...that have happened in the past couple of days.
But, before that, a sum-up of the rest of today--Eli came over for Mifgash Dira and we had a good talk. He told us about some people in our section he doesn't like and then said "I don't blame you guys for not having relationships like the other section did. The girls here are not so good." It was hilarious to hear him say this, it just seems way out of line. Regardless, I find myself liking him more and more. Then Jake and I went for a run through the desert, which was pretty cool, as we jogged up and down rocky, sand-covered hills a mere 2 minutes from our apartment. We then all went to Kfar Nokdim, a Bedouin tent nearby (Bedouins are nomadic Arabs who traveled in the Middle East region, but there aren't actually nomadic ones anymore). We got very sweet tea and music and a delicious dinner to commemorate the start of the section. And now, funny things:
Our apartment is huge and we are excited about it. It's not really a "year course" apartment, that is to say, I would live in an apartment like this if I were a normal person in Israel. It is on the 7th floor, so we have an elevator. This elevator is one of many in a fine fleet called "Schindler's Lifts." I doubt they meant to do this.
When we were first moving into the apartment, for our first dinner we made 150 hot wings. Afterwards, we got naked so we could enjoy all the space and being cleaning up a little bit. As we were naked, Simon and Ben leaned out the window of their room and yelled, then noticed that little children playing in a park under the window were staring up at them. I was moving the windows in the living room aside and then noticed that many of those same children were staring up at me. Several minutes later, as we were freaking out about having been seen naked through the window, a woman knocked on our door. Scott went to answer it and said "Just a sec, I'm putting clothes on," and she simply said "I know." She then proceeded to ask him for us not to be naked around the windows.
That is all for now. Take it easy!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Cecilia's Gan
Today I went to Cecilia's Gan for my first official day of volunteering. In the morning before I arrived, however, a man named Shai working with a premilitary program called me and wanted to do some volunteering with a group of his chanichim in Arad with the Sudanese. I'm pretty sure they're going to end up painting a mural over some graffiti somewhere with Sudanese in the community on December 16th, it should be pretty good. Anywho, Cecilia's Gan was excellent: not only did she give me some breakfast two hours in, but the kids were all very excited and fun-loving. I did, of course, have to get a couple of them to stop crying, but most of them just wanted to know what my ears or eyes or chin or nose were called, and wanted to be picked up. Here are several funny things that happened with the children today:
they consistently drooled, anywhere and everywhere
when I took them outside to a playground nearby, one of them just picked up a fistful of sand and ate it
one kid accidentally ran into another and then that one hit their head against a wall behind them
a kid touched my hair and then immediately screamed
two girls kept hitting my butt until I turned around, then ran away screaming--one of the girls hit me once in the nuts while I was turned around
All in all, it was a pretty good day. Garin Tzedek was also given Tuesday nights as a weekly night to plan activities, which should be excellent. I have to go clean up a bit now, because we have mifgash dira soon, but I hope you have a good one!
they consistently drooled, anywhere and everywhere
when I took them outside to a playground nearby, one of them just picked up a fistful of sand and ate it
one kid accidentally ran into another and then that one hit their head against a wall behind them
a kid touched my hair and then immediately screamed
two girls kept hitting my butt until I turned around, then ran away screaming--one of the girls hit me once in the nuts while I was turned around
All in all, it was a pretty good day. Garin Tzedek was also given Tuesday nights as a weekly night to plan activities, which should be excellent. I have to go clean up a bit now, because we have mifgash dira soon, but I hope you have a good one!
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Sheizaf 19 שיזף
Saturday night, Simon beat me at the weigh-in by 0.5%. Right before we got to the scale, I found out that he hadn't eaten or drank in the two days prior. Regardless, I lost 10 kilograms in the past months, so I'm pretty satisfied. We then went to Papagaio at Azrieli Towers, and had a delicious 159 shekel feast. We got the "Brazilian Table," which is essentially unlimited meat. It felt like a war, though, because they brought out carb-loaded appetizers and the shittier meat first in an attempt to get us to fill up on the cheaper things. We weren't fooled, however, and took every meat they offered us but only ate half of it. Simon tried to go puke in the middle of the meal in an attempt to get my money's worth, but couldn't bring himself to do it. Regardless, in the end, we felt quite accomplished. Afterwards, he, Ephy and I went to the English Pub, a place where Year Course has been banned from because some people last year tried to flush a cue ball down one of the toilets (COOL). I think the only reason we managed to get in is because we were a small group. It was pretty nice--we had some beers and the bartender gave us these "Stella Artois" flashlight-keychain things randomly for free. All in all, it was a pretty good night.
Sunday morning I woke up pretty late and went to class, where we heard some presentations and then left pretty early. Sunday night, Tom, Oren and I went to a basketball game--Macabbi Tel Aviv versus Afula, which is basically Podunk, Israel. Tel Aviv, of course, kicked their ass something like 102-65 (or maybe even more preposterous). It was a good time, and I got to see Oren and Tom one last time before I left for Arad. Afterwards, we went to a yogurt place at the stadium because Tom was talking about how it is starting to become a popular thing in Tel Aviv. Basically, he tricked me into getting a cup of it, and, as soon as I poured some in, he told me it was sour. I then added toppings that did not interact well, and we all feasted in the repulsive mess of yogurt, white chocolate, strawberry, and chocolate syrup. On the way home, Tom and I had an interesting talk about Iran and the world in general with regards to Israel. It ended pretty pessimistically, even though the rest of the night was fantastic:
Once I got home, I went over to Lior's and we watched the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie (or, rather, I did and she fell asleep). I ended up sleeping over that night, and began a little bit of work for my essays for Sheldon's class. Cera and I talked for a good amount of time that night about respective things back home, and it made me feel pretty nostalgic.
Monday morning, I went to volunteering at the school for the last time. It's interesting, although working at the school was a mixed basket, I was more than a bit sad to leave. As I've said many times before, it was frustrating because I was put with the kids who did not seem to care, yet, at the same time, this made it all the more fulfilling when I finally did make any progress with them. On Monday, Ronit gave Melanie and I shirts from the school, as well as booklets that the children made us as goodbye presents:
It's pretty clear the teacher wrote up phrases on the board for them to copy, as most of the said the same thing, and "good luck on your way" doesn't work too well in English but is a popular saying in Hebrew. Below is one of my favorite kids from the school, Or. He wasn't a particularly hard worker, and actually dicked around most of the time, but had this infectious positive attitude.
Monday after the school, I basically went home and cleaned up for "משדר כלים", dish setting, which was a checking to see how many dishes and other utensils we still had after the trimester ended. Then, that evening, I went to the Mohammed house to work for the second-to-last time with Talal, Musa, and Shaima. They were, of course, quite rowdy, as they knew we were leaving the next day. When I got home, I went for a 6k run, and then worked on my essays some before heading down to the beach for Miki's birthday. It was our last beach party, and everyone there was fairly drunk. I went down the long slides at the beach's playground with Jordan and Scott, and afterwards Carlos told me he peed in one of them. Excellent. Then I headed back to Cera's and we grabbed a giant yellow suitcase that we found in an abandoned alleyway. Cleaned out later, it had some suspicious red stains in it, and I'm fairly certain there was a reason it was left in a desolate alleyway.
On Tuesday, I went on a siyur led by Sheldon to Kibbutz Metzer. Before we got there, though, we went to an internment camp where ma'apilim (Jewish illegal immigrants in the early 20th century) were put by the British as they tried to send them back to where they came from. Although the idea of the camp was interesting and important to know about (particularly in regards to the obvious analogy with Holocaust death camps), the tour itself was long-winded and a bit boring. Essentially, it's something that I feel we could have driven by and said a couple of words about and gotten more or less the same experience. The rest of the day, however, was fantastic, as we spent it on a kibbutz on the Green Line between Israel and the West Bank--Kibbutz Metzer. We listened to an Israeli-Palestinian, Said, talk to us for a while on his thoughts about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He basically said that he thought each side needed to make compromises and peace would come, but, when I asked him if he felt like there was one side that wasn't compromising enough, he said that the "bigger side" should make "more and more significant concessions." He later on also admitted that there is not a leader in Palestinian society right now looking to make peace, so Israel does not have a partner on the other side to try to compromise with. It was strange, his entire belief system was full of contradictions--he is an Israeli citizen, and identifies himself as both Palestinian and Israeli, and wants there to be a Palestinian state, but would remain in Israel if it was created, and rejects the idea of doing two years of volunteering across the nation instead of going to the army for him or his children. Still, it was interesting to hear what he had to say. Afterwards, we met with Dov, the leader of Kibbutz Metzer, a coexistence Kibbutz on the green line with the West Bank. Palestinians and Israelis live together on the Kibbutz, and, apparently several years ago a terrorist from the West Bank came over and killed several people on the Kibbutz for no reason other than to send a message. Interesting. We got to see the security wall between Israel and the West Bank, which was cool, and Dov told us some fairly biased things that may or may not have been true. He spoke to us upon our return to the Kibbutz and essentially said that he thinks Israel needs to somehow take the burden of responsibility for the terrorist attacks as opposed to thrusting it all on the Palestinian people via the wall. Somehow, he thinks, Israelis should suffer for their own security despite their security being in danger because of the Palestinians. He 100% thought that the terrorist attacks were only the Palestinian's fault, and didn't blame them on Israel at all--he just wanted Israel to brunt the consequences of the problem. On the bus home, Sheldon brought up the fact that people of a country are bound by what their nation does, even if they do not personally approve--for instance, people in America often take criticism for things such as the Iraq war even if they themselves don't support it. Hence, Palestinian people are ultimately also bound to suffer from the consequences of their government's actions. Regardless of this line of reasoning, I still think it's ridiculous that they have to suffer from the negative side effects of the wall. It was a highly intriguing day.
Tuesday night, I went for the last time to volunteer with Talal, Musa, and Shaima at their house. It was hard to say goodbye to them, and the dad was very insistent that I remember to contact the people coming next so that someone else would work with the kids. He also insisted that Cera and I come back to visit someday, and we promised we would. One time, earlier on in the trimester, Cera said to me that, to be honest, she was happy even when the kids were just enjoying themselves, even if they weren't learning English. I also felt this way, and, on the last day, we played a lot of games and let them be very rowdy. It was fun. After that, I went to the family center for one last time to teach the adult English class. It was fantastic, and afterwards the Darfuris asked me if I taught English classes in America, as well. I and all the other volunteers who came with enjoyed one last cup of juice with Adam before leaving, and I thanked him as he told me teaching was in my blood. It's strange, I feel I have always been able to explain things to people fairly easily, and I do enjoy it, but I just don't think I'd want to do it as a job. My mother also thinks I should be a teacher someday. Saying goodbye to Adam was hard, and I my eyes watered a bit when he gave us all a goodbye speech. He gave me a hug before I left to go back to Bat Yam.
Upon returning, Ephy, Tomer and I went to Tomer's house in Gane Tikva. We waited for a 140 bus to come for something like an hour and a half and eventually just called Tomer's father to come pick us up. We feasted at his house heartily before I stayed up most of the night to write my essays for Sheldon's class. After getting two hours of sleep, I woke up at 7:30 to go see Tomer's cousin, Ran, leave for the army. It was an interesting aspect of Israeli culture to see--mothers and other family came to see their sons and daughters off to the army in a very regimented and standardized way. Once your name and number come up on the board, you take your things (uniform, etc) and get on the bus. We then returned to Bat Yam, I turned in my essays and went to class, and began packing and further cleaning my apartment. I also had lunch with Nathan at the Golden Dragon, a good Chinese place at the edge of Bat Yam.
That night, the scouts did their last peulah with us, an "Oscar Night." We all dressed up pretty and I got nominated for many things: "Most Israeli," "Most Wannabe Tzofe," "Most Likely to Get Married" (twice in that one actually), "Best Blogger," "Best Redhead," and "Most Likely to be the next US President." I only won the last one, however, as the scouts didn't allow anyone to win more than one award. Still, it was a fun night, and a fun way to end the trimester. After the Oscar night, Me, Ephy, Cera, Nathan, and Scott went into Tel Aviv for one of our last chill nights. We went to a bar in the artist's shuk that may have been a gay bar (we're still not sure), and, when I asked our waitress after we were done where the nearest gay bar was, she told me that I had "asked the right person." We then proceeded to go to a gay bar and meander around for a little bit before ultimately going home. Earlier on in the night, when we first arrived in Tel Aviv, we crossed the street in a random area and we're pretty sure we caused a car accident, because Ephy heard brakes and the slamming of fenders together. I hope not, but it was hilarious in any case.
Thursday morning, I woke up and went to the Ulpan to sign up for classes in Arad. I returned to Ulpan shortly after to do a final peulah with Noa. She gave us little notebooks with pictures of us on them and time to write letters to each other in them. It was a cool thing to do for the last activity and a cute way to wrap up our time together as a madricha group. When I got home, we cleaned and packed like maniacs before Tomer and I left for the Tzofim tiyul.
The Tzofim tiyul was a good deal of fun--when we got there Thursday night, we just hung out for a while around the fire, and I told a story that I heard Orit tell this past summer at camp. Friday morning, we went for a rather long bike ride on a mountain in the kibbutz. At one point down a tremendous hill, I passed by Tomer, and in passing yelled "That's right, fuck you Tomer!" A second later my bike hit a small rock and I instantly ate shit. It was pretty funny later on. That night, we went to the Kibbutz's Kabbalat Shabbat service, which sucked because it was Sephardic and thus indecipherable and disharmonious. We then did some rikud (dancing) in another area, and then did an activity planned by Guy and Tomer which was pretty fun--it was, like the last tzofim tiyul, a competition between four teams in various, random activities.
Saturday morning Ben Klein and I slept in until very late, because we were both sick. We missed a tour of the Kibbutz but then essentially did nothing for the rest of the day but chill. When we got back Saturday night, we did some last minute cleaning of the apartment, and then Raziel 19 רזיל went out for the last time as an apartment.
Oh, we went out. That night, we headed into Tel Aviv at about 9:30, all wearing our AWESOME apartment T-shirts that Tomer made. On the front, they say "Raziel 19 Best I Ever Had" with a drawing of a robot holding a Pizza Bueno box and saying "Must destroy Niv the neighbor." On the back, they say ייר קורד 09-10 סקשון 2 בת ים אפי רועי תומר איתי, which is "Year Course 09-10, Section 2 Bat Yam, Ephy Roie Tomer Ittai." They're fantastic. We went around the Florentine neighborhood of Tel Aviv wearing these with jeans and black jackets:
Sunday morning I woke up pretty late and went to class, where we heard some presentations and then left pretty early. Sunday night, Tom, Oren and I went to a basketball game--Macabbi Tel Aviv versus Afula, which is basically Podunk, Israel. Tel Aviv, of course, kicked their ass something like 102-65 (or maybe even more preposterous). It was a good time, and I got to see Oren and Tom one last time before I left for Arad. Afterwards, we went to a yogurt place at the stadium because Tom was talking about how it is starting to become a popular thing in Tel Aviv. Basically, he tricked me into getting a cup of it, and, as soon as I poured some in, he told me it was sour. I then added toppings that did not interact well, and we all feasted in the repulsive mess of yogurt, white chocolate, strawberry, and chocolate syrup. On the way home, Tom and I had an interesting talk about Iran and the world in general with regards to Israel. It ended pretty pessimistically, even though the rest of the night was fantastic:
Once I got home, I went over to Lior's and we watched the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie (or, rather, I did and she fell asleep). I ended up sleeping over that night, and began a little bit of work for my essays for Sheldon's class. Cera and I talked for a good amount of time that night about respective things back home, and it made me feel pretty nostalgic.
Monday morning, I went to volunteering at the school for the last time. It's interesting, although working at the school was a mixed basket, I was more than a bit sad to leave. As I've said many times before, it was frustrating because I was put with the kids who did not seem to care, yet, at the same time, this made it all the more fulfilling when I finally did make any progress with them. On Monday, Ronit gave Melanie and I shirts from the school, as well as booklets that the children made us as goodbye presents:
It's pretty clear the teacher wrote up phrases on the board for them to copy, as most of the said the same thing, and "good luck on your way" doesn't work too well in English but is a popular saying in Hebrew. Below is one of my favorite kids from the school, Or. He wasn't a particularly hard worker, and actually dicked around most of the time, but had this infectious positive attitude.
Monday after the school, I basically went home and cleaned up for "משדר כלים", dish setting, which was a checking to see how many dishes and other utensils we still had after the trimester ended. Then, that evening, I went to the Mohammed house to work for the second-to-last time with Talal, Musa, and Shaima. They were, of course, quite rowdy, as they knew we were leaving the next day. When I got home, I went for a 6k run, and then worked on my essays some before heading down to the beach for Miki's birthday. It was our last beach party, and everyone there was fairly drunk. I went down the long slides at the beach's playground with Jordan and Scott, and afterwards Carlos told me he peed in one of them. Excellent. Then I headed back to Cera's and we grabbed a giant yellow suitcase that we found in an abandoned alleyway. Cleaned out later, it had some suspicious red stains in it, and I'm fairly certain there was a reason it was left in a desolate alleyway.
On Tuesday, I went on a siyur led by Sheldon to Kibbutz Metzer. Before we got there, though, we went to an internment camp where ma'apilim (Jewish illegal immigrants in the early 20th century) were put by the British as they tried to send them back to where they came from. Although the idea of the camp was interesting and important to know about (particularly in regards to the obvious analogy with Holocaust death camps), the tour itself was long-winded and a bit boring. Essentially, it's something that I feel we could have driven by and said a couple of words about and gotten more or less the same experience. The rest of the day, however, was fantastic, as we spent it on a kibbutz on the Green Line between Israel and the West Bank--Kibbutz Metzer. We listened to an Israeli-Palestinian, Said, talk to us for a while on his thoughts about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He basically said that he thought each side needed to make compromises and peace would come, but, when I asked him if he felt like there was one side that wasn't compromising enough, he said that the "bigger side" should make "more and more significant concessions." He later on also admitted that there is not a leader in Palestinian society right now looking to make peace, so Israel does not have a partner on the other side to try to compromise with. It was strange, his entire belief system was full of contradictions--he is an Israeli citizen, and identifies himself as both Palestinian and Israeli, and wants there to be a Palestinian state, but would remain in Israel if it was created, and rejects the idea of doing two years of volunteering across the nation instead of going to the army for him or his children. Still, it was interesting to hear what he had to say. Afterwards, we met with Dov, the leader of Kibbutz Metzer, a coexistence Kibbutz on the green line with the West Bank. Palestinians and Israelis live together on the Kibbutz, and, apparently several years ago a terrorist from the West Bank came over and killed several people on the Kibbutz for no reason other than to send a message. Interesting. We got to see the security wall between Israel and the West Bank, which was cool, and Dov told us some fairly biased things that may or may not have been true. He spoke to us upon our return to the Kibbutz and essentially said that he thinks Israel needs to somehow take the burden of responsibility for the terrorist attacks as opposed to thrusting it all on the Palestinian people via the wall. Somehow, he thinks, Israelis should suffer for their own security despite their security being in danger because of the Palestinians. He 100% thought that the terrorist attacks were only the Palestinian's fault, and didn't blame them on Israel at all--he just wanted Israel to brunt the consequences of the problem. On the bus home, Sheldon brought up the fact that people of a country are bound by what their nation does, even if they do not personally approve--for instance, people in America often take criticism for things such as the Iraq war even if they themselves don't support it. Hence, Palestinian people are ultimately also bound to suffer from the consequences of their government's actions. Regardless of this line of reasoning, I still think it's ridiculous that they have to suffer from the negative side effects of the wall. It was a highly intriguing day.
Tuesday night, I went for the last time to volunteer with Talal, Musa, and Shaima at their house. It was hard to say goodbye to them, and the dad was very insistent that I remember to contact the people coming next so that someone else would work with the kids. He also insisted that Cera and I come back to visit someday, and we promised we would. One time, earlier on in the trimester, Cera said to me that, to be honest, she was happy even when the kids were just enjoying themselves, even if they weren't learning English. I also felt this way, and, on the last day, we played a lot of games and let them be very rowdy. It was fun. After that, I went to the family center for one last time to teach the adult English class. It was fantastic, and afterwards the Darfuris asked me if I taught English classes in America, as well. I and all the other volunteers who came with enjoyed one last cup of juice with Adam before leaving, and I thanked him as he told me teaching was in my blood. It's strange, I feel I have always been able to explain things to people fairly easily, and I do enjoy it, but I just don't think I'd want to do it as a job. My mother also thinks I should be a teacher someday. Saying goodbye to Adam was hard, and I my eyes watered a bit when he gave us all a goodbye speech. He gave me a hug before I left to go back to Bat Yam.
Upon returning, Ephy, Tomer and I went to Tomer's house in Gane Tikva. We waited for a 140 bus to come for something like an hour and a half and eventually just called Tomer's father to come pick us up. We feasted at his house heartily before I stayed up most of the night to write my essays for Sheldon's class. After getting two hours of sleep, I woke up at 7:30 to go see Tomer's cousin, Ran, leave for the army. It was an interesting aspect of Israeli culture to see--mothers and other family came to see their sons and daughters off to the army in a very regimented and standardized way. Once your name and number come up on the board, you take your things (uniform, etc) and get on the bus. We then returned to Bat Yam, I turned in my essays and went to class, and began packing and further cleaning my apartment. I also had lunch with Nathan at the Golden Dragon, a good Chinese place at the edge of Bat Yam.
That night, the scouts did their last peulah with us, an "Oscar Night." We all dressed up pretty and I got nominated for many things: "Most Israeli," "Most Wannabe Tzofe," "Most Likely to Get Married" (twice in that one actually), "Best Blogger," "Best Redhead," and "Most Likely to be the next US President." I only won the last one, however, as the scouts didn't allow anyone to win more than one award. Still, it was a fun night, and a fun way to end the trimester. After the Oscar night, Me, Ephy, Cera, Nathan, and Scott went into Tel Aviv for one of our last chill nights. We went to a bar in the artist's shuk that may have been a gay bar (we're still not sure), and, when I asked our waitress after we were done where the nearest gay bar was, she told me that I had "asked the right person." We then proceeded to go to a gay bar and meander around for a little bit before ultimately going home. Earlier on in the night, when we first arrived in Tel Aviv, we crossed the street in a random area and we're pretty sure we caused a car accident, because Ephy heard brakes and the slamming of fenders together. I hope not, but it was hilarious in any case.
Thursday morning, I woke up and went to the Ulpan to sign up for classes in Arad. I returned to Ulpan shortly after to do a final peulah with Noa. She gave us little notebooks with pictures of us on them and time to write letters to each other in them. It was a cool thing to do for the last activity and a cute way to wrap up our time together as a madricha group. When I got home, we cleaned and packed like maniacs before Tomer and I left for the Tzofim tiyul.
The Tzofim tiyul was a good deal of fun--when we got there Thursday night, we just hung out for a while around the fire, and I told a story that I heard Orit tell this past summer at camp. Friday morning, we went for a rather long bike ride on a mountain in the kibbutz. At one point down a tremendous hill, I passed by Tomer, and in passing yelled "That's right, fuck you Tomer!" A second later my bike hit a small rock and I instantly ate shit. It was pretty funny later on. That night, we went to the Kibbutz's Kabbalat Shabbat service, which sucked because it was Sephardic and thus indecipherable and disharmonious. We then did some rikud (dancing) in another area, and then did an activity planned by Guy and Tomer which was pretty fun--it was, like the last tzofim tiyul, a competition between four teams in various, random activities.
Saturday morning Ben Klein and I slept in until very late, because we were both sick. We missed a tour of the Kibbutz but then essentially did nothing for the rest of the day but chill. When we got back Saturday night, we did some last minute cleaning of the apartment, and then Raziel 19 רזיל went out for the last time as an apartment.
Oh, we went out. That night, we headed into Tel Aviv at about 9:30, all wearing our AWESOME apartment T-shirts that Tomer made. On the front, they say "Raziel 19 Best I Ever Had" with a drawing of a robot holding a Pizza Bueno box and saying "Must destroy Niv the neighbor." On the back, they say ייר קורד 09-10 סקשון 2 בת ים אפי רועי תומר איתי, which is "Year Course 09-10, Section 2 Bat Yam, Ephy Roie Tomer Ittai." They're fantastic. We went around the Florentine neighborhood of Tel Aviv wearing these with jeans and black jackets:
We went to a bar and then a pizza place before going to Moses. We were going to go to the beach but then realized we didn't have enough time, but, on our way to the beach, Roie found an Israeli security guard's vest that he ended up giving to me. We got to Moses and met up with most of section 2, and then a huge group of us went barhopping for most of the rest of the night until about 4:30 or so. I was kind of leading a big group from bar to bar, and it was an excellent night--the perfect way to say goodbye to Tel Aviv and Bat Yam.
Sunday morning, with a bit of a headache, I left Bat Yam for Arad. I despaired in having to leave the scouts--the fact is, now that I think about it, I connected with them more than anyone else on Year Course. I think it's because Israeli adolescents seem to mature more quickly, if only because they are forced to by the circumstances of their society. It was nice to have Israelis to talk to who cared about the things going on here. I just always felt close to them. I bawled when I left Tomer, and, aside from that, Lior was probably the second hardest person to say goodbye to. Frankly, saying goodbye is never easy, and this was particularly true for people I had been living with for three months already. The scouts also brought up the good point on the tiyul that being with us first made them more a part of their family--as other sections come to Bat Yam, they may already have their own section dynamic that doesn't integrate the scouts, but our dynamic was made with the scouts. Even now, just a couple of days into Arad, I feel that a large part of our family is missing.
Sunday we came to Arad. I am in an excellent apartment on the 7th floor (there's an elevator) with Simon, Nathan, Scott, Ben Jirik, Jake, and Ephy. Sunday night we went to the Ulpan here, which is called the Alon school, and had pizza with our new madrich, Eli Kuntzman. He's a pretty nice and helpful guy, but may not know what he's doing--it's really too soon to tell. He also keeps calling me "gingi" instead of my real name (which is a [somewhat] derogatory nickname for redhead) because the rest of my apartment insisted. We went to sleep fairly early that night, and woke up on Monday morning to go on a tour of Arad. Eli led us around and showed us the major streets, then dropped us off at the supermarket here--unfortunately, its name is not funny like the Super Douche in Bat Yam--it is simply the Super Sal. It is also exponentially more expensive: groceries cost us 1500 shekels this time (roughly 400 dollars). Hopefully it was only this much because we had to buy basic supplies (i.e. spices, oil, etc.), and will be cheaper next time. The rest of Monday we were in different orientation seminars, including one sex talk which, it was written on the schedule, there was "no need for" with Shalem, the religious part of our section. After this, I went home. I then met up with Karin, Arielle, and Cera to take them to our apartment in a roundabout way (we have decided that we're not showing people how to get here independently yet). Then Karin, Cera, Scott, Nathan, Jake and I went to Muza, the main bar here, and had shots with milkshakes. It was a good night.
This morning, I woke up and went to meet with Amir, one of the madrichim, who took Laura, Ephy, David, Cera, Emilie, and I to meet the Sudanese members of the community here. We saw the industrial center at התעשיה and went around to several different kindergartens with Joseph, the leader of the community. Later on, we met with Cecilia, whose gan I will be working at. She is concerned that she may be very sick--she is always thirsty and feels generally bad. We posited that she may have diabetes, but, unfortunately, she has no health insurance. This is definitely one of the bigger problems we have to look into, as her gan provides a place for many of the Sudanese children to stay during the day. In Arad, there are far fewer Darfuris (from Western Sudan) and far more general Sudanese, particularly from the South. In the afternoon, we met with Peter, the Sudanese community's education head, and talked to him about having adult and child English classes at the 15 חן center. I'm looking forward to many opportunities to volunteer here and help the Sudanese in any way possible. Tonight, we just relaxed in the apartment.
Things are different here in Arad, but I'm glad my apartment building is 19 again. שיזף is a very nice street, despite being far away from many other apartments. It's nice to be in a smaller setting, and it's also easier to get things done here because everything is closer together and there are fewer distractions. Still, I miss the scouts quite a bit, and hope to see them soon. As I embark upon this new part of Year Course, I can only hope that I partake in all of the experiences available to me. I have always loved the Negev, and the beautiful views and weather here are just to my liking. I certainly hope to not lose contact with the scouts, however, and have already talked to Adi, Tomer, and Lior a couple times since I've been here. I am excited, anticipative, and nostalgic all at the same time. I come back to America for my sister's Bat Mitzvah on December 14th, and will be there for a week. I hope everything is going well for you, wherever you are, and I am sure I would love to talk to you soon. Take it easy!
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