Fat Meir

Today, I woke up a bit later than usual and went to a soup kitchen to volunteer with Chanya, Guy, Anna, and Chip.  The guy there is called "Meir the Shamen" (Fat Meir) because he used to be fat.  Now, he's fairly fit and has us make sandwiches for hungry kids.  He also made us shakshuka (kind of like the hashbrowns of eggs); it was my first time eating it since I've been here and it was absolutely fantastic.  I've noticed (and this was evident with Meir) that if I speak to an Israeli in Hebrew, and they know I'm American, it'll take them a while to be comfortable enough to speak with me in Hebrew--they'll try, even if they can't at all, to speak English with me as much as possible until we reach the point of no return, where all they speak is Hebrew.

The reason I went to this today instead of my normal volunteering (at the school) is because Year Course chose me and several others to be interviewed by a TV station for a program they're doing about American Jews in Israel.  I ended up making sandwiches at a table with Chanya while a rambunctious, bald man asked us questions about the program and what it was like to be a Jew in America.  They put make up on me before the interview--I don't wanna talk about it.

After, we met up with some other people who had been chosen to be interviewed, and we sat in a circle in a park nearby singing and talking a little more to the cameras. It was pretty cool, hopefully I'm going to get a DVD of the program when it's edited later on.

Then I returned to the apartment and had a delicious lunch of pita and kebab, probably one of the best lunches I've had yet.  We then went to classes (Sheldon's Arab-Israeli Conflict class is interesting, but I may switch out of David Project--we'll see).  After, Emilie, Nathan, Cera and I (mostly I) called up some different people to see about the possibility of working with Darfuris in the area for Garin Tzedek--we might make some good headway, we're supposed to have a meeting with a leader of the Darfuri community on Tuesday.

Shortly after, we had to go back to Ulpan to hear Barbara Goldstein lecture us about the medical clown at Hadassah hospital.  She was boring, but then he was funny.  I guess it's a fairly important job, but kind of a luxury, to be honest.

Then Scott and I went on a jog, and then I had dinner.  That was my day.  I hope you had/will have/are having a good one!