Saturday, September 11, 2010

Start of the program in Kibbutz Ketura

Boker tov - Good morning. I want to apologize for the random timing of my blogs and the possible spelling errors. I am trying to catch up but it's hard because every day there are random time slots to write and because of the amount of things that I see, it's hard to write everything down, so hopefully you're not really confused thus far.

Aaaaaanyway, on Thursday, the day after Noa's party, Ben went to drop me off at Beit Daniel, a meeting spot for the Bina sponsored program, Tikkun Olam  - which means, repair the world, fitting right? Getting all my suitcases out of the car was a complete balagan, which in Russian and Hebrew means complete chaos. We finally wheeled my stuff into the room where a couple of Tikkun Olamers were already sitting. When I stumbled into the room, a girl jumped up and said, "aaaand that's Anna!" I facebook chatted a girl right before the trip and felt at ease because I felt like I knew someone from the prog before it even started.

More people started piling in and then the room was full. A few minutes later, our madrichim (guides) and volunteer coordinators, as well as some members of the center, came in and made some speeches to us and welcomed us. After the speeches, we started doing some ice breaker activities and then had lunch which was obviously falafel, hummus, salads, the usual yet very amazing staple to the Israeli diet. After the bonding time, we took all of our stuff and loaded in onto the bus which took us to Jaffa to drop off everything that we weren't going to take to the Kibbutz and then we were on our way.

The ride took 4 hours with a couple of stops made along the way, one in Be'er Sheva, sort of a craphole - hope I don't offend anyone when I say that, but it really is. It's mostly made up of millitary bases. As mentioned, when we made our stop at a gas station, it was filled with a sea of green of IDF soldiers. Oh yes. On the way to the Kibbutz Ketura, we talked to each other and got to know each other better. A large majority of the people in this group are younger, those who are post college but there are some people who are my age as well.

We got to the Kibbutz and a guy named David came up and greeted us. He was in charge of the introduction to the Kibbutz and he ensured that everything was taken care of for our stay. He welcomed us to the Kibbutz and then we had dinner and just layed on the grass and talked to each other. Later on we found out that there was a pub on the Kibbutz so the whole group went out and did some more team building.

The next few days included lots of food, personal talks with the madrichim, pool time and more food and naps. Basically we were vacationing on the Kibbutz. If I didn't mention it enough, they fed us CONSTANTLY. I think the fear of going hungry translates accross all Jewish cultures! We had some activites such as Jewish identity and Zionist presentation, the first showed a breakdown of where each person comes from based on the items they chose that represents their Jewish identity. The latter was a very interesting presentation, because it showed important figures in Israel's history whose lives were shaped into Zionism. David also talked to us about what it was like living on the Kibbutz. He has been there for 14 years, born and raised in New York. With the combination of his and his wife's income, they bring in $400/month. Mind you they don't have to pay for rent or food and no one really leaves the Kibbutz. You earn your life there by mainly picking dates and milking cows. A lot of other duties include working in the cafeteria, doing maintenence around the Kibbutz and other random things that we took for granted while we were there.

I met some cool 18 year old girls at the Kibbutz as well. They are called Garim. Most of them are 18 years old, who have granduated from high school, and are now using this time as a gap year before they go into the millitary and are using their time to volunteer. One of the girls is from Colorado and has been coming here since she was three years old so her Hebrew is awesome, something that made me very jealous. It was good to take myself out of my daily grind of dealing with people my age and see the world from someone's perspective who is younger but will probably see more than me before they get to be MY age. I figure I am using this time to catch up!

My two favorite experiences on the Kibbutz were the following. There was a day when we went on a hike which had a 60 degree inclines. We hiked up a windy rocky mountain until we finally got to the top.
Every time I do this, I realize how much I suck at hiking yet I still love to do it every time. At the top we saw our Kibbutz and many many date trees planted in perfect rows to the left of the Kibbutz. Our madricha, Elin, asked as where we thought Jordan was. Everyone pointed in a different direction, but she point East, past our Kibbutz. We were seeing Jordan from the view point. They said that there are no legal roads that go from Israel to Jordan boarder but there are backroads that are used for human trafficking and probably drug trafficking, so once again, no legal roads. We walked up there right as the sun was setting, so the Jordanian mountains were lit up red, it was gorgeous. We started our descend as it was getting dark. When we got back it was pitch black. OUr next assignments was to get into two groups (volunteer tracks) Jaffa and Tel Aviv and were going to cook dinner for everyone in the group.

My second and actually favorite hike was our done on our last night at the Kibbutz. We were going to the sand dunes, I was curious if we were going to go quading (kidding....sort of....) They warned all the contact wearers to take them out and put glasses on but I like to live life on the edge and decided that glasses did not match my desert attire so I decide to keep them in. We got dropped off literally in the middle of the desert. I took a picture of the empty creepy road. It was out of a movie. You will see. When we all got off the bus, our guide David from the Kibbutz informed us that the various rock formations we were seeing were temples made in the Stone Age. He also informed us that in the Stone Age, more people lived in that area than now....mixed emotions about that. After his little speech, we took off to ascend the mountain of rocks that would lead us into the dunes. We walked for about 20 minutes when all of a sudden we plateued (sp?) and in front of us was sand right out of a movie of the Sahari or the Gobi or whatever....with ripples and all. David started explaining something but no one was listening and I am pretty sure the only throughts that went running through our minds were all the possible ways to get down the hills of sand in front of us. Then he said that he was going to give us 30 minutes of free time to do whatever we wanted, dream come true!!



Some people literally rolled off the hills. Other dug themselves up in sand and if you were with the 4 of us, we started taking jumping pics in front of the sun and in the sand, which created great silhouette shots as well. To each their own but at the end, everyone had their fun. After 30 minutes, we gathered around David again and he gave us our next asssignment. He handed all of pieces of paper which he instructed not to open yet. He then gave us a blank piece of paper as well. He told us that we would each have to go and find a remote spot in the dunes. This would be our time to gather our thoughts and center ourselves. He told us to cherish this experience because this would be the last time in the next 5-10 months where would get this opportunity. He told us to just sit there and enjoy this amazing experience and think about everything that is going on in our lives. He told us that 15 minutes into our meditation sessions he would start singing a song and that is when we would open our pieces of paper and do as instructed - the answers to those questions would be read outloud to the group. Fifteen minutes from that he would sing another song and that is when we would write down on the blank piece of paper anything for ourselves, and these papers would be given to the madrichim and no one would read them.

On ready, set, go, we all scurried away to our own little spots in the dunes. At first I was really distracted, don't really know which what, because, let's be honest, I was in the middle of the Negev desert. But you know me and my ADD, we are international, so it does not matter where we are. I finally got into the zone and my head began to clear. I started going back and thinking what was the route of my return to Israel, why I needed this more than anything else and in awe I realized that I was back and ready to take on new challenges and opportunities that would be meeting me in the future.


I got carried away in thinking of how my life is going to change in the next 5 or more months, the possibilites were endles. My thoughts were interruped by a beautiful song that David started signing. I started following the described process. It was a much needed meditation session that no one gets to lose themselves in, especially not in the surroundings that were in. Amazing. No other wors needed to describe it.

As David sang the second song, which signified that it was time to go, all that we could see now are silhouettes of my peers in the dusk desert. It was a very calming experience. We all descended the dunes and walked for about ten minutes to a campsite where we cooked our own pitas, with the help of the Kibbutz members. The rest of the food was brought, amazing as always. We made our pitas, got our food and went to sit in a big circle on a Bedoin rug under the stars. Phenominal way to end the time at the Kibbutz and get ready for the next chapter! Random intterruption of the evening took place when we heard a loud thunderlike sound which was the same sound I heard when I was in North - IDF practicing dropping bombs. Interesting sound. Welcome to Israel!

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