"You are not leaving now."

On Monday night, after Ulpan, lots of people went over to Livorno 11 to watch "Adventureland."  Cera and I gave up on it, however, and we instead went for a walk as it began to rain, which was nice.  We had a pretty good long talk about morality, society, and perception before I headed home.  I ended up going to sleep fairly late that night, even though we had to be up and at Ulpan by 6:45 the next morning to leave for siyurim to the north.  I was initially supposed to be on a rappelling and hiking trip, but it got canceled on account of all of the rain in the days leading up to it.  Instead, we went to Rosh Hanikra and Acco (Acre).  This also ended up being pretty lame--Rosh Hanikra is a beautiful place next to the border with Lebanon that has many grottoes and caves next to the coast.  I went there on my Israel trip in the summer of 2008, and it was one of the coolest places I'd ever seen.  But, this time, it was closed due to all the rain in the past couple days--they said that the caves were flooded.  So we just sat outside of it for a little while, and took pictures of funny things:


After that, we went into Acco and basically spent the day chilling.  We had some time in the shuk before going to a tour of the old Turkish Bathhouse and some underground ruins.  It was pretty sweet.  At the shuk, Nathan, Ori, Ben and I bought matching flannel shirts:



After we returned from Acco, we went to a soccer game in Ramat Gan: Maccabi Haifa vs. Juventus.  Juventus won, but it was still a fun game--while I don't particularly like sports, it was an interesting experience:



I went home that night and did nothing particularly special, ended up sleeping over at Caf Tet Benovember 22, and woke up the next morning to return to my apartment and work on my Arab-Israeli conflict presentation with Nathan.  We ended up getting almost nothing done before going to class.  I did, however, do the dishes in my apartment.

Class on Wednesday got out pretty late, so Cera and I went almost immediately to the Muhammad house to work with Talal, Musa, and Shaima.  We played a memory game with English words, more "head, shoulders, knees and toes" as well as the hokey-pokie.  As we were about to leave, Musa said to me "אתם לא עוזבים עכשיו", "You (plural) are not leaving now."  It was touching that the kids never want us to leave--they often say this to us.  When we play the hokie-pokey with them, we do one at the end where you "put your whole self in" and then out, and then shake it all about, and the kids always crack up on the floor when I shake my whole self because I jump up and down.  It's satisfying to help kids who want to be helped.  It's still strange when I come in and they are sometimes watching Al-Jazeera, and I sometimes feel conflicted.  Regardless, I get a distinct sense that what I'm doing is very helpful.

After the Muhammad house, we went to the family center, where we met up with Nathan and Emilie to teach adult Darfuris English--this time, I sent them out in pairs with Cera, Nathan, and Emilie to work on conversational English.  This excites me, as we could start bringing a lot more people to help facilitate this on Wednesday nights, allowing more Year Coursers to volunteer hands-on with the Darfuris.  After this, the 4 of us went to a restaurant we've been looking for for a while called "24 Rupees."  It was a delicious Indian place that I am sure we'll return to sometime soon, and it was also cheap.  I will document it at the next available opportunity, as I will also do with Arlekino.  I need to make videos of these experiences before I leave.  We met some random people from Year Course 3 years ago who recently made Aliyah, which was pretty cool.  When we got home, I just went to sleep, because I had volunteering at the school on Thursday morning.

Thursday morning was business at usual at the school, except Melanie now volunteers there, and I have no clue where Lee went.  Melanie said she left her old school, where the kids had special needs, because a lot of the kids also had lice--she said that, to Israelis it seems, lice is not a big deal, and just a simple hygiene problem.  Anywho, after volunteering I came back to the apartment and made a quick lunch before heading to Ulpan early to help make signs for the Gan, although I personally didn't get around to making any (which is probably a good thing).  There was a disappointingly low turnout, we have to start thinking of how to get people involved again in Garin Tzedek.  I did, however, take some good pictures, and one of the best ones I've ever taken of a strange bug crawling on the ground:



I then went to Israel update with Noa, which ended up being an Israel downdate, as we talked about history.  It was interesting regardless, and a good review of Zionist history in general.  There was also falafel, which was nice.  Then we had Ulpan class, which was nothing special, but I am starting to read and write more and more quickly, which is exciting.  After Ulpan, I went back to my apartment before going to the Super Douche to by some materials for martinis for Ben Jirik's birthday.  I went for a run after this, and then Ben Jirik, Simon, Scott, and Nathan came over, and we all celebrated Ben's birthday with a martini toast.  We then went into Tel Aviv to go to Moses for Ben's birthday, which was, as always, delicious.  After, we went with Ethan Berman to the Flame (an interesting bar) for a bit before going back home.

This morning, I woke up at about 10 and Nathan came over.  My maternal grandfather, Saba Bruno, came at about 11 to take us up to my grandparents' place near Netanya.  We did some laundry, had lunch, and then took a nap.  When I awoke, my grandfather informed me that my paternal grandfather, Saba Shmulik, passed away today.  This is the first person in my family who I've actually known who's died...it's strange, one cannot hope to prepare themselves for the deaths of their predecessors, even though they are fairly inevitable.  We went and visited my dad's side of the family and I saw my paternal grandmother.  Shmulik died of a heart attack, and his wife has had heart problems for many years--somewhat somberly ironic, as my father is a heart doctor.  It's strange, I never want to feel too okay again after something like this happens, but I'm slowly coming to accept it.  This is not to say I'm not sad, but I'm happy that he lived a full life and didn't die suffering.  It would now appear as though much of my family will be coming here within a day or two for the funeral.  After I found out about his death, I went outside and said mourner's kaddish before we left--pretty much the first religious thing I have done in Israel since I arrived, excluding going to synagogue on Kol Nidre.  I saw him just two weeks ago, when we visited my cousin Dror's navy base.  I always had tremendous respect for Shmulik--he came from Austria to make aliyah to Israel, and helped found the nation.  He changed his last name to a more Israeli one (Eres) because he worked in the Israeli government abroad.  He had an amazing sense of humor and always made me feel at home in Israel.  שלום, חבר.

We then went to my Uncle Yuval's house for Shabbat dinner, and are now here.  Hopefully we'll get a lot of sleep tonight, something I have not done in a while.  שבת שלום, have a good one!