Dinner at Tom's

Monday morning, I went to Sharet elementary school to work with Israeli kids on English once again.  Something I need to make sure I do before I leave is to get a picture with Ronit, their teacher, and also to get a picture of all of them when she asks who wants to go out of class with me.  They always jump up and yell at her that they want to leave, sticking one of their fingers up in the air (I'm fairly certain this is the way Israelis are taught to raise their hands).  How crazy the kids get is almost surreal.

After volunteering, I returned home and had a quick lunch.  A couple days ago, Tomer, Roie, Ephy and I all went grocery shopping together for the first time in a while.  As we passed by the witch, we put our hands on each other's shoulders and made a choo-choo train to see what she said.  All she did was stare at us and (I'm certain) curse every one of us with some evil witch spell.  Tomer tried to say "shalom" to her, but, as usual, she just glared at him.  I've decided that sometime in the next two weeks I will go and ask her who she is and why she is always in front of the police station.  I demand answers, even if it means being hexed.

After lunch, I worked with Laura and Cera on volunteering with Garin Tzedek in Arad.  Nathan came over and he and I worked some more on our project before going to Ulpan.  We did a worksheet about different forms of the word "because" in Hebrew, something which I was previously completely ignorant of--apparently, there are some that are only used in a positive connotation, some in only a negative, and one that is only used when discussing holidays.  Weird.  I  had to leave Ulpan a bit early to set up for my David Project project, which was a play about how to raise awareness about a nuclear Iran on an apathetic campus.  At the end of the play, we simulated an evacuation into a shelter with air raid sirens.  The presentations were pretty much what I expected, and lived up exactly to the David Project.  Oh well.  At least it is almost over now.

Monday night was a disappointment--the tzofim had to cancel the movie night because the projector was locked up, so Nathan and I spent the entire night working on our project.  Lame.

Tuesday I woke up at 10 or so to go down to the Ulpan at 10:30.  We had a סיכום sikkum (closing discussion) about our volunteering placements here, and wrote letters to our coordinators.  I wrote mine to Ronit all in Hebrew, although I hope the spelling mistakes don't make it illegible.  After this, I returned home for a bit before going on the Migrant Workers siyur.  We were lead around the neighborhood of the תחנת מרכזית, the central bus station, by a woman named Yael from an organization named "Mesila" that wants to help the migrant workers (who are often illegal immigrants) and refugees who are here receive their basic human rights.  In some ways, it kind of reminded me of what Garin Tzedek is doing, but on a bigger scale and in a slightly different way.  The siyur was actually fairly mundane, as walking tour siyurim tend to be.  Afterwards, Nathan and I looked for some clothes to work on a costume for the talent show (which he and I are hosting, we just found out the other day when they were handing out flyers with this information).  We tried to buy a suit jacket from a guy, and he started at 350 shekels, claiming that it usually went for 8 or 9 hundred.  We got him down to 100 shekels, but I still didn't want to spend that much money on it--it is only 1/4th of the costume.  So we left.

When we got back to Bat Yam, I realized that I'd forgotten my apartment keys, so I was locked out and Nathan and I just messed around with this cat outside of my apartment before I had to go back into Tel Aviv to volunteer with the Mohammed family.  Before that, however, I was called by the Ma'ariv Newspaper for Bat Yam and Holon.  They did an interview with me over the phone about volunteering and Year Course in general, which was pretty cool...I hope I get a copy of this article, though.  When I did that TV thing earlier on in the year, I was promised a DVD of it or something, which I am yet to receive.

I met Cera in Tel Aviv and went to the Mohammed house, but, since I was locked out of my apartment earlier, we were missing most of our materials.  Thus we did a sundry activities with them before we left.  One of the things we did was have them draw a person and talk about the different parts of them in English--Musa drew a picture of me which is not too flattering, but funny nonetheless.  I finally got some photos with the family, which I will be sure to put up later.  We then went to the family center and I taught the adult Darfuris a fairly difficult English concept: the words as soon as, until, before, when, if, get, make, take, and do.  They seemed to understand it all by the end, which, of course, made me ecstatic.  They could even use the words in sentences of their own construction, which, when it comes down to it, is really what it's all about.

Right after this, Nofar and her boyfriend picked me up (along with Oren) from the central bus station, and we all went to Tom's house in Holon, where Karin and Liat already were.  We had a nice dinner and talked about many goings-on, as well as, of course, reminiscing some about camp.  It was one of the best nights I've had in a couple weeks.  I just enjoy the company of people older than me more than of those my same age, I think.  In any case, we laughed a lot, Karin and I learned a lot of new words in Hebrew, and Tom got a chance to come up and see my apartment when he drove me back.  Best of all, there were some burecases left over from dinner, so Tom gave Karin and me them to take back to the apartment--IN TUPPERWARE!  (I'm all about getting tupperware to take back to the apartment).  It was a great night, all around.

When I got back, Nathan and I finished our project, and today we present.  After today, I have my Ulpan final tomorrow, and then have to write essays for the final in Sheldon's class...and then we leave Bat Yam!  I am feeling a mix of anticipation and anxiety about our leaving.  I'm going to try not to think about it and just squeeze as many good memories out of here as I can before I leave.  I need to go to class soon, so have a good day everyone!