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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