Unpacking, Seven Hour Lunches, and Small Israeli Children

Hey Everyone,

Last time I checked in, I was explaining how incredibly fun our Southern Tiyul was and beaming with excitement as I was writing it from the Kibbutz. I didn't actually tell you anything about the Kibbutz, though since I was waiting for this post. Here it is: WEEK ONE ON THE KIBBUTZ! And the funniest part is the very end.

On Wednesday, we had some time to say goodbye to our friends in the other Nativ groups, and then we got on a bus which took us to our respective destinations. We showed up to Kibbutz Ein Tzurim only to see something that I haven't seen in months: grass. The Kibbutz is green, beautiful, rainy (even though Israeli is in a drought), and massive. But little of that actually mattered on our first day as the majority of it was spent finding our bags and unpacking into our new rooms. On Wednesday night, the majority of the group wound up in our common room playing board games and hanging out. It was very low key and very fun, and I thought to myself that if this was to be my night time activity for the next four months, I would be more than OK.

On Thursday we had a very open day. We woke up for t'fillot, had breakfast, and then had the rest of the day to unpack. After lunch, a group of about 15 of us decided to go to the local shopping center in order to buy more storage space and various things for our room and were hit in the face with the realization that we aren't in Jerusalem, a major metropolitan city, anymore.

We walked out of our Kibbutz onto the main road knowing that any bus going in a certain direction would take us to the place, and we naively assumed that a bus would come very often as this bus stop had a sign for Jeruslaem, Tel Aviv, and Be'er Sheva, three major Israeli cities. We could not have been more wrong. After over an hour of waiting, a bus finally showed up, and we piled on en route to what would become a very successful shopping trip. I know that this doesn't sound that exciting or that dramatic, but believe me: after months of walking outside of our building and being half a block away from a station that has buses running every two minutes, this was quite an eye opening experience. The shopping center itself wasn't that exciting, but I can tell you that a few rooms left with pet fish.

We unpacked some more that afternoon, and then at night, I played some basketball with some friends and played some more board games in the common room. You'll notice this pop up as a trend.

On Friday, I woke up to do Zumba (a latin dance workout), had lunch, finished unpacking, and then got ready for Shabbat. Throughout the day, All I could think about was just how low key and laid back life on the kibbutz seems to be. Everything is so chill. After a very nice Kabbalat shabbat and dinner, we played some more games during the evening. It was a great way to begin the first Shabbat on the Kibbutz.

On Shabbat we woke up, had services, and then a few of us got to meet our host families for lunch. I was one of the lucky few who (along with another girl) is to be hosted by this woman named Rivka for the next few months. Lunch on the Kibbutz is early, so we got to her home at about quarter to 11. We left at quarter after five. Let me explain why: Rivka is an Australian firecracker in her mid 60s whose nearly 90 year old mother lives across the street on the kibbutz. She has four grown children, has done/learned everything in her lifetime, and still teaches English both in private lessons and to Autistic kids in a nearby town of Ashkelon. She was SO cool.

We went straight from lunch to dinner. Oops...

On Saturday night, we met and learned where we would be working for the next few months and which various committees we would be on. It was a surprisingly tense room when they announced which jobs we would be doing. I got exactly what I asked for: a job in the fields. However, since farming doesn't start until mid march, I was assigned to do various busy work around the gan (preschool) for the first month. Afterwards, we discussed Kibbutz group committees, and I joined the BBQ va'ad (committee) and the green va'ad.

On Sunday, we started work. I was raking and cleaning the area around the 1-2 year olds. Every time I walked by the kids, I started playing with them, talking to them, and making them laugh. The teachers asked us if we wanted to go on the walk around the kibbutz with the kids, and obviously, we joined them. These children are SO cute. One boy had started walking a week prior and I was helping him; one girl's nose was constantly dripping all over everything and every time I touched her face with a tissue she giggled; all of the kids jumped around in puddles as though it was the first time they had ever seen water. It was SO FUN. When the teachers asked me why I didn't ask to work in the gan, I didn't know the answer. Sure enough, later that day, I asked to be perminantly switched into the gan, into the same class of 1-2 year olds since they were amazing and I had so much fun with them.

I got off of work at around noon, had lunch, and went straight to a nap since I was going to wake up at 1:30 am to watch the Superbowl.

When I woke up on Monday morning, I looked at my phone to see that it was 6:45 and was FURIOUS at myself for missing it. My alarm went off, but I didn't wake up to see the game. I was upset, but I got over it since I was off to work with small children all morning.

After breakfast, I went to the gan and was greeted by the teachers with hugs and many of the students with hugs as well. Some of the kids were deathly afraid of me (since they hate strangers and hadn't gotten to know me the next day), but over the course of the day they got used to me. I left them after putting them down for the nap and was done for the day.

The funniest (but most frustrating) part of the week came when we had to do laundry. While the kibbutz is mostly privatized, laundry is still done by laundry workers, but we had to sort it to allow for them to do it the way they wanted to. First, we had to label every single article of our clothing with our specific number: every sock; every pair of of underwear; every Hanes white tee; everything. Then we were told that we had to sort everything into two bags: socks/underwear and whites, with everything else going into a separate big bag to be sorted later. When we got to the laundry, we put everything into large buckets only to be informed that we had done it completely incorrectly, and we were forced to do it again. Though frustrating, it was kind of funny.

Upon leaving the laundry, me and 2 other BBQ va'ad members began prepping and cooking for the BBQ. Though it took us about two hours to get food on the table for everyone, we were able to grill in the rain and make some VERY good chicken. After dinner, we watched the Superbowl episode of Glee (which was incredible), and then went to bed.

This morning we had an introduction to what Tuesdays would look like, and now I'm off to Jerusalem to meet with the Director of Ramah California and see some Nativers from other groups.

That's it for now,
Becca

A Week in the Desert (POSTED FROM THE KIBBUTZ!!!!!)

Hey Everyone,

Last time I checked in with you all, I was preparing to leave Jerusalem, something that I never thought would actually happen. We spent a week in the south of Israel, and that is what I am going to talk about now. 

On Thursday (a week from today), we woke up at the crack of dawn, prayed, and headed off to the area around Ein Gedi (a beautiful spring next to the Dead Sea) and did a hike down there. The hike was uneventful, but pretty anyways. Here is a picture.

 

From there, we drove over to a Bedouin tent where the group spent the night. When I say that we went to Bedouin tent, I am misleading you heavily, because all of these Bedouin tents are set up for tourists who want to get the ‘real Bedouin experience.’ Since Bedouins now live in villages and no longer wander (at least in the south of Israel), that experience isn’t really possible. It was a fun night anyways. It started off with us taking a camel ride. Though I thought it was quite fun, the boys among us did not stop complaining for the most part since apparently it was not very comfortable for them. My partner and I named our rebelious camel ‘Uncle Buck’ since he was constantly trying to buck us off his back. It was terrifying, but quite amusing. Say hi to Uncle Buck.

After our camel ride, we had a delicious dinner, a fun bonfire, and then we went to sleep. The highlight of my night was the walk a friend and I took out of the tent area and down the road a ways in order to look at the beautiful stars. It was a cloudless and clear night, and as we were lying on the desert ground, we saw a comet that appeared to move in slow motion across the sky. It was AMAZING!  

The next morning, we woke up, had breakfast, and got ready for another hike. I don't remember what it was called, but it was a really pretty hike somewhere in the desert in the south.  It involved a lot of climbing over rocks and there were a few places with ropes and ladders, so it was really fun. Here is a picture, but to be honest, to you, it's going to look virtually the same as the pictures from every other desert hike I've showed you pictures from. 

After the hike, we went to Kibbutz Ketora in the beautiful Arava valley. People assume that everything in the south of Israel is a part of the Negev desert, but the Arava valley is actually the desert that is parallel to the negev desert. The kibbutz is incredibly close to the borders of both Egypt and Jordan.I'll take this time to mention that despite the events going on in Egypt right now, life in Israel has continued normally as though nothing is going on.

When we got there, it was roughly an hour before Shabbat began, so we had a mad scramble to get showered, dressed, and out the door. To say the least, getting four girls showered and dressed up in an hour is a virtually impossible task. We (mostly) succeeded though, and after a tour of the kibbutz, services, and a really good dinner, I went to bed, completely exhausted.

On Saturday, we woke up, went to services, and then took a walk to the Kibbutz's date tree grove. They have about 2,000 date palms (if I remember the number correctly) surrounded by a large number of donkeys which eat the dead leaves and fertilize the area (in addition to runoff from the cow area). After lunch and a series of games of the incredible game Set with a friend of mine, we did havdallah and then set off for what would become one of the most awkward (yet awesome) activities I have ever participated in: Shitsu Wholistic Massages at Kibbutz Lotan, a neighboring Kibbutz.

It was a roughly 45 minute long partner massage activity in which, without warning, we were instructed to massage people in ways that really seemed to invade all of our privacy. While it was entertaining to watch a group of 18 year olds pretend to take the activity seriously, it was frustrating since when taken seriously, this type of massage can actually be very relaxing (once you get over the initial awkwardness). When we got back to our Kibbutz, the game of soccer between a group of Nativers and some teens from the Kibbutz was still going, so I jumped in and played a bit. We got demolished, but it was fun to get back on the field anyways. The game ended at roughly 11:30 when the sprinklers went off.

On Sunday morning, we took a beautiful hike behind the kibbutz. It had a crazy uphill, but it led to some beautiful views. NOTE: If these pictures don't appear in the email version, click this link and read it from the actual blog site. http://www.beccarosenthal.blogspot.com/

 

Before I say what we actually did there, I'm going to mention that on our schedule, it said that we were going to be 'frolicking' in the dunes. To say the least, that's what we did. After getting lost on our way there (since every mountain in the desert looks the same and we hiked up one too early) we arrived at a massive dune with the softest sand I have ever encountered in my life. Though I had been there once before (when I was in Israel in 2008), it was incredibly fun. We spent a good two hours frolicking, wrestling [friendlily (I think that's a word) of course], running, rolling, burying ourselves, and having a general fun time. After leaving the dunes, we were surprised by a massive bonfire complete with my guitar (which I had put in a Kibbutznik's car without knowing why I was putting it there, s'mores, and a beautiful desert sunset. When we got back from the dunes, we had a BBQ dinner at Ketora's pub, and had another very low key night. Here are some pictures from the dunes and the sunset. Unfortunately, I didn't get any at the bonfire.

The next morning, we packed up and left Ketora en route to a beautiful hike in the Eilat mountains. Though I could say that it looked like every other hike in the desert, realistically, it was a little bit different. Instead of the mountains being primarily limestone, the mountains were mostly granite, so the color was a bit darker. The hike provided us with a view overlooking the city of Eilat, the Red Sea, the Jordanian City of Akoba (with its MASSIVE Jordanian flag blowing in the breeze), part of the Egyptian Sinai Desert and a lot of haze that blocked the view of Saudi Arabia. We also saw some marks left by Nativers before us. Here are some pictures from the hike.

You can see how the granite and limestone mix within the mountain range. It's quite beautiful.

That evening, we took a boat ride around the gulf of Eilat. It turned into an epic Bar-Mitzvah-like dance party where everyone acted like a total fool. We watched the sunset from the boat, saw a few dolphins, and enjoyed a glorious sea breeze. After the ride, we were given some money for dinner and free time in Eilat to explore the coastal (tourist) city, especially the boardwalk.

The next morning at the crack of dawn, I woke up to hike Har Shlomo, a mountain in the Eilat Mountains that was to be the most difficult hike of Southern Tiyul. As we hiked up the peaks of the mountains playing every trail game you can imagine (Geography, Ghost, Contact, and more), we felt as though we were in the Lord of teh Rings movies hiking up Mount Doom. Eventually, though, we did reach the top of the mountain. The view was out of control all the way up the mountain and from the top.

All of the kibutzniks who did the hard hike of the day.

After a delicious post-hike-lunch, we got ready to go to the beach in Eilat where Nativ had set up for us to enjoy some water sports in the Red Sea: tubing, paddle boating, kayaking and Banana Boating. While it was by no means a beautiful day for water sports as it was foggy and cold, we had a total blast playing in the very salty warm water. We then had dinner back at the hotel and a free night in Eilat. 

What made this night significant was that it was our last night together as a 91person program (or at least last one for a long time) as the next day we were splitting up into our three groups. It was a very fun night. It started off with a friend and I getting ear piercings (because we had been talking about it for a long time), and ended with me and two of my best friends standing in the wake on the shore with our feet in the sea talking about life. It was a great way to both end the tiyul and end our time all together.

Wednesday morning was weird. We packed up and gathered in the lobby as a group of 91. While we all knew that eventually we would be splitting up and that eventually we would be volenteering in really cool other places, very few of us actually internalized that this would all mean leaving some of our closest friends behind in other places. It was a very intense and huggy half hour as we all said our "See you later" goodbyes, and then we were all on three seperate busses.

One bus drove about two hours to Yerucham.

One bus drove about 7 hours to Karmiel

My bus landed about 3 hours later at Kibbutz Ein Tzurim, the place that I will be calling home for the next four months.

I'm going to save talking about the first few days on the kibbutz to my next post as this one has taken me a total of three days to write, but until then, have a great Shabbat, and be aware that I have a lot more time this semester to talk, email, skype, and generally communicate with people (though who knows what that's going to mean for blogging).

Shabbat Shalom,

Becca