
Here are some pictures to show how beautiful the show was. I hate to say it but the one I went to in TLV was much better but a free concert, especially by an amazing group is a great deal.
The next day we went up north to go visit some Druze villages. Druze are not Muslim or Jewish, they are their own religion and culture and very exclusive at that. We had our own tour guide throughout the day and he was amazing. Very hospitable and new so much and spoke so well. He told us about how Druze cannot have interfaith marriage because the consequence would be to be ostracized and completely alienated by your family. This is the part that makes me really mad and completely underline the fact that I will never become religious. Never is a very strong word but there comes a point when this whole thing just becomes ridiculous. Don't get me started!
The rest of the visit was really great. We visited a Druze cemetary and then went to eat some Druze food which was AMAZING! It wasn't anything completely out of the box but it was so delicious. After eating, we had some free time in the market so we went and bought some instruments for the Shabbat drum circles. We haggled and bought a marracca and some bell chime. I don't even know the name for that! We also got a bonus Hebrew lesson and the guy taught us how to say "Pay attention." He started explaining to us what that meant and could not get the point across, so he decided to use a life line and call his friend's wife and ask her what it meant. Reason 1,000,000 of why I love Israel! BALAGAN!! By the way, pay attention is "simi lev" to a girl and "sim lev" to a boy, just in case you were wondering!
In the past month I sat with the volunteer coordinator from Brit Olam and did an abortion intake. I haven't done one yet and a lot of things clicked for me during the intake. It was a good challenge because the girl does not speak Hebrew. I felt like I really connected with her and offered to her to go with her to the abortion commitee. That was an adventure within itself. Basically a lot of paperwork getting passed around from one social worker to another. An abortion costs 2000 NIS to someone with no insurance. This basically equals $540. With non profit org discount, there is a 50% discount. Huge difference. After we were done with the commitee we were both hungry so I offered to buy her lunch. I felt awful because I can't even imagine what she is going through and the only thing I wanted to tell her is that everything will be ok. She is only 22 and her mom is in Ethiopia. She only has her boyfriend. I am probably going to go with her to the actual operation if she can't find anyone to go with her.
That following weekend a few of us went to Jerusalem for a security conference. It was about the Israel security issues. We went to the Green Line which is another word for the proposed border between Palestenian Authority and the State of Israel. There is a security partition, that is also called The Wall (not the Wailing Wall) or it is called the Fence. The implementation of this wall has lowered terrorism and other crime by 90%, pretty unbelieveable. The rest of the weekend we spent in a really nice hostel which was really a hotel. We had lectures from a Palestenian/Muslim/Israeli/Arab - yes, this is true. He is a reporter who works for Jerusalem Post and he writes the truth, so he says. It proves the point that what he writes is unbiased, just the truth even though it might not be good and great to hear sometimes. We also heard from an IDF officer who showed us a video of a terrorist right before he tried detonate himself and a school bus in Gaza. We heard from a man who teaches in Haifa, and also worked for the Intelligence and fought terrorism for many years. Along with other speakers we heard about topics such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian threat. All of which made me really paranoid but also a lot of it is major propoganda. Very interesting weekend all in all and great to get out of TLV for a while and experience something different.
Since I haven't written in here for a while I know that I am probably forgetting a bunch of stuff so I am sorry. I sent the Picassa link out so that should show what we have been doing. I can't really think of anything else to write but I will be starting a new blog so that I am not cramming everything into this one. Life is good, life is great, just enjoying the Hebrew, playing volleyball on the beach, made some friends to play with and may have found a potential group to play with. Bike chain flies off on the daily but I have gotten really good at fixing it. Under 60 seconds. My roomie's bike was stolen and other people are starting to experience that too. Luckily my bike is a POS but I will still knock on wood for that.
What's to come in the next blog:
Our trip to the Judean Desert
Thanksgiving at the Guri house
More shenanigans in Israel
Until then:
!להיתראות
I was informed a few weeks ago that I and another girl from the Yafo track will be schmoozing a Swiss man that has been donating money annually to Bina (The neighborhood community project which Tikkun Olam is part of). Last Tuesday, I was picked up by one of the Madrichim and taken to the Ramat Efal Bina office to meet this guy. The meeting went really well. I was told that I was making everyone look bad because I actually looked nice and wore a dress, while everyone else still adhered to the Israeli casualness. I cannot assimilate to that because I know that a lot of occasions I would feel uncomfortable if I were completely casual. The man brought his son just for the hell of it, no big deal, and his friend. Oh the lives of the wealthy..... So anyway, this man basically wanted to know where his money was going and what it was being used for. He took turns asking both Amy and I, why we chose this program and not another, why we chose Israel, how we feel now about Ulpan, our Jewish identity classes and the program overall. Everyone was please after we were done. Of course at the end of the meeting I couldn't help myself and nudged the guy on the shoulder and asked, "So these Alps, are they really that great? I am trying to see if I want to go snowboarding there after this program." Right away, the guy called his son over, who couldn't have been more that 13 or 14 and we had a nice discussion about snowboarding and the Alps. Just a typical Tuesday morning.
After I got dropped back off at the house, the director of Tikkun Olam called me to tell me to tell everyone that the news were wanted to do a bit on our program and that a newscamera would be in Ulpan that day. What a trainwreck! It was hilarious. They gave our teacher a microphone and so she decided to set us up with easy questions and ask us why we/people come to Israel. Whenever someone would speak, the camera man would literally get in their face. My ridiculous roomate could not stop laughing. I tried my best to keep a straight face and not look at the camera when I stupidly uttered something. The reporters also interviewed a couple of people from the Yafo track and got a couple of testimonials from them.
The next day, I went to my new volunteer assignment, Brit Olam. That day we were doing intakes. Which meant that we would come into the refugee clinic which is located in the Central Bus Station and help refugee women fill out forms which requested either pregnancy care and follow up or the need for an abortion. What a great experience. The two of us sat in a small examination room while we asked whoever was next in line to be seen by us to give us their visa, their need for the intake, name, age, how far along they were if that applied and instructions of next steps. These women all have translators. Most of them are from Eritrea where they speak Tigrinya (no I will not be learning that next because my Hebrew still sucks) so they usually bring a tranlator who either speaks Hebrew or English. In the first case the woman did not have a translator so there happened to be a man in the waiting room that lives near her and knows her. We kept telling him/nagging him to always translate to her because he seemed to be answering the questions without even asking her. It was sort of funny. After we were done, that night the small news special was supposed to air. A bunch of us gathered in the TLV house to watch it. It was cool! We were sort of famous! Here is the link, not sure if it will work:
http://www.mako.co.il/news-channel2/Channel-2-Newscast/Article-baece9a88facb21004.htm
Mah od, mah od. What else, what else.....I tutored three kids last week! For three hours. I made 200 shekdogs (shekels hahaha) This is enough for a week of food and possibly entertaining. Yes, that's right, I quit a good paying job to go work for free and sometimes if I am lucky make about $50 a week. But guess what, I am actually happy for the first time since graduating college, something to write home about. I have also been going on dates, more dates that I have been in the states. It's easier here. The Israelis are more forward here and they love blond girls. This makes life entertaining and my Hebrew better. Everyone wins!
There is a girl here in TK that plays volleyball which makes me really happy and excited. We finally got together on Friday and went to a sports store to get a volleyball. The volleyball was overpumped but we figured it would be ok. We went to a small store and bought some food for the beach and headed to the beach. It was a perfect day. We ate and peppered. Peppering is bumping, setting and spiking. An amazing past time for volleyballers. We were resting and eating when some random guy just walked up to us and sat down and started saying "nahon, nahon" which means true or correct in Hebrew. He was Italian and ended up spending an hour with just bullshitting. This is why I love Israel, because of this randomness. He invited out to get some burgers with him but we declined the offer. Vanessa was making dinner at her house that night and invited me to come. I told her I was going to hang out on the beach for a few more hours and then go to the drum circle that happens on every Shabbat.
After Vanessa left I went to the boardwalk, put my iPod in and just started walking. I wanted to go to the area where they play volleyball. Very attractive men playing beach volleyball. It was the happiest place on earth, it's NOT disneyland, it's TLV. Hahaha. But anyway, there is really nothing better than walking anywhere with music and walking to its beat, people watching and just hanging out. After that, I started walking toward Yafo to the drum circle. They were all gearing up. I had so much stuff with me that I couldn't dance but the beat was so great! I met other volunteers there. German and Italian guy, working in a rehabilitation center. Cool dudes. After that I walked to Yafo to Vanessa's. She made an amazing meal and we went out after. I ended up running into Ben, which is super random because he lives north of TLV, it's called a mikre - coincedence, however you spell that word!
The next day, we woke up and made banana pancakes and went to the beach. We went to Yafo beach which has a completely different feel that TLV beach. It's very secluded, the water is colder and there are less people. You really do it just to get away. It was amazing. It was just the three of us, Vanessa and Dante and I. Sometimes, ok, a lot of the times, it's good to get away from the group. I enjoy it a lot. Don't get me wrong, I love everyone in the group but you don't get a chance to grow when you're with everyone all the time. It's a proven fact. That night I was all about going back into town and just getting lost but I had no energy from the weekend so I just stayed in and chilled and caught with my house mates. It was good and relaxing.
The next day was Yom Rishon, Sunday, work day. For 26 years I have been told that Saturdays and Sundays are the weekend, so I don't know if I will ever get used to "other idea" of the weekend, such as the one in Israel. Anyway, the kids at Nofim are settling down a little bit. Thank god. We have to cut them some slack though, the poorly organized education system in Israel, and a lot of other things that are poorly organized, they're the ones stuck in the middle so it is good that they are calming down, even if it's a little bit. After Nofim, literallu back to back, I had Brit Olam. We were doing house visits that day. This means that we go and visit new mothers and make sure that the surroundings are good for the baby and the mother. The first family we went to literally live in secluded rooftop area of a building that was sort of made into a room. I really have no idea what it is, but the space is literally the size of my room in PHX. The baby was only 2 weeks old and so tiny. They named her Bethlehem. We sat with them and asked how she was feeling and how everything was going. After the first visit we went on a much needed coffee break. Got to know our trainer, Rinat a little more. She is amazing. She is my idea of a well rounded person. Lived in London, travelled the world, had a job in TV for like 15 years and one day realized she hated and started volunteering. Amazing, but also easy for someone to say who can afford to have the husband bring home the bacon AND raise 5 kids! We went to our next house and the baby was also 2 weeks old. Anglel was her name. Her family was so cute, they brought our drinks and fruit for us. It's cool in the situations like this because they only speak Hebrew and Tigninia and in this case there was no English and it felt good understand mostly everything! There was a four year old girl there, she was the new baby's cousin. At one point she gave me a huge kiss on the cheek. She was soooooooo CUTE!!! What a rewarding day.
Ooooooooook so I have been looking forward to Monday as long as I have known that we were going to go to Idan Raichel in Jerusalem! Mondays are our study days usually so we used to have a travel day. We started our trip by going to an Arab village called Abu Ghosh. It is a village where Arabs, Jews and Christians peacefully coexist. Yes, this does happen. Apparently, Abu Ghosh is also known for being in the Guiness Book of World Records for the worlds largest plate of hummus. Dream come true! Anyway, we all piled into a room and Arab man talked to us a little bit what it is like being an Arab in Israel - he got questions such as "How would you divide Israel if you could?" and "Do you get mad that you are fluent in Hebrew but most Israelis don't speak Arabic?" Interesting topics. After that we went to a monestary, made up mostly of French people. Here are some pics.
Our last stop at Abu Ghosh was a Arab Women Empowerment circle. A lot of this sounded very shocking to me because I know nothing about the culture, but apparently, really religious Muslim women cannot leave the house and do sport. When I say sport, that's what the Israelis call excercise. This circle gets together every Monday, and they power walk and spend time together. At first it was very hard to handle that these women were going against their religion but soon the men in their lives realized that giving these women their day made everything go smoothly at home. To fathom this concept makes me really sad and feel fortunate that I don't live in a world where I have to step on eggshells.*I want to apologize that a long time has passed since I last blogged so hopefully this still flows together!*
We left Abu Ghosh and we straight to Jeru. We got an hour to walk around and get dinner. Jeru has such a different feel to TLV. It has rolling hills and pine trees and the weather is much cooler. I guess this would make sense - it's a completely different part of the country. I always forget this because Israel is the size of New Jersey. Yeah. Scary, I know. My friend Vanessa and I went to some cafe where we got coffee and literally a ball of chocolate. Wow, meule! (Great). Needless to say I was bouncing off the walls when it was time to go to the concert. Oh the concert-----words cannot describe the music that this project makes. I am in love. This is my favorite song right now - but this is so much better in concert:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0lX9pIMpX4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbWxg4asm_A
Here are some pictures to show how beautiful the show was. I hate to say it but the one I went to in TLV was much better but a free concert, especially by an amazing group is a great deal.
The rest of the visit was really great. We visited a Druze cemetary and then went to eat some Druze food which was AMAZING! It wasn't anything completely out of the box but it was so delicious. After eating, we had some free time in the market so we went and bought some instruments for the Shabbat drum circles. We haggled and bought a marracca and some bell chime. I don't even know the name for that! We also got a bonus Hebrew lesson and the guy taught us how to say "Pay attention." He started explaining to us what that meant and could not get the point across, so he decided to use a life line and call his friend's wife and ask her what it meant. Reason 1,000,000 of why I love Israel! BALAGAN!! By the way, pay attention is "simi lev" to a girl and "sim lev" to a boy, just in case you were wondering!
In the past month I sat with the volunteer coordinator from Brit Olam and did an abortion intake. I haven't done one yet and a lot of things clicked for me during the intake. It was a good challenge because the girl does not speak Hebrew. I felt like I really connected with her and offered to her to go with her to the abortion commitee. That was an adventure within itself. Basically a lot of paperwork getting passed around from one social worker to another. An abortion costs 2000 NIS to someone with no insurance. This basically equals $540. With non profit org discount, there is a 50% discount. Huge difference. After we were done with the commitee we were both hungry so I offered to buy her lunch. I felt awful because I can't even imagine what she is going through and the only thing I wanted to tell her is that everything will be ok. She is only 22 and her mom is in Ethiopia. She only has her boyfriend. I am probably going to go with her to the actual operation if she can't find anyone to go with her.
That following weekend a few of us went to Jerusalem for a security conference. It was about the Israel security issues. We went to the Green Line which is another word for the proposed border between Palestenian Authority and the State of Israel. There is a security partition, that is also called The Wall (not the Wailing Wall) or it is called the Fence. The implementation of this wall has lowered terrorism and other crime by 90%, pretty unbelieveable. The rest of the weekend we spent in a really nice hostel which was really a hotel. We had lectures from a Palestenian/Muslim/Israeli/Arab - yes, this is true. He is a reporter who works for Jerusalem Post and he writes the truth, so he says. It proves the point that what he writes is unbiased, just the truth even though it might not be good and great to hear sometimes. We also heard from an IDF officer who showed us a video of a terrorist right before he tried detonate himself and a school bus in Gaza. We heard from a man who teaches in Haifa, and also worked for the Intelligence and fought terrorism for many years. Along with other speakers we heard about topics such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian threat. All of which made me really paranoid but also a lot of it is major propoganda. Very interesting weekend all in all and great to get out of TLV for a while and experience something different.
Since I haven't written in here for a while I know that I am probably forgetting a bunch of stuff so I am sorry. I sent the Picassa link out so that should show what we have been doing. I can't really think of anything else to write but I will be starting a new blog so that I am not cramming everything into this one. Life is good, life is great, just enjoying the Hebrew, playing volleyball on the beach, made some friends to play with and may have found a potential group to play with. Bike chain flies off on the daily but I have gotten really good at fixing it. Under 60 seconds. My roomie's bike was stolen and other people are starting to experience that too. Luckily my bike is a POS but I will still knock on wood for that.
What's to come in the next blog:
Our trip to the Judean Desert
Thanksgiving at the Guri house
More shenanigans in Israel
Until then:
!להיתראות
Monday, October 18, 2010
Ha avoda shel metnadevet ve od dvarim (Volunteer work and other things) - (Not sure if translates is right)
Shaaaaaalom! I am losing track of time and what I wrote in my previous blog so like I said before, if I repeat something, please enjoy it and deal with it. Haha. Ahshav ani Israeli, az ani medaberet kmo Israeli. Now I am Israeli so I talk like an Israeli.....just an excuse to write some BS in Hebrew :)
I will pick up by talking about the little space in time before the volunteering started. Last Sunday, after Ulpan, we were all having personal talks with our volunteer coordinators. We were supposed to solidify our volunteer assignments. At that point I have chosen the ARDC - African Refugee Center, Food Distribution Center and Nofim Elementary School. When I went to meet with Tamar, our coordinator, she told me that the ARDC already had way too many people and she wanted to make sure that I would have something to do, so she suggested RALA - which is spelled like that in Hebrew but it is really the Physician Free Clinic. It is a clinic for people who are living in Israel without a specific status, such as refugees and asylum seekers and Palestenians. The main job would be to help run the triage of the clinic, explain forms to the patients, and just help out with anything. I didn't go check it out because I was sick so I scheduled time with the director of the clinic, obviously to make sure that this is what I wanted to do. Everything else on my schedule stayed the same. When I left my talk I was beyond excited. I was finally going to be making some kind of difference, as tacky as it sounds. However, not so tacky because it is one of the 3 reasons I came here for. I was ready for this new adventure to begin!!
The next two days, Monday and Tuesday we had two volunteering sessions. To be honest, I could have probably used my time more wisely but what can you do. The stuff that they tell us is very obvious and general and most likely things that we will encounter only when faced with the issue in real life. There is no description in the textbook of how to handle difficult situations. Amex called it "crucial conversation" but then again, Amex sucked so I erased everything I learned there. Well mostly everything.
After the first volunteering session, I needed to decompress so I asked my roomate Lisa if she wanted to take a bike ride with me to the beach. The ride was so relaxing and liberating. It was just what we needed after a loooong day of nonsense. We rode to the beach and along the boardwalk and then when we got to the end of the cobblestone boardwalk we decided to keep going further. We rode to the Namal Tel Aviv - Port of TLV. The Port is in North TLV and is very posh and snobby, as I say. You can clearly see the difference in people and surroundings between the North and the South but that is pretty obvious in any city. I definitely want to live in that area someday, at least for a bit. The air outside was perfect, it couldn't have been a better ride. When we got home we calculated our route and it was about 9 miles. Not bad for an afternoon bike ride!
Wednesday, October 6th, was our first day of volunteering. I can't believe that the day was finally here. The month was long but filled with great and interesting things. My first volunteer assignment was the Food Distribution Center. This assignment was mostly going to be manual labor. My friend from the program called me in earlier because the volunteer coordinator for that place was not there that day and he wanted to explain to me what I needed to do. When I go there, the assignment was to break up all the boxes that said "Israel Humanitarian Aid" and put all the contents into plain brown boxes. The people that got the donations would not want to see that on the boxes so that is why we were doing this. At the distribution place, there was a mysterious dreadlocked character by the name Tomer was sort of overseeing this whole thing. By overseeing I mean he was "doing something" on the computer and smoking a cigarette. When my peer left, Tomer started helping me with the boxes. His English was maaaaaaybe better than mine. Ok not really, but pretty amazing. I guess I am now starting to find the value in hearing Israelis speaking English so well and understanding the amazement that people demostrate when they find out that English is not my first language. It was a nice compliment. Anyway, the guy was super cool and said that he would show me around TLV.
The next day was the day when I was supposed to go to Nofim, the elementary school. I'm not going to lie but I was super excited. We were supposed to be there at 9. We went to the counselor's office first. Her name is Tzafrir and she is really sweet and timid and you can tell that the kids just love her. The four of us went into her office and she just went over our schedules and got our phone numbers. Then we went into the break room where all the teachers were. There were three English teachers. Sylvia (clearly she was Russian) Sara and Eric, who is actually American but went to the IDF and then returned to Israel after he got back to the States. He was giving me weird looks, I have mixed emotions about him. Anyway, as soon as we got to the English teachers, Sylvia asked who speaks Russian and Spanish and I raised my hand and so did my friend Katie, who is American but has Russian parents. Sylvia looked me straight in the eye and pointed at me and said in Hebrew "Ani rotza" which means I want. It was hilarious and also the second compliment of the week. The teachers asked if some of us would like to stay behind and go to the classes with them, so I was very excited and said yes.
I can't even really describe how much more I respect teachers after that first experience. Kids hanging from chairs and tables, dancing on tables, teacher yelling and NOTHING changes. It was intense. The teacher introduced me to the class and then the classes would ask me questions in English. She would point out the kids who were struggling and I would sit with them and help them read and write. It is so draining but yet so rewarding when the kid you're working with really sort of "gets it." Also, without me even asking, the teacher said that she would ask around and see if anyone needs anyone to tutor their kids. I was beyond excited! I went to two more classes with her, it was just as crazy.
That same day I had to go check out RALA - which really is the Physicians Free Clinic, which services Palestenians, refugees and asymum seekers. It is a triage where doctors volunteer their time and help the clinic. The clinic strives to create the balance in the benefits between people who live in Israel legally and those who don't, while still selling insurance to them and not cutting any corners. This sort of troubles me but at the same time it is cool because this is not coming out of tax payers money. I don't think so at least. I wanted to volunteer during the clinic hours but Iman, the director, told me that at night they are packed with volunteers but they need help in the morning with administratives aspects, such as making appointments at hospitals and keeping track of the patient records. I am satisfied with my combination of volunteer assignments because I have the people time, the manual labor, and the administrative. I'm excited.
That day was super crazy because right after RALA, I had to run and pack and catch a train to Modi'in, where my dad's family lives. My grandma's sister to be exact, and her husband, daughter and daughter's family. I had to walk to the train station and then my aunt would pick me up in Modi'in. I was a little nervous because I haven't ever really spent one on one time with any of them....ever.
When I got to the city, I called Elina, my dad's cousin, they pulled up and my dad's aunt was waving to me from the back seat. She looked so cute! I was excited to be there! Modi'in was goregous. Very modern and built on rolling hills. Reminded of a modern version of Jeru. The city started from a settlement and is only 15 years old! Hard to believe that any city could be so new! Of course when I got to the house I got offered food right away. That night Elina and her family were going to a show called The Vocal People. I only found out that the whole thing was going to be people making music with their mouths and nothing else. I was AMAZED! All the songs we famous and the group did an incredible job, especially the beat boxers. I was in awe. I got home and crashed right away. This was the first time in 1.5 months that I had my own room to sleep in. It was weird......I got used to sleeping with my Lisa.
The next day was Manya's birthday. I got amazing rest and still woke up at 8AM. I passed over the shirt that my mom bought her. It looked great on her! We had breakfast and then I sat down to study some Hebrew. This was the first time this whole time that I had actually the desire and the motivation to actually sit down and study this language. Usually I just practice Hebrew in real life, at the shukh, stores, in the city and in restaurants. I studied a bit and then Manya asked me if I want to go to the "Canyon." I thought that she was talked about the canyon that I am used to, so I said of course! The canyon turned out to be a mall!
In Hebrew, liknot is to buy and knia is purchase so canyon to go shopping, I think that is how it was explained to me. It was totally Americanized......blah. I needed to get out of there ASAP. I missed the shuk......The next two days were spent bonding, eating, studying, sleeping, eating and learning Hebrew from my little cousins, always so much fun! We also went to a stalectite cave (sp?) which reminded me of the Collasal Caves in AZ! That was gorgeous and I think I appreciated that more than when I did when I was a kid. All in all the weekend the weekend was refreshing, amazing and relaxing. I was definitely pleasantly surprised of how easy it was to be with everyone. I am going back soon!!
The next day was the start of the new work week. I was excited to go back to Nofim. I had to prepare myself mentallly. We got to Nofim and Eric and Sylvia were diving up their classes. They were going back and forth of who was going to use me in their classes. They both have a lot of Russian speakers but I wanted to go with Sylvia because the has the more calm kids and Eric has 2nd graders with ADHD, so if I had my pick, I would pick the obvious ones. I am awful, I know. It was cool walking around the school because the kids started recognizing me, it felt good. A couple of them gave me a hug. These kids are not bad kids. Actually they're pretty awesome. A lot of them are not being challenged enough so they act out. It's pretty simple.I love working with them individually and they clearly like it too. Sylvia came up to me and told that she had found me a solid client and that I needed to call her that day and finalize the day that I would come and teach her son.
The next day was our Yom Sheni study day. On Mondays we are always going to have a long day of ivrit, aravit, lunch and Jewish identity classes. On Mondays, they also need volunteers from both tracks to help out in the kitchen because they feed us every Monday. I got called in last minute. I got there and the girl did not speak a word of English. She pointed to the yams and gave me the peeler and so I got the point. I had to be out of there in an hour because I was now taking Arabic. That's right, I like to completely overwhelm myself and learn a 5th language while I have no grasp of the 4th! Story of my life :) All that I know how to say at this point is, get ready for this: Ana ismi Anna, ana sakne fi Tel Abib, ana homree asharin oua seiti - My name is Anna, I live in Tel Aviv and I am 26 years old. If I get lost, I will at least attempt to explain myself.
On Tuesday, we had Ulpan again and then I went home to relax before my first tutoring lesson. I watched Entourage. The best method of relaxation.....EVER!!! I was really nervous because I have never tutored before but everyone told me that it is easier than I thought. I looked up the house on Google maps, on the map the house that I was supposed to go to was really close but the actual directions were telling me otherwise. I deifnitely got lost on the way to house and called Valya, the mother of my tutoree and told her that I was going to be late. She ended up meeting me in the park by the house because at that point I was like 40 minutes late and was just done with the whole experience. Her son recognized me from school so it was already not starting from zero. We read and wrote together and I felt that he understood more when I was done with him. When I came out of the room, his aunt asked me to tutor her son too and then said that there are 3 more girls that want to speak with an English speaker. So basically now I have 3 solid clients and then 3 potential clients, so I am stoked. That is food money and going out money and I won't have to dip into my bank account!!
The next day was RALA and I went to Yafo to help run the triage for the Palestinians, refugees and asylum seekers. It was cool but there were too many of us running around there and so I found myself asking what I need to do every few minutes. I will figure it out soon but I will probably be coming in the mornings helping out with administrative tasks. It's all pretty fluid at this point. Many times they kept asking if anyone spoke Arabic and could translate it into Hebrew or English. There were also people from Eritrea and Ethiopia. It was all becoming so real that these people are literally living under the radar and are not getting any healthcare or benefits. Like I said, the whole situation is pretty bad and complicated but I am glad that I can sort of learn and see the situation first hand and not have it sugar coated for me. That night I met up with Raz, he was one of the students on Taglit. It was so cool to just hang out with him and to know that I live here now and could do that whenever without any hassles. We met near Kikar Rabin (Rabin Square) and then went to Rothsichild and just hung out there. It was very laid back and we caught up on a lot.
Thursday, went to Nofim and was wrecked after 4 hours of screaming, crazy kids. I have thought about leaving the Food Distribution Center and checking out Brit Olam. I decided to go that night and was so glad that I did. This NGO (Non-Govt Org) deals with refugee women from Africa who are pregrant, either as a result of rape during their journey to Israel or by choice. There are a couple of things that we are able to assist them with: House visits - checking in on the women after they have given birth, intakes - requests for medicine, medical procedures and abortions, and doctor visits. Also, an ad-hoc project is fundraising and grant writing. All in all, I am feeling very inspired by this and will be doing intakes on Wednesday.
Friday and Saturday was a group trip. We went up north to Carmel. Our first stop was wine tasting at Binyamina Winery. We took a quick tour around the place and then the best part came when we tasted so so wine, but still, free wine - no complaints! Our second stop was Faradis which is in Arab village up north.
We had lunch there and then an Arab woman peace activist came to talk to us. It was one of the most inspiring talks I have ever listened to. It went to show that stereotypes are so ugly and that we all live under them and they influence us so much. She talked about how she came to speak to Israeli soldiers that were wounded during all kinds of war and violence and how she hosted Rosh Hashanah dinner and had a bunch of Israelis over, and the list goes on. She said that bombs, weapons and rocks are not helping solve the issue that we are having and so now she does meditation circles and talks about the issues on both sides. She is having one in Jerusalem in a few weeks and we are going to go. 
After the talk we went to the Kibbutz in Carmel. It is an eco friendly kibbutz where they use solar power and composting and recycle all the water. The best part was when our host starting speaking to us and said: You will have to excuse my very basic English: My mission in life is create sustainability. We all laughed because sustainability is definitely not basic English. We cooked outside and camped. 
Some of us snagged some hammocks so that was awesome too! The next day we woke up early, had breakfast, made lunch and went on a 4 hour hike. It was gorgeous. Please refer to pics and see for yourself. We closed our trip by going to the beach somewhere near Natanya. Sorry for the novel!!! Whew! Coming up next:
- My meeting tomorrow with a wealthy man who donates lots and lots of money to Bina
- Volleyball on beach
- More drum circles on Shabbat
- Tutoring
- And whatever else I am forgetting!
I will pick up by talking about the little space in time before the volunteering started. Last Sunday, after Ulpan, we were all having personal talks with our volunteer coordinators. We were supposed to solidify our volunteer assignments. At that point I have chosen the ARDC - African Refugee Center, Food Distribution Center and Nofim Elementary School. When I went to meet with Tamar, our coordinator, she told me that the ARDC already had way too many people and she wanted to make sure that I would have something to do, so she suggested RALA - which is spelled like that in Hebrew but it is really the Physician Free Clinic. It is a clinic for people who are living in Israel without a specific status, such as refugees and asylum seekers and Palestenians. The main job would be to help run the triage of the clinic, explain forms to the patients, and just help out with anything. I didn't go check it out because I was sick so I scheduled time with the director of the clinic, obviously to make sure that this is what I wanted to do. Everything else on my schedule stayed the same. When I left my talk I was beyond excited. I was finally going to be making some kind of difference, as tacky as it sounds. However, not so tacky because it is one of the 3 reasons I came here for. I was ready for this new adventure to begin!!
The next two days, Monday and Tuesday we had two volunteering sessions. To be honest, I could have probably used my time more wisely but what can you do. The stuff that they tell us is very obvious and general and most likely things that we will encounter only when faced with the issue in real life. There is no description in the textbook of how to handle difficult situations. Amex called it "crucial conversation" but then again, Amex sucked so I erased everything I learned there. Well mostly everything.
After the first volunteering session, I needed to decompress so I asked my roomate Lisa if she wanted to take a bike ride with me to the beach. The ride was so relaxing and liberating. It was just what we needed after a loooong day of nonsense. We rode to the beach and along the boardwalk and then when we got to the end of the cobblestone boardwalk we decided to keep going further. We rode to the Namal Tel Aviv - Port of TLV. The Port is in North TLV and is very posh and snobby, as I say. You can clearly see the difference in people and surroundings between the North and the South but that is pretty obvious in any city. I definitely want to live in that area someday, at least for a bit. The air outside was perfect, it couldn't have been a better ride. When we got home we calculated our route and it was about 9 miles. Not bad for an afternoon bike ride!
Wednesday, October 6th, was our first day of volunteering. I can't believe that the day was finally here. The month was long but filled with great and interesting things. My first volunteer assignment was the Food Distribution Center. This assignment was mostly going to be manual labor. My friend from the program called me in earlier because the volunteer coordinator for that place was not there that day and he wanted to explain to me what I needed to do. When I go there, the assignment was to break up all the boxes that said "Israel Humanitarian Aid" and put all the contents into plain brown boxes. The people that got the donations would not want to see that on the boxes so that is why we were doing this. At the distribution place, there was a mysterious dreadlocked character by the name Tomer was sort of overseeing this whole thing. By overseeing I mean he was "doing something" on the computer and smoking a cigarette. When my peer left, Tomer started helping me with the boxes. His English was maaaaaaybe better than mine. Ok not really, but pretty amazing. I guess I am now starting to find the value in hearing Israelis speaking English so well and understanding the amazement that people demostrate when they find out that English is not my first language. It was a nice compliment. Anyway, the guy was super cool and said that he would show me around TLV.
The next day was the day when I was supposed to go to Nofim, the elementary school. I'm not going to lie but I was super excited. We were supposed to be there at 9. We went to the counselor's office first. Her name is Tzafrir and she is really sweet and timid and you can tell that the kids just love her. The four of us went into her office and she just went over our schedules and got our phone numbers. Then we went into the break room where all the teachers were. There were three English teachers. Sylvia (clearly she was Russian) Sara and Eric, who is actually American but went to the IDF and then returned to Israel after he got back to the States. He was giving me weird looks, I have mixed emotions about him. Anyway, as soon as we got to the English teachers, Sylvia asked who speaks Russian and Spanish and I raised my hand and so did my friend Katie, who is American but has Russian parents. Sylvia looked me straight in the eye and pointed at me and said in Hebrew "Ani rotza" which means I want. It was hilarious and also the second compliment of the week. The teachers asked if some of us would like to stay behind and go to the classes with them, so I was very excited and said yes.
I can't even really describe how much more I respect teachers after that first experience. Kids hanging from chairs and tables, dancing on tables, teacher yelling and NOTHING changes. It was intense. The teacher introduced me to the class and then the classes would ask me questions in English. She would point out the kids who were struggling and I would sit with them and help them read and write. It is so draining but yet so rewarding when the kid you're working with really sort of "gets it." Also, without me even asking, the teacher said that she would ask around and see if anyone needs anyone to tutor their kids. I was beyond excited! I went to two more classes with her, it was just as crazy.
That same day I had to go check out RALA - which really is the Physicians Free Clinic, which services Palestenians, refugees and asymum seekers. It is a triage where doctors volunteer their time and help the clinic. The clinic strives to create the balance in the benefits between people who live in Israel legally and those who don't, while still selling insurance to them and not cutting any corners. This sort of troubles me but at the same time it is cool because this is not coming out of tax payers money. I don't think so at least. I wanted to volunteer during the clinic hours but Iman, the director, told me that at night they are packed with volunteers but they need help in the morning with administratives aspects, such as making appointments at hospitals and keeping track of the patient records. I am satisfied with my combination of volunteer assignments because I have the people time, the manual labor, and the administrative. I'm excited.
That day was super crazy because right after RALA, I had to run and pack and catch a train to Modi'in, where my dad's family lives. My grandma's sister to be exact, and her husband, daughter and daughter's family. I had to walk to the train station and then my aunt would pick me up in Modi'in. I was a little nervous because I haven't ever really spent one on one time with any of them....ever.
When I got to the city, I called Elina, my dad's cousin, they pulled up and my dad's aunt was waving to me from the back seat. She looked so cute! I was excited to be there! Modi'in was goregous. Very modern and built on rolling hills. Reminded of a modern version of Jeru. The city started from a settlement and is only 15 years old! Hard to believe that any city could be so new! Of course when I got to the house I got offered food right away. That night Elina and her family were going to a show called The Vocal People. I only found out that the whole thing was going to be people making music with their mouths and nothing else. I was AMAZED! All the songs we famous and the group did an incredible job, especially the beat boxers. I was in awe. I got home and crashed right away. This was the first time in 1.5 months that I had my own room to sleep in. It was weird......I got used to sleeping with my Lisa.
The next day was Manya's birthday. I got amazing rest and still woke up at 8AM. I passed over the shirt that my mom bought her. It looked great on her! We had breakfast and then I sat down to study some Hebrew. This was the first time this whole time that I had actually the desire and the motivation to actually sit down and study this language. Usually I just practice Hebrew in real life, at the shukh, stores, in the city and in restaurants. I studied a bit and then Manya asked me if I want to go to the "Canyon." I thought that she was talked about the canyon that I am used to, so I said of course! The canyon turned out to be a mall!
In Hebrew, liknot is to buy and knia is purchase so canyon to go shopping, I think that is how it was explained to me. It was totally Americanized......blah. I needed to get out of there ASAP. I missed the shuk......The next two days were spent bonding, eating, studying, sleeping, eating and learning Hebrew from my little cousins, always so much fun! We also went to a stalectite cave (sp?) which reminded me of the Collasal Caves in AZ! That was gorgeous and I think I appreciated that more than when I did when I was a kid. All in all the weekend the weekend was refreshing, amazing and relaxing. I was definitely pleasantly surprised of how easy it was to be with everyone. I am going back soon!!
The next day was the start of the new work week. I was excited to go back to Nofim. I had to prepare myself mentallly. We got to Nofim and Eric and Sylvia were diving up their classes. They were going back and forth of who was going to use me in their classes. They both have a lot of Russian speakers but I wanted to go with Sylvia because the has the more calm kids and Eric has 2nd graders with ADHD, so if I had my pick, I would pick the obvious ones. I am awful, I know. It was cool walking around the school because the kids started recognizing me, it felt good. A couple of them gave me a hug. These kids are not bad kids. Actually they're pretty awesome. A lot of them are not being challenged enough so they act out. It's pretty simple.I love working with them individually and they clearly like it too. Sylvia came up to me and told that she had found me a solid client and that I needed to call her that day and finalize the day that I would come and teach her son.
The next day was our Yom Sheni study day. On Mondays we are always going to have a long day of ivrit, aravit, lunch and Jewish identity classes. On Mondays, they also need volunteers from both tracks to help out in the kitchen because they feed us every Monday. I got called in last minute. I got there and the girl did not speak a word of English. She pointed to the yams and gave me the peeler and so I got the point. I had to be out of there in an hour because I was now taking Arabic. That's right, I like to completely overwhelm myself and learn a 5th language while I have no grasp of the 4th! Story of my life :) All that I know how to say at this point is, get ready for this: Ana ismi Anna, ana sakne fi Tel Abib, ana homree asharin oua seiti - My name is Anna, I live in Tel Aviv and I am 26 years old. If I get lost, I will at least attempt to explain myself.
On Tuesday, we had Ulpan again and then I went home to relax before my first tutoring lesson. I watched Entourage. The best method of relaxation.....EVER!!! I was really nervous because I have never tutored before but everyone told me that it is easier than I thought. I looked up the house on Google maps, on the map the house that I was supposed to go to was really close but the actual directions were telling me otherwise. I deifnitely got lost on the way to house and called Valya, the mother of my tutoree and told her that I was going to be late. She ended up meeting me in the park by the house because at that point I was like 40 minutes late and was just done with the whole experience. Her son recognized me from school so it was already not starting from zero. We read and wrote together and I felt that he understood more when I was done with him. When I came out of the room, his aunt asked me to tutor her son too and then said that there are 3 more girls that want to speak with an English speaker. So basically now I have 3 solid clients and then 3 potential clients, so I am stoked. That is food money and going out money and I won't have to dip into my bank account!!
The next day was RALA and I went to Yafo to help run the triage for the Palestinians, refugees and asylum seekers. It was cool but there were too many of us running around there and so I found myself asking what I need to do every few minutes. I will figure it out soon but I will probably be coming in the mornings helping out with administrative tasks. It's all pretty fluid at this point. Many times they kept asking if anyone spoke Arabic and could translate it into Hebrew or English. There were also people from Eritrea and Ethiopia. It was all becoming so real that these people are literally living under the radar and are not getting any healthcare or benefits. Like I said, the whole situation is pretty bad and complicated but I am glad that I can sort of learn and see the situation first hand and not have it sugar coated for me. That night I met up with Raz, he was one of the students on Taglit. It was so cool to just hang out with him and to know that I live here now and could do that whenever without any hassles. We met near Kikar Rabin (Rabin Square) and then went to Rothsichild and just hung out there. It was very laid back and we caught up on a lot.
Thursday, went to Nofim and was wrecked after 4 hours of screaming, crazy kids. I have thought about leaving the Food Distribution Center and checking out Brit Olam. I decided to go that night and was so glad that I did. This NGO (Non-Govt Org) deals with refugee women from Africa who are pregrant, either as a result of rape during their journey to Israel or by choice. There are a couple of things that we are able to assist them with: House visits - checking in on the women after they have given birth, intakes - requests for medicine, medical procedures and abortions, and doctor visits. Also, an ad-hoc project is fundraising and grant writing. All in all, I am feeling very inspired by this and will be doing intakes on Wednesday.
Friday and Saturday was a group trip. We went up north to Carmel. Our first stop was wine tasting at Binyamina Winery. We took a quick tour around the place and then the best part came when we tasted so so wine, but still, free wine - no complaints! Our second stop was Faradis which is in Arab village up north. 
We had lunch there and then an Arab woman peace activist came to talk to us. It was one of the most inspiring talks I have ever listened to. It went to show that stereotypes are so ugly and that we all live under them and they influence us so much. She talked about how she came to speak to Israeli soldiers that were wounded during all kinds of war and violence and how she hosted Rosh Hashanah dinner and had a bunch of Israelis over, and the list goes on. She said that bombs, weapons and rocks are not helping solve the issue that we are having and so now she does meditation circles and talks about the issues on both sides. She is having one in Jerusalem in a few weeks and we are going to go. 
After the talk we went to the Kibbutz in Carmel. It is an eco friendly kibbutz where they use solar power and composting and recycle all the water. The best part was when our host starting speaking to us and said: You will have to excuse my very basic English: My mission in life is create sustainability. We all laughed because sustainability is definitely not basic English. We cooked outside and camped.
Some of us snagged some hammocks so that was awesome too! The next day we woke up early, had breakfast, made lunch and went on a 4 hour hike. It was gorgeous. Please refer to pics and see for yourself. We closed our trip by going to the beach somewhere near Natanya. Sorry for the novel!!! Whew! Coming up next:
- My meeting tomorrow with a wealthy man who donates lots and lots of money to Bina
- Volleyball on beach
- More drum circles on Shabbat
- Tutoring
- And whatever else I am forgetting!
Monday, September 20, 2010
Haggling for Geenie pants, bikes and more Ulpan, volunteering assignments, drum circles and Idan Raichel!!
Shalom chaverim! I haven't written for a while and I know that some things I will not include in here because when I started writing bullet points for this blog, I kept resaving so finally Blogger gave up on my procrastination and stopped autosaving. So what you see is what you get, and if I repeat something from last time, too bad! See, I am becoming a fiesty Israeli already. Life is so much easier this way!
This blog is going to be a fast forwarded version of my life for the past 2-2.5 weeks. I want to briefly talk about the Shuk ha Carmel. I don't think I talked about it before. Anna and I decided to go to it a few weeks ago. I really wanted to get geenie pants and a cloth over the shoulder purse. I got 2 pairs of geenie pants for 25 NIS, good deal! So then I found the purse that I wanted. It was orange with little pieces of mirror looking stuff sewn into it. I was able to knock it down from 40 -20 NIS but because of my commitment issues I told the lady that I would walk around to see if I could get a better deal. She told me that it was her final offer and that she won't give it to me when I come back. I took the chance. She was right, I could not find anything that resembled "my purse". I came back to her and now she was saying that the purse was going for 35NIS even though Anna also heard her say 20NIS. I circled around the stand like a shark and took out 25 shecks and tried to give them to her and she wouldn't take them and shooed me away! I was sad :( The next day we were going to Jerusalem (I wrote about this in my last blog, just not the Shuk) and I NEEDED that bag for my hipster Jeru outfit. So my friend Julie and I went back to the Shuk. I put on my glasses so that the lady would not recognize me. Julie needed a purse so I made her ask the lady how much it was. She told her 40NIS. I asked the lady how much the other purse was and looked me dead in the eye and asked if I want my purse. She wasn't messing around. I told her, "you rememberd me?!" and she said, "Of course I remember you, you have very unique features, you're like that girl, sex and big city!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It never ends!
Soooooooo moving on ahead.......
So I finally gave up on walking to the beach for 45 minutes each way and got really jealous of my friends with bicycles, so I grew some cajones (I haven't ridden a bike in 12-14 years, no joke) and decided to go get a bike. I gave my self a price range- I was not going to spend more 200 NIS on a stolen (yes, stolen) bike. After a group meeting, while in Yafo, great area for cheaper (read the previous reason of cheapness) bikes, I set off to find my bike. I returned to the place where my friends got their bikes but it was closed. While standing there, a guy on a bike mumbles something to us in Hebrew, and our friend Jorai, who is half Israeli translates to us that this guy knows of a bike shop and will take us there. The guy literally rode his bike along with us until we got to his shop.
S-K-E-T-C-H-Y! But not shocking. It's literally a bike shed. Wheels, seats, and other bike crap everywhere and yes, assembled bikes as well. My friend Adam right away finds a bike that he likes so he starts riding it around. I try out a few bikes but nothing really strikes my fancy.
A mechanic from shop next door starts talking to us, but at this point he is just background noise to me because I am so focused on buying my transportation. I don't really remember how this happened but suddenly we both bust into a conversation in Spanish and Russian. Pablo is his name and he is from Uruguay. He has lived here forever and has 3 daughters from 3 different women. Wow. So I am basically speaking with him in 3 languages while trying to speak Hebrew. Best time ever. So I asked him if there are any other bike shops where I could spend my mentioned amount and get a bike that will not break the same day. He says yes. Adam buys his first love bike and we set off to the other place.
The place is also in Yafo and it is run by a man who is sitting and doing nothing however, his worker, whose name is Adam is Sudanese. He lets me try out a couple of bikes. The one that I sort of liked was 200 but I wanted to knock it down AND get a basket put on it. I kept whining to him in Hebrew that I want to pay 150 sheks for the bike.
Suddenly, Adam comes back with a bottle of red wine and Pablo asks me "Do you want to talk or do you want to drink?" I obviously respond with 'both!" and Adam, Adam, Jorai and the lazy owner split a bottle of red wine, and just shoot the breeze, but I am still trying to haggle at this point. Two hours later, we finally all have bikes. I ended up paying 160 NIS for it but it was so fun!
After that, the guys and I went to the beach and chilled. I saw a boy and his dad throwing a board into the water and then jumpng on it. For the life of me I cannot remember what it is called. But anyway, the wine gave me liquid confidence and I asked them if I could try it. Well I tried it alright. I jumped on the board and fell on my tachat! AND scene! That was enough for me.
The next day, we had more volunteering tours. I was really excited because one of the places we were visiting was Nofim elementary school. All I knew from this school is that they needed Russian and Spanish speakers to help the kids learn English. We got there and right away the kids that were coming in started asking us who we were and what we were doing there. The vibe was great right away. We then went into a room where the new principal of the school gave us an intense speech of volunteering at the school. "If you don't feel that you should be here so then I ask you not to come back." That was pretty much along the lines of what she said, very powerful. That was my school. I knew it.
Jorai and I decided to go to the bike shop so that I could exchange my U-lock for another, more flexible lock. I didn't have a receipt or anything but I figured the guy would remember me. Jorai needed to get a lock and reflectors too. On the way up our street, I heard a really loud clicking sound and the chain busted!!! AAHHHHHH! I wanted to kill myself. Jorai flipped my bike over and tried to flix the chain with no luck. Then we saw some guy in a smart bike cart coming our way, he looked at what was going on and pulled over and brought his tools over. While Jorai went to go wash his hands, the guy started talking to me and mumbled something in Russian so I got really excited and started speaking to him, he was really happy to hear Russian speech he said. He fixed my bike but he said that I would need to fix the chain. The he gave me some apples and churma(parsimon) from his cart and sent me on my way. Not even 5 wheel rotations later, the damn chains busted AGAIN! So I had to walk my bike to the lock guy and then haggle in Russian to some Chechnyan guy who translated what I needed, however the numbers part I handled myself. Voila. Bike worked again.
It was time for our next volunteer assignment. It was called Mesila. It was an overcrowded day care center for migrant worker kids. The lady warned us that the one we were going to was the worst one of them all. Poor conditions, etc. When we got there, the toddlers pretty much jumped on us. I looked around and pretty much five people were already holding the toddlers. They were literally pulling our hands and begging for attention. It was so intense, I almost started crying. I have never seen so many kids starve for so much attention. If I have time, I will definitely spend a few hours a week there. It touched me. Those kids just need someone to hold them and love them, it's pretty simple.
That day when we came back, I got the idea to Google Russian restaurants in the TLV area and maybe I could go and find a job there. It would be way easier than trying to find a job in an Israeli place, at least for now only because my ivrit is caha-caha. I Googled and found a place that Ben and I had passed many times on the way to the beach. It was called Baba Yaga. I took a deep breate and dialed the number. A man answered and I asked if we could speak in Russian. His name was Sasha and he was the manager of the restaurant. He told me to come in the next day and speak with him, I was stoked! (I didn't end up coming in because we had the Sukkha building party the next day and it was hard to be back by the time everyone would come to our house to build and learn Hebrew. Ben and skyped day and he invited me to his sister's house for Sukkhot. I was excited. I wanted to see him and his family - it's been longer than usual since I have seen him!
The next day everyone came over to build the Sukkha for Sukkot, which is a celebration of fruit harvest. You build the Sukkha out of palm branches and tarps and you decorate and then eat inside the Sukkha. I like it. It was a complete balagan because 3 Hebrew groups were now at our house, all 26 people, plus our madrichim and morim and randoms. Wow. Let's just say we were all glad it was over when everyone left! Whew!
The next day was erev Sukkot (night of Sukkot). Ben informed me that he would get me at 2:30 which was WAY too early because we had a five hour Ulpan class until 1:30 and it was all the way in Yafo; 20 minute bike ride from Kiryat Shalom where we live. Oh well, I was going to make it happen. After we survived the 5 hour language class, I hauled ass home, actually to the bakery next door so that I could buy some baklava for the dinner. When I got home I realized that I was missing my bike keys and house keys but thank g-d I realized that I left them at the bakery, and thankfully my friend Anna was still there so she got them for me. I was freaking out. By the time I got home I thought that I only had like 10 minutes to get ready, but Ben called and said that he was going to be there in 45 minutes, WHEW AGAIN!
He came to get me and we were now on the way to get his sava (grandma). I was sort of nervous, don't really know why. He left me in the car while he went to get her. I seriously waited in the car for 20 minutes. I thought that he left his car and ditched me. Hahaha. I wouldn't be surprised. Anyway, he finally came down with the savta. I said hi to her when she got in but she didn't hear me so Ben had to introduce her to me and then she apologized for not seeing me. She was adorable. She of course asked if I was his chavera (girlfriend) and he gave the default explanation. She wished me luck and happiness anyway. We got to his house and his family was not even ready. I thought the dinner was going to be earlier in the day but apparently it wasn't starting until 8PM. I am so glad that I got picked up like 5 hours before, oh well, I was thankful. We finally got to his sisters and I got introduced to more people. Some of them spoke English and some of them did not, but I am now so used to these circumstances so it didn't matter. We all gathered into the Sukkha to say prayer for the holiday and the wine and then it was game time, I mean dinner time. It was a great and delicious dinner. It was set up buffet style. I ate everything. Mamash taim - very delicious. I had really good conversation with some people from the party. I was starting to get sick though so I was really tired and feeling lo tov (no good). We went home and I just passed out and slept all day the next day.
I literally ended up going upstairs at like 5PM when Ben's mom started to make dinner. More food, yes. Too bad I wasn't hungry at all and just wanted to die. We ate and then she gave me some food to take home. So Jewish. I love it. I literally ate that food for like a week straight. It was rice, kabobs and chicken and potato salad. So not Israeli but oh well! Thank you Rachel!
The next day, Anna and Adam and I went to the beach. We went late but it was so nice. We lay there for a bit and swam a little. Anna and I noticed that there was a kite surfer getting ready to go do him things. We started watching him. He was literally flying. We were standing there breathless. We both said at the same time that it was our next sport. We started stalking him and made a pact that as soon as he was done we would go and talk to him and see if we could get lessons. We was in the water forever. While waiting, we started hearing drums and saw a group of Buddhist Krishnas walking on the tayelet (boardwalk) and beating their drums. We all walked over there and Anna started dancing to the beat with the Krishnas. I could have sworn she was going to run away with them. When they were done, so was the kite surfer! We picked up all our stuff and ran over like groupies to talk to him. We was so cool! He gave us his email address and said that he is at the beach a few times a week and maybe he could teach us. Wooooooow! After we were done, I realized that Baba Yaga was in that area so I came in to meet Sasha and apologize for not coming in last time. He was there, very laid back so we scheduled a new day for me to come in. It was a good day!
The next day, was the day of our 1st beach BBQ. Anna and I wanted to get some excercise beforehand so we rode to the beach and along the boardwalk and also picked up some things for the party. When we came back and we only had an hour to get ready and head back to the beach. We had a great outcome for the BBQ. We divided up the things for each house to bring. We were in charge of the meat so we brought veggie burgers and then other houses brought the alcohol and pitas and hummus. GREAT SUCCESS! It was a lot of fun.
After the BBQ a group of us decided to go to a house party in the city. We all rode our bikes into the center.
The house party was on a rooftop. While there weren't that many stories, the view was still incredible! We met some Americans and Israelis. All were very cool. We realized that it was almost midnight and our friend Nancy did not come on a bike so we had to get her on the bus before she turned into a pumpkin. We ran through the city and finally at 11:58 PM we got to the bus stop. Thank god there was another bus coming. When the bus finally got there, we tried asking if we could put our bikes on the bus and go too but the driver said no. So were off, biking across the city! Which is really not big, it's just intimidating thinking about it. Good times!
I ended up getting sick so I couldn't come into the restaurant again. I felt like an ass for flaking but I literally could not get out of bed. It was so annoying. I haven't had a fever in so long. So glad that it was in another country. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger right? Anyway, that whole day was shot I didn't do anything.
I got better the next day and rode by bike to Ulpan. It felt so good to be moving again. After I got back, I called Sasha. He didn't return my call for a few hours and when he finally did, I had given up on him at that point. He told me to come in at 6. So I got ready and went over there. He was cool. He said that he had a strong affinity for Taglit people, because he was not living with a girl from Taglit who had made Aliyah. It was a cute love story. Anyway, to make the long story short, he told me that because I don't speak Hebrew, I cannot come near a table, however, he would start me out as a bartender so that I could make drinks for the servers. They don't get tipped out at that place so the bartenders make 30 NIS hour, which is roughly $8/hr. Money that I don't have so it's better than nothing. He told me to come in for an "audition" the next day.
The next day, I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. When I called it back, it turned out to be a guy named Eitan, a friend of Kimberly's. He called to invite me to a concert....of....Idan Raichel. An amazing Israeli artist. Ben actually gave me his CD the night before I left Israel and my family and friends will back me up when I say that I listened to that CD for pretty much three months before I came back to Israel. It was meant to be. Problem: I had to be at BY that night and didn't know what time I was getting out of there and it was also my friend's birthday celebration that night. I politely declined the invitation but was so bothered by it because I so badly wanted to go!!!!!!! When I got home from the beach, Eitan called again and I decided that I NEEDED to go and would figure everything else out later.
I got ready to go to work and went to the bus stop and then realized because it was yet another holiday, Simcha Torah, the busses stopped running. So I walked a little bit and caught a cab. When I got to the restaurant everyone introduced themselves in Russian. It was super weird. I haven't been around Russian young adults in like ever. A couple of people in Tucson and Phoenix here and there but not 15-20 of them! The job is ok, mostly opening champagne and pouring wine and making coffee. Really easy. I wasn't really feeling it. I think I finally got my closuse to the restaurant business. Being out of it for 2 years and realizing that I came to Israel to actually make a difference and do worthless stuff really came to play.
I told Sasha I had to be out by nine so I left and changed and Eitan came and got me and we went to the concert. I was getting so pumped!!!!! I am not even a fan of concerts but this was a completely different feeling. I have a really strong conncetion with the music of this person. It was really easy to talk to Eitan, meeting him for the first time. He was super cool! We met up with a couple of his friends and walked into the concert hall. It was an opera hall and we literally had the best seats in the house. We were about 18th row, dead center. He later told me that the lady who throws these concerts had given him the tickets. Yes and YES! I have never in my life enjoyed anything more. The songs were amazing. He uses different instuments and different languages. His project consists of like 15 people if not more, from other countries with different skillsets. MEULE!!!
I was in a trance for 2 1/2 hours, I am not even joking. Just talking about it gives me goose bumps. And the lyrics themselves, so deep and meaningful, oh man! You get the idea.
The next day, I was exhausted so we just chilled for the majority of the day and then decided to go out for sushi. I don't know why but the thought of sushi in Israel does not really appeal to me at all! Although I was finally ready to test it out! We sat outside and the night was great!
The sushi was ok. I miss RA, I'm not going to lie. After dinner we went to the Port and just walked around. That is one of my favorite areas. Restaurants and bars on the water. Can it get better than that?? No. Good night.
The next day, Nancy and I finally got ourselves together and went to the Shuk (market) near our house. It was so cheap and productive! Definitely going back there again. After the shuk, I biked down to the beach, put in my iPod and did some valuable alone time. I got to the beach and just sat there for a good hour. It was so amazing. I never get alone time these days so I really appreciate when I can get it. So thank you to my dear friend Kimberly, she told me that every Friday there is a drum concert at sunset at Chinky beach. I biked down there to get a good spot. The drummers were starting up and the sun was beginning to set. It's a bunch amateur drummers, using different drumming instruments, and even though there is a balagan of sounds, it starts sounding so good together. I stood on a rock and noticed that a couple of guys started taking pictures of me and the sunset behind me with theit SLRs.
Very flattering. Not going to lie. Anna and Jodie met me there as the music began to get louder and the beat started to make more and more sense. Anna and I let loose on the dancefloor where more people were getting crazyt. It was such a release and so fun! I can't wait to do it again!!!
This blog is going to be a fast forwarded version of my life for the past 2-2.5 weeks. I want to briefly talk about the Shuk ha Carmel. I don't think I talked about it before. Anna and I decided to go to it a few weeks ago. I really wanted to get geenie pants and a cloth over the shoulder purse. I got 2 pairs of geenie pants for 25 NIS, good deal! So then I found the purse that I wanted. It was orange with little pieces of mirror looking stuff sewn into it. I was able to knock it down from 40 -20 NIS but because of my commitment issues I told the lady that I would walk around to see if I could get a better deal. She told me that it was her final offer and that she won't give it to me when I come back. I took the chance. She was right, I could not find anything that resembled "my purse". I came back to her and now she was saying that the purse was going for 35NIS even though Anna also heard her say 20NIS. I circled around the stand like a shark and took out 25 shecks and tried to give them to her and she wouldn't take them and shooed me away! I was sad :( The next day we were going to Jerusalem (I wrote about this in my last blog, just not the Shuk) and I NEEDED that bag for my hipster Jeru outfit. So my friend Julie and I went back to the Shuk. I put on my glasses so that the lady would not recognize me. Julie needed a purse so I made her ask the lady how much it was. She told her 40NIS. I asked the lady how much the other purse was and looked me dead in the eye and asked if I want my purse. She wasn't messing around. I told her, "you rememberd me?!" and she said, "Of course I remember you, you have very unique features, you're like that girl, sex and big city!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! It never ends!
Soooooooo moving on ahead.......
So I finally gave up on walking to the beach for 45 minutes each way and got really jealous of my friends with bicycles, so I grew some cajones (I haven't ridden a bike in 12-14 years, no joke) and decided to go get a bike. I gave my self a price range- I was not going to spend more 200 NIS on a stolen (yes, stolen) bike. After a group meeting, while in Yafo, great area for cheaper (read the previous reason of cheapness) bikes, I set off to find my bike. I returned to the place where my friends got their bikes but it was closed. While standing there, a guy on a bike mumbles something to us in Hebrew, and our friend Jorai, who is half Israeli translates to us that this guy knows of a bike shop and will take us there. The guy literally rode his bike along with us until we got to his shop.
S-K-E-T-C-H-Y! But not shocking. It's literally a bike shed. Wheels, seats, and other bike crap everywhere and yes, assembled bikes as well. My friend Adam right away finds a bike that he likes so he starts riding it around. I try out a few bikes but nothing really strikes my fancy.
A mechanic from shop next door starts talking to us, but at this point he is just background noise to me because I am so focused on buying my transportation. I don't really remember how this happened but suddenly we both bust into a conversation in Spanish and Russian. Pablo is his name and he is from Uruguay. He has lived here forever and has 3 daughters from 3 different women. Wow. So I am basically speaking with him in 3 languages while trying to speak Hebrew. Best time ever. So I asked him if there are any other bike shops where I could spend my mentioned amount and get a bike that will not break the same day. He says yes. Adam buys his first love bike and we set off to the other place.
The place is also in Yafo and it is run by a man who is sitting and doing nothing however, his worker, whose name is Adam is Sudanese. He lets me try out a couple of bikes. The one that I sort of liked was 200 but I wanted to knock it down AND get a basket put on it. I kept whining to him in Hebrew that I want to pay 150 sheks for the bike.
Suddenly, Adam comes back with a bottle of red wine and Pablo asks me "Do you want to talk or do you want to drink?" I obviously respond with 'both!" and Adam, Adam, Jorai and the lazy owner split a bottle of red wine, and just shoot the breeze, but I am still trying to haggle at this point. Two hours later, we finally all have bikes. I ended up paying 160 NIS for it but it was so fun!
After that, the guys and I went to the beach and chilled. I saw a boy and his dad throwing a board into the water and then jumpng on it. For the life of me I cannot remember what it is called. But anyway, the wine gave me liquid confidence and I asked them if I could try it. Well I tried it alright. I jumped on the board and fell on my tachat! AND scene! That was enough for me.
The next day, we had more volunteering tours. I was really excited because one of the places we were visiting was Nofim elementary school. All I knew from this school is that they needed Russian and Spanish speakers to help the kids learn English. We got there and right away the kids that were coming in started asking us who we were and what we were doing there. The vibe was great right away. We then went into a room where the new principal of the school gave us an intense speech of volunteering at the school. "If you don't feel that you should be here so then I ask you not to come back." That was pretty much along the lines of what she said, very powerful. That was my school. I knew it.
Jorai and I decided to go to the bike shop so that I could exchange my U-lock for another, more flexible lock. I didn't have a receipt or anything but I figured the guy would remember me. Jorai needed to get a lock and reflectors too. On the way up our street, I heard a really loud clicking sound and the chain busted!!! AAHHHHHH! I wanted to kill myself. Jorai flipped my bike over and tried to flix the chain with no luck. Then we saw some guy in a smart bike cart coming our way, he looked at what was going on and pulled over and brought his tools over. While Jorai went to go wash his hands, the guy started talking to me and mumbled something in Russian so I got really excited and started speaking to him, he was really happy to hear Russian speech he said. He fixed my bike but he said that I would need to fix the chain. The he gave me some apples and churma(parsimon) from his cart and sent me on my way. Not even 5 wheel rotations later, the damn chains busted AGAIN! So I had to walk my bike to the lock guy and then haggle in Russian to some Chechnyan guy who translated what I needed, however the numbers part I handled myself. Voila. Bike worked again.
It was time for our next volunteer assignment. It was called Mesila. It was an overcrowded day care center for migrant worker kids. The lady warned us that the one we were going to was the worst one of them all. Poor conditions, etc. When we got there, the toddlers pretty much jumped on us. I looked around and pretty much five people were already holding the toddlers. They were literally pulling our hands and begging for attention. It was so intense, I almost started crying. I have never seen so many kids starve for so much attention. If I have time, I will definitely spend a few hours a week there. It touched me. Those kids just need someone to hold them and love them, it's pretty simple.
That day when we came back, I got the idea to Google Russian restaurants in the TLV area and maybe I could go and find a job there. It would be way easier than trying to find a job in an Israeli place, at least for now only because my ivrit is caha-caha. I Googled and found a place that Ben and I had passed many times on the way to the beach. It was called Baba Yaga. I took a deep breate and dialed the number. A man answered and I asked if we could speak in Russian. His name was Sasha and he was the manager of the restaurant. He told me to come in the next day and speak with him, I was stoked! (I didn't end up coming in because we had the Sukkha building party the next day and it was hard to be back by the time everyone would come to our house to build and learn Hebrew. Ben and skyped day and he invited me to his sister's house for Sukkhot. I was excited. I wanted to see him and his family - it's been longer than usual since I have seen him!
The next day everyone came over to build the Sukkha for Sukkot, which is a celebration of fruit harvest. You build the Sukkha out of palm branches and tarps and you decorate and then eat inside the Sukkha. I like it. It was a complete balagan because 3 Hebrew groups were now at our house, all 26 people, plus our madrichim and morim and randoms. Wow. Let's just say we were all glad it was over when everyone left! Whew!
The next day was erev Sukkot (night of Sukkot). Ben informed me that he would get me at 2:30 which was WAY too early because we had a five hour Ulpan class until 1:30 and it was all the way in Yafo; 20 minute bike ride from Kiryat Shalom where we live. Oh well, I was going to make it happen. After we survived the 5 hour language class, I hauled ass home, actually to the bakery next door so that I could buy some baklava for the dinner. When I got home I realized that I was missing my bike keys and house keys but thank g-d I realized that I left them at the bakery, and thankfully my friend Anna was still there so she got them for me. I was freaking out. By the time I got home I thought that I only had like 10 minutes to get ready, but Ben called and said that he was going to be there in 45 minutes, WHEW AGAIN!
He came to get me and we were now on the way to get his sava (grandma). I was sort of nervous, don't really know why. He left me in the car while he went to get her. I seriously waited in the car for 20 minutes. I thought that he left his car and ditched me. Hahaha. I wouldn't be surprised. Anyway, he finally came down with the savta. I said hi to her when she got in but she didn't hear me so Ben had to introduce her to me and then she apologized for not seeing me. She was adorable. She of course asked if I was his chavera (girlfriend) and he gave the default explanation. She wished me luck and happiness anyway. We got to his house and his family was not even ready. I thought the dinner was going to be earlier in the day but apparently it wasn't starting until 8PM. I am so glad that I got picked up like 5 hours before, oh well, I was thankful. We finally got to his sisters and I got introduced to more people. Some of them spoke English and some of them did not, but I am now so used to these circumstances so it didn't matter. We all gathered into the Sukkha to say prayer for the holiday and the wine and then it was game time, I mean dinner time. It was a great and delicious dinner. It was set up buffet style. I ate everything. Mamash taim - very delicious. I had really good conversation with some people from the party. I was starting to get sick though so I was really tired and feeling lo tov (no good). We went home and I just passed out and slept all day the next day.
I literally ended up going upstairs at like 5PM when Ben's mom started to make dinner. More food, yes. Too bad I wasn't hungry at all and just wanted to die. We ate and then she gave me some food to take home. So Jewish. I love it. I literally ate that food for like a week straight. It was rice, kabobs and chicken and potato salad. So not Israeli but oh well! Thank you Rachel!
The next day, Anna and Adam and I went to the beach. We went late but it was so nice. We lay there for a bit and swam a little. Anna and I noticed that there was a kite surfer getting ready to go do him things. We started watching him. He was literally flying. We were standing there breathless. We both said at the same time that it was our next sport. We started stalking him and made a pact that as soon as he was done we would go and talk to him and see if we could get lessons. We was in the water forever. While waiting, we started hearing drums and saw a group of Buddhist Krishnas walking on the tayelet (boardwalk) and beating their drums. We all walked over there and Anna started dancing to the beat with the Krishnas. I could have sworn she was going to run away with them. When they were done, so was the kite surfer! We picked up all our stuff and ran over like groupies to talk to him. We was so cool! He gave us his email address and said that he is at the beach a few times a week and maybe he could teach us. Wooooooow! After we were done, I realized that Baba Yaga was in that area so I came in to meet Sasha and apologize for not coming in last time. He was there, very laid back so we scheduled a new day for me to come in. It was a good day!
The next day, was the day of our 1st beach BBQ. Anna and I wanted to get some excercise beforehand so we rode to the beach and along the boardwalk and also picked up some things for the party. When we came back and we only had an hour to get ready and head back to the beach. We had a great outcome for the BBQ. We divided up the things for each house to bring. We were in charge of the meat so we brought veggie burgers and then other houses brought the alcohol and pitas and hummus. GREAT SUCCESS! It was a lot of fun.
After the BBQ a group of us decided to go to a house party in the city. We all rode our bikes into the center.
The house party was on a rooftop. While there weren't that many stories, the view was still incredible! We met some Americans and Israelis. All were very cool. We realized that it was almost midnight and our friend Nancy did not come on a bike so we had to get her on the bus before she turned into a pumpkin. We ran through the city and finally at 11:58 PM we got to the bus stop. Thank god there was another bus coming. When the bus finally got there, we tried asking if we could put our bikes on the bus and go too but the driver said no. So were off, biking across the city! Which is really not big, it's just intimidating thinking about it. Good times!
I ended up getting sick so I couldn't come into the restaurant again. I felt like an ass for flaking but I literally could not get out of bed. It was so annoying. I haven't had a fever in so long. So glad that it was in another country. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger right? Anyway, that whole day was shot I didn't do anything.
I got better the next day and rode by bike to Ulpan. It felt so good to be moving again. After I got back, I called Sasha. He didn't return my call for a few hours and when he finally did, I had given up on him at that point. He told me to come in at 6. So I got ready and went over there. He was cool. He said that he had a strong affinity for Taglit people, because he was not living with a girl from Taglit who had made Aliyah. It was a cute love story. Anyway, to make the long story short, he told me that because I don't speak Hebrew, I cannot come near a table, however, he would start me out as a bartender so that I could make drinks for the servers. They don't get tipped out at that place so the bartenders make 30 NIS hour, which is roughly $8/hr. Money that I don't have so it's better than nothing. He told me to come in for an "audition" the next day.
The next day, I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. When I called it back, it turned out to be a guy named Eitan, a friend of Kimberly's. He called to invite me to a concert....of....Idan Raichel. An amazing Israeli artist. Ben actually gave me his CD the night before I left Israel and my family and friends will back me up when I say that I listened to that CD for pretty much three months before I came back to Israel. It was meant to be. Problem: I had to be at BY that night and didn't know what time I was getting out of there and it was also my friend's birthday celebration that night. I politely declined the invitation but was so bothered by it because I so badly wanted to go!!!!!!! When I got home from the beach, Eitan called again and I decided that I NEEDED to go and would figure everything else out later.
I got ready to go to work and went to the bus stop and then realized because it was yet another holiday, Simcha Torah, the busses stopped running. So I walked a little bit and caught a cab. When I got to the restaurant everyone introduced themselves in Russian. It was super weird. I haven't been around Russian young adults in like ever. A couple of people in Tucson and Phoenix here and there but not 15-20 of them! The job is ok, mostly opening champagne and pouring wine and making coffee. Really easy. I wasn't really feeling it. I think I finally got my closuse to the restaurant business. Being out of it for 2 years and realizing that I came to Israel to actually make a difference and do worthless stuff really came to play.
I told Sasha I had to be out by nine so I left and changed and Eitan came and got me and we went to the concert. I was getting so pumped!!!!! I am not even a fan of concerts but this was a completely different feeling. I have a really strong conncetion with the music of this person. It was really easy to talk to Eitan, meeting him for the first time. He was super cool! We met up with a couple of his friends and walked into the concert hall. It was an opera hall and we literally had the best seats in the house. We were about 18th row, dead center. He later told me that the lady who throws these concerts had given him the tickets. Yes and YES! I have never in my life enjoyed anything more. The songs were amazing. He uses different instuments and different languages. His project consists of like 15 people if not more, from other countries with different skillsets. MEULE!!!
I was in a trance for 2 1/2 hours, I am not even joking. Just talking about it gives me goose bumps. And the lyrics themselves, so deep and meaningful, oh man! You get the idea.
The next day, I was exhausted so we just chilled for the majority of the day and then decided to go out for sushi. I don't know why but the thought of sushi in Israel does not really appeal to me at all! Although I was finally ready to test it out! We sat outside and the night was great!
The sushi was ok. I miss RA, I'm not going to lie. After dinner we went to the Port and just walked around. That is one of my favorite areas. Restaurants and bars on the water. Can it get better than that?? No. Good night.
The next day, Nancy and I finally got ourselves together and went to the Shuk (market) near our house. It was so cheap and productive! Definitely going back there again. After the shuk, I biked down to the beach, put in my iPod and did some valuable alone time. I got to the beach and just sat there for a good hour. It was so amazing. I never get alone time these days so I really appreciate when I can get it. So thank you to my dear friend Kimberly, she told me that every Friday there is a drum concert at sunset at Chinky beach. I biked down there to get a good spot. The drummers were starting up and the sun was beginning to set. It's a bunch amateur drummers, using different drumming instruments, and even though there is a balagan of sounds, it starts sounding so good together. I stood on a rock and noticed that a couple of guys started taking pictures of me and the sunset behind me with theit SLRs.
Very flattering. Not going to lie. Anna and Jodie met me there as the music began to get louder and the beat started to make more and more sense. Anna and I let loose on the dancefloor where more people were getting crazyt. It was such a release and so fun! I can't wait to do it again!!!
Mitnadevet - Female volunteer
Mah kore? What's up? I know it hasn't been long since I last wrote but I am up at 5AM, I just got back from Jerusalem. I am trying to tire myself out so that I can stay up late tomorrow and sleep in late the next morning to be able to fast for Yom Kippur. My first fast ever. Might as well be in Israel, right?
So where did I leave off? Oh yes, we were starting Ulpan and volunteer touring the day after my last blog. On Sunday, we all went to meet at the Shapira Community Center, which was in our neighborhood. The community service track met up and we once again went over all the expectations and questions for the volunteering sessions. We did a little bit more teambuilding, which is pretty much redundant at this point but whatever. After a few hours of the session we had a two hour break and then we were supposed to go to Yafo for our first Ulpan lesson.
Sooooo I haven't seen Hebrew for about 16 years. When we moved to the states I went to a Hebrew school; I was exposed to two languages, English and Hebrew, based on some common sense that I had back in the day, I chose the one that was a little bit higher on the priority list. Basically, as far as the Hebrew goes, I was starting from scratch. I put myself in the beginner class because that is where I belong, however, I am picking it up quickly, so far the language is not that bad. Conjugating is pretty good and because Ben has been teaching me a lot, I feel good about some vocab. Basically, hakol sababa. Everything is cool. If you know that term, you're set in Israel. Memorize this term!!
In addition to Ulpan, which is at night, we have been touring the volunteer places. We are covering about 3-4 a day. Back at the Kibbutz, we were given a packet of 23 volunteer assignments and we checked off the ones that we were interested in visiting. I checked off about 12 and I have seen about 4-5 so far. The one that I like the most so far is the Food Distribution Center. It is basically a food bank, also they create hot lunches for the kids in day care and ship out 700 boxes of food a month, and the boxes are filled with 2 weeks worth of food. I am sure that I can use my process improvement skills and make that bank run more efficiently. Maybe Amex wasn't a complete waste of time. Roberto - you should be proud of me :) My roomie Lisa is also interested in doing this assignment, so together we will kick some butt. There is another couple of places that seemed pretty cool. One is called ARDC, they need translators, mostly French and Spanish to help out with refugee and asylum seeker issues. The other one is an assignment which is called Brit Olam, where you assist pregnant refugee women deal with pregnancy or abortion. In most cases they don't speak Hebrew or English so it is VERY hard for them, especially being pregnant in a foreign country. That is where we would step in - people always love when they have something to lean on.
On Wednesday we went into the city to get my friend's nose pierced. I am not going to lie but the idea has been crossing my mind for about 6 years now. Don't be surprised if I come back with a piercing, but I guess I am old enough to make those decisions now. Ha ha. Anyway, after that, Ben met up with us and we walked around Dizengoff, a very ritzy part of TLV. Then we went to some bars and called it a night.
The next day, Thursday the 16th, we met at the Central Bus Station and took a bus to Jerusalem. We were going to do the Slichot tour - which means forgiveness and repentment (chuva). A tour guide greeted us and took us around the Old City Jerusalem. It was gorgeous and packed with soooo many people. Makes sense because Yom Kippur is one of the biggest holidays in Israel. I learned a new custom - religious Jews take out their sins on chickens and they spin live chickens over their heards. I think it's called Kaparah. GROSS! That made me sick, seriously. We went on top of King David's tomb, a very memorable place for me, and I am sure for the other B-right people. The vibe was different. This was not part of the B-right program, I was once again living in Israel, and even though I was with a large group of people, it felt different.
I started feeling the excitement in the air, and I knew that we were getting closer to the Kotel - Wailing Wall. The tour came to an end at the perfect spot that overlooks the area. As I looked out there, there were thousands of people at the Wall, unimaginable sight that you only see in photos. Here is one to describe what I saw.
At midnight of the 17th, it was Lisa's birthday, so a group of us decided to stay out in Jerusalem and celebrate. The streets were packed! It was so alive! We went down some street that was all pubs and clubs. We picked the one where you get a free hookah when you buy drinks.
We had a great time at the pub and then went dancing. Decided to call it a night when the sun was about to rise. We all fell asleep in the Sheirut and woke up when we pulled up to the bus station. Our friend Anna was supposed to get change back from the driver but he accidentally gave the change to someone else. So our friend Jorai, who is half Israeli and speaks Hebrew pretty well started yelling/speaking to the driver which resulted to the driver chasing us out of the Sheirut and the bus station because he thought we were lying. I am still cracking up just thinking about the situation. Oh Israel. That night/morning, I went to sleep at 7AM. That was the Eve of Yom Kippur - we all chilled out, until it was time to go to a unique service by the Yeshiva on the rooftop in the central TLV. One of the Israeli soldiers led the way to the rooftop, on the way there he took us through the poorest part of TLV, quite a disturbing sight - people sifting through trash, trying to sell stolen goods, trash everywhere, just very eye opening. Interestingly enough right after we were out of the poor area, we went into one of the richest areas, so it was not surprising at all when Oren, our soldier, told us that there is a lot of tension between those two areas.
The prayer service was pretty cool. I really just went for the ambiance, and nothing else. You could see all of TLV from this place. It was gorgeous. TLV shut down at sundown that day, so the city was completely quiet. Only people on bicycles were on the road. During breaks in the service, we heard nothing but the voices of the kids outside. It was amazing. After the service, we decided to walk around the city. We walked to the boardwalk, kids were riding on the roads, people were walking in the middle of the street. It was so awesome! We all took a picture with a bunch of us sitting in the middle of the road under a street light. Oh by the way, at that point, we were already fasting. I was already hungry. It was reverse psychology.
We walked to Ben Yehuda - one of my favorite streets. People were sitting in the middle of the street, praying and just hanging out. RIDICULOUS!!!! Walked straight to the boardwalk and onto the beach. There were 7 of us walking around and me, Anna, Adam and Jorai decided to go night swimming. So we got to down to our undergarments and ran into the water. First time for everything I guess! The water was amazing! We stayed in there for about 20 minutes and then it got cold so we all scattered into our own places on the beach and changed. Of course, there is no such thing as a dark spot on the TLV beach because the lights from the city are so strong, oh well!
We started walking toward Yafo on the boardwalk and then we ran into our two other roomies, on their bikes. I took one of their bikes for a joyride and realized how interesting it will be for me to get on my own bike, for the first time in like 12 years! No joke! We parted ways and continued walking until we saw a playground with the coolest swing EVER! Instead of vertical, usual swinging, it was made up of a long thick beam that was made out of rope and it was swinging sideways. Adam, Dyana and I jumped on and then seconds later, 3 kids jumped onto the swing! It was so cute! They were screaming in Hebrew and I only understood parts of it. They had been screaming menduza, which we later found out that shmenduza means fatso. They were from the Phillipines but you could tell that they weren't born here by the way they were speaking Hebrew; their rrrrrrr's rolled differently. I got off the swing because my arms started hurting and I overheard a conversation in Spanish. Ahhhhh music to my ears! I asked the lady where she was from and she turned out to be Columbian who has been here for 22 years and her friends were Chilean. Random, but cool to use the Spanish!
We left the park and continued to walk home. Since we were walking through a more mixed population of Arabs and Jews, we saw a couple of cars on the road, which made me mad! Not mad for the diversity but mad that we couldn't peacefully walk in the middle of the street anymore. When we got home and I tried to stay up pretty late so that I could sleep in late through the fast.
I woke up at like 12:30PM, which was probably the latest that I have slept in. My friends were watching SATC in the living room and were claiming that it was getting them through the fast. We all just chilled the rest of the day. We were planning on making our break fast meal. The day before the stores closed we got mango, watermellon, plums, apples, bananas and Challah and eggs. We were going to make french toast and fruit salad. The thought of that was making my mouth water. The fast was supposed to be broken at 6:15PM on Sept 18th, but I broke it with a Jelly Belly at 6:07, no big deal, this was my first fast and I would say I did pretty damn well! We divided into teams and started making the food.
We brought everything out to the terrace and had an amazing meal together. After the meal, our roomie Leah brought our her guitar and we sang for a good hour. It was so much fun! What a great way to celebrate a holiday, especially for me! Gamar chatima tova! May you have a good year and be inscribed in the book of G-d. No I did not become religious but it is a cultural thing here so it pays to know this!
So where did I leave off? Oh yes, we were starting Ulpan and volunteer touring the day after my last blog. On Sunday, we all went to meet at the Shapira Community Center, which was in our neighborhood. The community service track met up and we once again went over all the expectations and questions for the volunteering sessions. We did a little bit more teambuilding, which is pretty much redundant at this point but whatever. After a few hours of the session we had a two hour break and then we were supposed to go to Yafo for our first Ulpan lesson.
Sooooo I haven't seen Hebrew for about 16 years. When we moved to the states I went to a Hebrew school; I was exposed to two languages, English and Hebrew, based on some common sense that I had back in the day, I chose the one that was a little bit higher on the priority list. Basically, as far as the Hebrew goes, I was starting from scratch. I put myself in the beginner class because that is where I belong, however, I am picking it up quickly, so far the language is not that bad. Conjugating is pretty good and because Ben has been teaching me a lot, I feel good about some vocab. Basically, hakol sababa. Everything is cool. If you know that term, you're set in Israel. Memorize this term!!
In addition to Ulpan, which is at night, we have been touring the volunteer places. We are covering about 3-4 a day. Back at the Kibbutz, we were given a packet of 23 volunteer assignments and we checked off the ones that we were interested in visiting. I checked off about 12 and I have seen about 4-5 so far. The one that I like the most so far is the Food Distribution Center. It is basically a food bank, also they create hot lunches for the kids in day care and ship out 700 boxes of food a month, and the boxes are filled with 2 weeks worth of food. I am sure that I can use my process improvement skills and make that bank run more efficiently. Maybe Amex wasn't a complete waste of time. Roberto - you should be proud of me :) My roomie Lisa is also interested in doing this assignment, so together we will kick some butt. There is another couple of places that seemed pretty cool. One is called ARDC, they need translators, mostly French and Spanish to help out with refugee and asylum seeker issues. The other one is an assignment which is called Brit Olam, where you assist pregnant refugee women deal with pregnancy or abortion. In most cases they don't speak Hebrew or English so it is VERY hard for them, especially being pregnant in a foreign country. That is where we would step in - people always love when they have something to lean on.
On Wednesday we went into the city to get my friend's nose pierced. I am not going to lie but the idea has been crossing my mind for about 6 years now. Don't be surprised if I come back with a piercing, but I guess I am old enough to make those decisions now. Ha ha. Anyway, after that, Ben met up with us and we walked around Dizengoff, a very ritzy part of TLV. Then we went to some bars and called it a night.
The next day, Thursday the 16th, we met at the Central Bus Station and took a bus to Jerusalem. We were going to do the Slichot tour - which means forgiveness and repentment (chuva). A tour guide greeted us and took us around the Old City Jerusalem. It was gorgeous and packed with soooo many people. Makes sense because Yom Kippur is one of the biggest holidays in Israel. I learned a new custom - religious Jews take out their sins on chickens and they spin live chickens over their heards. I think it's called Kaparah. GROSS! That made me sick, seriously. We went on top of King David's tomb, a very memorable place for me, and I am sure for the other B-right people. The vibe was different. This was not part of the B-right program, I was once again living in Israel, and even though I was with a large group of people, it felt different.
I started feeling the excitement in the air, and I knew that we were getting closer to the Kotel - Wailing Wall. The tour came to an end at the perfect spot that overlooks the area. As I looked out there, there were thousands of people at the Wall, unimaginable sight that you only see in photos. Here is one to describe what I saw.
At midnight of the 17th, it was Lisa's birthday, so a group of us decided to stay out in Jerusalem and celebrate. The streets were packed! It was so alive! We went down some street that was all pubs and clubs. We picked the one where you get a free hookah when you buy drinks.
We had a great time at the pub and then went dancing. Decided to call it a night when the sun was about to rise. We all fell asleep in the Sheirut and woke up when we pulled up to the bus station. Our friend Anna was supposed to get change back from the driver but he accidentally gave the change to someone else. So our friend Jorai, who is half Israeli and speaks Hebrew pretty well started yelling/speaking to the driver which resulted to the driver chasing us out of the Sheirut and the bus station because he thought we were lying. I am still cracking up just thinking about the situation. Oh Israel. That night/morning, I went to sleep at 7AM. That was the Eve of Yom Kippur - we all chilled out, until it was time to go to a unique service by the Yeshiva on the rooftop in the central TLV. One of the Israeli soldiers led the way to the rooftop, on the way there he took us through the poorest part of TLV, quite a disturbing sight - people sifting through trash, trying to sell stolen goods, trash everywhere, just very eye opening. Interestingly enough right after we were out of the poor area, we went into one of the richest areas, so it was not surprising at all when Oren, our soldier, told us that there is a lot of tension between those two areas.
The prayer service was pretty cool. I really just went for the ambiance, and nothing else. You could see all of TLV from this place. It was gorgeous. TLV shut down at sundown that day, so the city was completely quiet. Only people on bicycles were on the road. During breaks in the service, we heard nothing but the voices of the kids outside. It was amazing. After the service, we decided to walk around the city. We walked to the boardwalk, kids were riding on the roads, people were walking in the middle of the street. It was so awesome! We all took a picture with a bunch of us sitting in the middle of the road under a street light. Oh by the way, at that point, we were already fasting. I was already hungry. It was reverse psychology.
We walked to Ben Yehuda - one of my favorite streets. People were sitting in the middle of the street, praying and just hanging out. RIDICULOUS!!!! Walked straight to the boardwalk and onto the beach. There were 7 of us walking around and me, Anna, Adam and Jorai decided to go night swimming. So we got to down to our undergarments and ran into the water. First time for everything I guess! The water was amazing! We stayed in there for about 20 minutes and then it got cold so we all scattered into our own places on the beach and changed. Of course, there is no such thing as a dark spot on the TLV beach because the lights from the city are so strong, oh well!
We started walking toward Yafo on the boardwalk and then we ran into our two other roomies, on their bikes. I took one of their bikes for a joyride and realized how interesting it will be for me to get on my own bike, for the first time in like 12 years! No joke! We parted ways and continued walking until we saw a playground with the coolest swing EVER! Instead of vertical, usual swinging, it was made up of a long thick beam that was made out of rope and it was swinging sideways. Adam, Dyana and I jumped on and then seconds later, 3 kids jumped onto the swing! It was so cute! They were screaming in Hebrew and I only understood parts of it. They had been screaming menduza, which we later found out that shmenduza means fatso. They were from the Phillipines but you could tell that they weren't born here by the way they were speaking Hebrew; their rrrrrrr's rolled differently. I got off the swing because my arms started hurting and I overheard a conversation in Spanish. Ahhhhh music to my ears! I asked the lady where she was from and she turned out to be Columbian who has been here for 22 years and her friends were Chilean. Random, but cool to use the Spanish!
We left the park and continued to walk home. Since we were walking through a more mixed population of Arabs and Jews, we saw a couple of cars on the road, which made me mad! Not mad for the diversity but mad that we couldn't peacefully walk in the middle of the street anymore. When we got home and I tried to stay up pretty late so that I could sleep in late through the fast.
I woke up at like 12:30PM, which was probably the latest that I have slept in. My friends were watching SATC in the living room and were claiming that it was getting them through the fast. We all just chilled the rest of the day. We were planning on making our break fast meal. The day before the stores closed we got mango, watermellon, plums, apples, bananas and Challah and eggs. We were going to make french toast and fruit salad. The thought of that was making my mouth water. The fast was supposed to be broken at 6:15PM on Sept 18th, but I broke it with a Jelly Belly at 6:07, no big deal, this was my first fast and I would say I did pretty damn well! We divided into teams and started making the food.
We brought everything out to the terrace and had an amazing meal together. After the meal, our roomie Leah brought our her guitar and we sang for a good hour. It was so much fun! What a great way to celebrate a holiday, especially for me! Gamar chatima tova! May you have a good year and be inscribed in the book of G-d. No I did not become religious but it is a cultural thing here so it pays to know this!
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