On Tuesday, I and the people who volunteer at the Sudanese ganim in the area met up at about 9:30 to work on projects and planning for trips. Later in the day, Scott, Karin, Chanya and I went for a run. I ended up going for a 10k and got a time of 50:07, which means I only have to drop 7 seconds to reach my goal in the race this Tuesday. I was pretty excited about this, especially considering that I have also been a bit sick, so I should be able to do better healthy.
After, this, I went to 15 חן to teach English to kids, but then had to leave before the adult class to clean the apartment for mifgash dira. It's a shame I left, because I heard the next day that, as Karin was trying to explain to one of the adults what a bone was, she began to draw it on the board, and he got the concept after she drew only one half of it, so she just rounded off the other side--hence it looked like a penis.
Anyway mifgash dira on Tuesday night was excellent--Eli seemed pleased and didn't get mad once; he even brought us a mix CD. It's too soon to tell, but perhaps, now that Arad is almost over, we are reconciling with him. SOLID.
Shortly after this, I went to the Ulpan for the Garin Tzedek activity that night, which was basically sexy icebreakers. We played that parcel game where you pass around a packet with questions written on it and unwrap it to find the new questions. Thus all the questions were sexual and the traditional prize after the last unwrapping was two condoms. We also played a musical chairs-esque game where you and a partner dance and when the music stops quickly get into a sexual position. At the end, we played a game of sumo (that lap-hugging game) for quite some time before going home. Overall, the activity was pretty good.
Wednesday I awoke and went into the gan until about 12:30. I need to take some more pictures of different kids soon, because the repertoire of children that I work with has changed.
Ulpan on Wednesday was excellent--we met at Guy's apartment at 3:00 and then walked to our teacher's house. Eti gave us some delicious food and juice, as well as a plateful of fruit for tu'bishvat. It was one of the best classes we've ever had, sitting around the table and talking about many things. After we finished eating, we also played a game called "מלך הפלפל", "King of the Falafel." This was also copious amounts of fun, despite my having terrible luck. Essentially, you draw cards that are different parts of the falafel, but if you drew two of the same card, you had to throw all of your cards away. If you drew a pita, however, it served as a checkpoint of types, allowing you to only throw away the duplicate card you draw and end your turn. There was also, of course, a card with a broken pita which forces you to discard everything. In any case, it was a fun game that I'd love to get.
After this, Immigration class was canceled, so Karin and I went to her apartment to work on our project for our Service class. Shortly after this, I went to the Wednesday night activity, which was paintball this week. I've never been paintballing before, so it was a cool first experience even though we kind of got our asses kicked (the 5 guys there, me, Nathan, Ori, Guy, and Gans, decided we would all be on a team together versus about ten girls and the madrichim).
Wednesday night, Cera and I watched the movie "American Beauty," which was messed up but very excellent. Most people here typically do "wine Wednesdays," but we ended up just watching the movie with some wine. It was good to have a nonchalant night.
On Thursday, we went on a siyur to an army base in the desert. While I initially thought that this was going to be quite mediocre, it ended up being the BEST SIYUR EVER (in Arad). Upon arriving at the army base, we were fed a handsome breakfast of assorted fruits and cinnamon rolls. We then got to speak to some חיילים בודדים, "lone soldiers" who move to Israel without their family here and join the army. We got some free נחל (the name of the division of the army at the base) hats and then split up into groups and took a tour of the base. Then we went into a building and fought through a simulation with fake M16s, shooting up terrorists who were on the screen. We left the base (with far too many stolen bullets) and went to downtown Be'er Sheva for lunch. After lunch, we took a tour of the Israel Air Force museum. This was pretty excellent, as the Air Force is one of the coolest parts of the army. We learned about all sorts of awesome things, like the process of the ejection seat, the survival kit that comes with it, and the history of the air force. All in all, it was excellent.
Upon returning to Arad, Nathan, Scott and I watched the movie "Youth in Revolt." That night, some of the Tzofim (Ohad, Adi, May, and Yoni) from Bat Yam came into town and we spent the night at Florentine, the only dance club in town. It was great--probably the latest I've stayed out in a long time, and probably the first time I've danced in a while. For one night, it felt like Bat Yam again.
Friday morning we woke up late and watched "Sherlock Holmes" on Nathan's computer before going out that night--two more scouts, Lior and Guy, arrived in Arad on Friday, so Friday night was again pretty crazy.
Then, today, we all woke up late and Yoni, Ohad, Simon, Ben, Nathan and I went over to Abby's apartment--for some unfathomable reason, she fed all of us quite heartily, and then Nathan, Yoni, Ohad and I proceeded to go to Muza to say goodbye to Lior. Of course, upon arriving she told us it was going to be quite some time before her parents arrived to pick her up, so we ended up all going to Andrew Crompton's apartment for a while before she and Ohad left. Andrew, Nathan and I chilled for a bit before going to Pizza Tokio to get some bagel toasts for dinner.
Just a couple minutes ago, a woman came down and knocked on our apartment door, telling us that we have been too loud for the past two and a half months, and that she is pregnant and wakes up in the middle of the night, and that her husband has to wake up at four in the morning for work and can't get any sleep because of us, and that her young daughter wakes up all the time because of us, and that a man a floor under us has had two heart attacks in the past several years and has had surgery and that we are probably keeping him up, and that all of the residents in the building complain about us, and that we are the root of all evil. It's very possible that we've been too loud, but it's preposterous for her to wait two and a half months to tell us and suddenly, now (when we are essentially not making any noise, it's a quiet night), be extremely angry and threatening towards us. Essentially it comes down to this: if there is a problem, you have to make someone aware of it on order to expect things to change. I'm fine with her asking us to be quieter, but it should have been brought to our attention earlier if it was such an issue.
ANYWAY, I don't want to end on such a negative note, so here is the story of when Nathan, Andrew, and I went to the grocery store here, Shufersal, after dinner:
We had a hilarious time, making fun of many things (like the Katzenugen candy that Andrew and I got, which had a cat drawn on the cover, which led us to believe that the chocolate was comprised of cat parts.) We also switched the caps on several peanut butters and put things in places they don't belong, which was, of course, hysterical. Andrew also suggested that, on the last day of Arad, we be "Kosher Terrorists," and order a bunch of cheese at the deli counter, then proceed to throw it into the butchery area of the store and ruin the kashrut. We would, of course, never do this, but the thought of it was hilarious.
All in all, this past weekend was excellent. My webcam is broken right now, but I will gladly borrow a roommate's computer if anyone would like to videochat. I hope all is well with you, and that we talk sometime soon!!! Take it easy. :D
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
I have lost my faith in Arad...
...because when I got back from my family on Saturday, I looked into the stairwell for my bike only to discover my bike lock cut in half, and my bike gone. While I was away, I guess, someone must have stolen it. And yet the bikes of all of my roommates (rarely used) still sat in the stairwell, safe and secure. I never thought that I could lose a sense of innocence with a city, but that is exactly what happened with Arad. For the first month or so after we got our bikes, we felt so secure in our part of town that a few of my roommates didn't even put their locks on. Oh well.
Saturday night when I came back we had a pretty rousing evening--Noah was in town, so he, Nathan, Scott, Simon, Ephy, Ben Jirik and I all went to the mercaz, the center of town (which isn't saying much in Arad). They all got pretty drunk, but it was still January so I tagged along sober. The night was so ridiculous that it was still tons of fun: Noah trust fell off a sign, Simon blocked the entrance to the only dance club in town with a car barricade and demanded to be let in for free (there is no entrance fee), we ran around and generally caused a ruckus, we went into the bar Kadim for the first time and made friends with Danor, and we somehow managed to all get back to the apartment. When we got back, Simon got into a pretty big argument with his girlfriend that didn't end well, so we all stayed up pretty late that night with him.
Then, on Sunday, I woke up fairly late and went to volunteering. About mid-day, Laura and I went to the municipality of Arad to talk to them again about the idea of having the Sudanese community paint over graffiti in town. The last time I talked to someone from the municipality about this (Ruthy was her name), she pretty much brushed me off. Thus I decided we should do things in a more Israeli fashion and be pushy, showing up unannounced and talking at rapid speeds. We went into the town hall plaza and ended up explaining what we wanted to do 3 times before we finally got to someone who could help us, who said that she was going to call Ruthy. I watched helplessly as this happened, knowing that Ruthy was and still is not the slightest bit interested in helping me out...but then, as Nitza called Ruthy's secretary, someone else picked up the phone and put another person on who was highly receptive and helpful. They promised to give me a call back as soon as possible, and Laura and I left city hall feeling triumphant (well, I mean, I'm not sure how Laura felt, but I felt pretty good). It's been a week, though, and I'm yet to get a call. :/ Afterward, I met people for lunch at Petrozelia, a falafel place where Ephy works. I think the volunteering at falafel places is pretty ridiculous--I mean, it can be a fun volunteering placement for the people who get put there, but we could be doing so much more meaningful things. This is basically giving these falafel places (which are questionably more rampant than McDonald's or Starbucks are in America) free employees.
In any case, later that evening I went to optional class, which was the same thing as always. The title of the class is "Service Learning," but, to tell you the truth, I don't think anyone (especially not the teachers) actually knows what it's about. Karin and I were the only ones from our group who were in class because so many people decided it wasn't worth their time. After class, I headed to 15 חן to teach classes, but they were canceled because the power was out. Thus I headed home before we went out to dinner as an apartment.
Sunday night was the night of the 31st, meaning that, at midnight, my month of sobriety was over. Nathan, Scott and I split some vodka and then went to Kadim, as we had promised Danor we'd be back. Upon our arrival, however, Danor was nowhere to be found, so we waited around for about twenty minutes before he arrived. Shortly thereafter we returned home.
Monday morning was sports day, which was nothing special whatsoever. The Arad staff clearly stole this idea from the Bat Yam staff, because the shirt design was exactly the same, except that they were tank tops instead of t-shirts. After this, we returned to the apartment before classes. After class and Ulpan ended, Jake and I went to play soccer with the Sudanese youth. By all accounts, Monday was a fairly bland day.
On Tuesday I went in to volunteering. Lately, it seems like very few kids show up for some reason. The specific kids who come and the amount of them have always varied each day, probably because of their parents' work schedules. But in the past week and a half or so, there have rarely been more than 5 kids until the afternoon, when many more come from school. Perhaps this is because the ganim were recently reorganized (again) into the different Sudanese tribes. That is to say, the gan where I work has only children from the Dinka tribe, but one of the other ones has kids of Nuba descent and yet another is Nuir. I'm not sure how I feel about this--on the one hand, it gives kids a chance to interact with other kids of their same heritage and perpetuate their culture, but on the other hand, it keeps them from getting to know kids from the other tribes and developing a sense of companionship with the entire Sudanese community. Ultimately, though, it's the Sudanese's choice how they want to raise their children--there's not a clear right or wrong with the organization of the ganim.
Because there weren't that many children, Laura and I left early and bought materials for the Garin Tzedek cake decorating activity that night. Later that day, we had another successful מפגש דירה with Eli, and, god willing, I think we may be back on his good side soon. He spoke some Russian at the mifgash, and then today I asked him how he was doing in Russian ("cock-di-lah"). We'll see how things go.
The cake decorating activity ended up being pretty fun and delicious, and after that I went home and watched "Waltz with Bashir" with Nathan, Karin, and Cera. It's an Israeli film that we watched in our Ulpan class a week or so ago, but this time we watched it with English subtitles and understood much more.
On Wednesday I woke up and went to volunteering, then returned home for a bit before Ulpan and class. After class that night, we went to the youth center here for a tu'bishvat seder, a feast of different fruits. This was a pretty good peulah--one of the best ones that the Arad madrichim (or, rather, Dikla) have planned since we've been here. We're supposed to have an activity every Wednesday night, but usually it's just watching a movie or doing something simple and informal, so this was a nice change of pace. After that, I went with Scott and Nathan to Lizzy's apartment for a while before heading home.
Thursday was easily the worst siyur we've ever been on. We went to a student village near Dimona and watched a video about the concept of "blooming the Negev," which, while important, has just been pounded into me too much lately, and isn't a new concept to me. This portion of the siyur was extremely boring--watching the video was literally all we did, it could have been done anywhere with a television. After this, we went to the mall for lunch and then went to a farm in the desert called "Gift of the Desert" farm, where we listened to a woman talk about different herbs for an hour because it was too cold and stormy outside to go and see the herbs themselves (although I suspect this would have been only marginally more interesting. I am not entirely sure what the point of this siyur was.).
I ended up staying in Arad this past weekend--I initially had planned on going to Jerusalem, but then we got a security alert banning us from downtown, so I decided not to go. On Friday, we went to Muza (the good bar) as an apartment for dinner, and the waitress kept hitting on Ephy. When he ordered salad, she asked him (in typical Israeli fashion) "May I suggest to you something? That you have it with the tomatoes." Then, later, she came by and asked him how the tomatoes were. In some circumstances I might just consider this good waitressing, but, when we were there the previous week and had the same waitress, Ephy wrote his number on the receipt (mostly in jest, I think, but still). She was also being very seductive about the whole tomatoes issue.
Saturday night, Nathan and I went to the observation point to see what the stars looked like from farther out of the city. It was cool, but also absolutely freezing, so we headed back after a short (yet of course romantic, because Nathan brought his speakers) stargazing.
Then on Sunday, I woke up and went to volunteering, but there were few kids there, so David and I left pretty early. I headed back to the apartment and went shopping with Nathan and Ephy at מגה בול "Mega Bull"--I can't believe we ever went shopping at שופרסל "Shufersal," it was so much more expensive, did not have a cheap delivery service, and did not pick us up from our apartment and take us to the store for free. Shopping at מגה בול has been infinitely better. When we got back from shopping, I did several chores and then went to Service Learning class, where we once again worked on our projects. My group is going to examine the current struggle for gay rights (particularly marriage and civil unions), see what groups are involved, analyze their approaches, and then come up with our own campaign for the issue.
Honestly, I think the way we feel now about the African American Civil Rights movement in the 60s is the way we'll feel in 50 years or so about the Gay Civil Rights movement. We'll look back, much as we do now, and say to ourselves
"Why did we and how could we have done that?"
Anyway Sunday night was also the night of the Superbowl, so Scott and I hung out at Lizzy's apartment for a bit before meeting up with others at Muza to watch the game. I wasn't all too interested, so I left after the halftime show (which meant I got home around 4 A.M.).
This morning we went on a hike that took us to the outskirts of town and via a roundabout way to the observation point. It was fun, but long and tedious. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been so exhausted. Upon arriving at the observation point, though, I finally walked out all the way to the edge of the diving board (a long board protruding from the structure hanging out over a giant cliff overlooking the desert), something I've yet to do.
I then came home, had lunch, and went to Ulpan and immigration class. After this, I returned home shortly before going to play soccer with Sudanese youth--while at the field, I ran some laps around the track and saw how fast I could run 1500 meters. Considering the 10k is next Tuesday, I should start doing some more intense training this week. Scott and I also ran to and from the soccer field, which is considerably far from our apartment. When we arrived today, we met three students from Ben Gurion University in the nearby town of Be'er Sheva (the largest city in the Negev desert region of Israel). Two of them were medical students there, which was interesting because that is where my father went to medical school. I should make a point to visit there sometime before I leave Arad.
After that, I returned home to dinner. I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks--it's supposed to heat up in Arad, and the siyurim we have left should be a good deal of fun. The past week and a half has been fairly busy (except for the weekend), and life just seems to move at a different pace here. If you've ever been to summer camp, it's kind of like that. I believe I've heard it said before that "days feel like weeks and weeks like days." In any case, I hope all is well with you and that we can talk sometime soon. Thanks for reading, take it easy!
Saturday night when I came back we had a pretty rousing evening--Noah was in town, so he, Nathan, Scott, Simon, Ephy, Ben Jirik and I all went to the mercaz, the center of town (which isn't saying much in Arad). They all got pretty drunk, but it was still January so I tagged along sober. The night was so ridiculous that it was still tons of fun: Noah trust fell off a sign, Simon blocked the entrance to the only dance club in town with a car barricade and demanded to be let in for free (there is no entrance fee), we ran around and generally caused a ruckus, we went into the bar Kadim for the first time and made friends with Danor, and we somehow managed to all get back to the apartment. When we got back, Simon got into a pretty big argument with his girlfriend that didn't end well, so we all stayed up pretty late that night with him.
Then, on Sunday, I woke up fairly late and went to volunteering. About mid-day, Laura and I went to the municipality of Arad to talk to them again about the idea of having the Sudanese community paint over graffiti in town. The last time I talked to someone from the municipality about this (Ruthy was her name), she pretty much brushed me off. Thus I decided we should do things in a more Israeli fashion and be pushy, showing up unannounced and talking at rapid speeds. We went into the town hall plaza and ended up explaining what we wanted to do 3 times before we finally got to someone who could help us, who said that she was going to call Ruthy. I watched helplessly as this happened, knowing that Ruthy was and still is not the slightest bit interested in helping me out...but then, as Nitza called Ruthy's secretary, someone else picked up the phone and put another person on who was highly receptive and helpful. They promised to give me a call back as soon as possible, and Laura and I left city hall feeling triumphant (well, I mean, I'm not sure how Laura felt, but I felt pretty good). It's been a week, though, and I'm yet to get a call. :/ Afterward, I met people for lunch at Petrozelia, a falafel place where Ephy works. I think the volunteering at falafel places is pretty ridiculous--I mean, it can be a fun volunteering placement for the people who get put there, but we could be doing so much more meaningful things. This is basically giving these falafel places (which are questionably more rampant than McDonald's or Starbucks are in America) free employees.
In any case, later that evening I went to optional class, which was the same thing as always. The title of the class is "Service Learning," but, to tell you the truth, I don't think anyone (especially not the teachers) actually knows what it's about. Karin and I were the only ones from our group who were in class because so many people decided it wasn't worth their time. After class, I headed to 15 חן to teach classes, but they were canceled because the power was out. Thus I headed home before we went out to dinner as an apartment.
Sunday night was the night of the 31st, meaning that, at midnight, my month of sobriety was over. Nathan, Scott and I split some vodka and then went to Kadim, as we had promised Danor we'd be back. Upon our arrival, however, Danor was nowhere to be found, so we waited around for about twenty minutes before he arrived. Shortly thereafter we returned home.
Monday morning was sports day, which was nothing special whatsoever. The Arad staff clearly stole this idea from the Bat Yam staff, because the shirt design was exactly the same, except that they were tank tops instead of t-shirts. After this, we returned to the apartment before classes. After class and Ulpan ended, Jake and I went to play soccer with the Sudanese youth. By all accounts, Monday was a fairly bland day.
On Tuesday I went in to volunteering. Lately, it seems like very few kids show up for some reason. The specific kids who come and the amount of them have always varied each day, probably because of their parents' work schedules. But in the past week and a half or so, there have rarely been more than 5 kids until the afternoon, when many more come from school. Perhaps this is because the ganim were recently reorganized (again) into the different Sudanese tribes. That is to say, the gan where I work has only children from the Dinka tribe, but one of the other ones has kids of Nuba descent and yet another is Nuir. I'm not sure how I feel about this--on the one hand, it gives kids a chance to interact with other kids of their same heritage and perpetuate their culture, but on the other hand, it keeps them from getting to know kids from the other tribes and developing a sense of companionship with the entire Sudanese community. Ultimately, though, it's the Sudanese's choice how they want to raise their children--there's not a clear right or wrong with the organization of the ganim.
Because there weren't that many children, Laura and I left early and bought materials for the Garin Tzedek cake decorating activity that night. Later that day, we had another successful מפגש דירה with Eli, and, god willing, I think we may be back on his good side soon. He spoke some Russian at the mifgash, and then today I asked him how he was doing in Russian ("cock-di-lah"). We'll see how things go.
The cake decorating activity ended up being pretty fun and delicious, and after that I went home and watched "Waltz with Bashir" with Nathan, Karin, and Cera. It's an Israeli film that we watched in our Ulpan class a week or so ago, but this time we watched it with English subtitles and understood much more.
On Wednesday I woke up and went to volunteering, then returned home for a bit before Ulpan and class. After class that night, we went to the youth center here for a tu'bishvat seder, a feast of different fruits. This was a pretty good peulah--one of the best ones that the Arad madrichim (or, rather, Dikla) have planned since we've been here. We're supposed to have an activity every Wednesday night, but usually it's just watching a movie or doing something simple and informal, so this was a nice change of pace. After that, I went with Scott and Nathan to Lizzy's apartment for a while before heading home.
Thursday was easily the worst siyur we've ever been on. We went to a student village near Dimona and watched a video about the concept of "blooming the Negev," which, while important, has just been pounded into me too much lately, and isn't a new concept to me. This portion of the siyur was extremely boring--watching the video was literally all we did, it could have been done anywhere with a television. After this, we went to the mall for lunch and then went to a farm in the desert called "Gift of the Desert" farm, where we listened to a woman talk about different herbs for an hour because it was too cold and stormy outside to go and see the herbs themselves (although I suspect this would have been only marginally more interesting. I am not entirely sure what the point of this siyur was.).
I ended up staying in Arad this past weekend--I initially had planned on going to Jerusalem, but then we got a security alert banning us from downtown, so I decided not to go. On Friday, we went to Muza (the good bar) as an apartment for dinner, and the waitress kept hitting on Ephy. When he ordered salad, she asked him (in typical Israeli fashion) "May I suggest to you something? That you have it with the tomatoes." Then, later, she came by and asked him how the tomatoes were. In some circumstances I might just consider this good waitressing, but, when we were there the previous week and had the same waitress, Ephy wrote his number on the receipt (mostly in jest, I think, but still). She was also being very seductive about the whole tomatoes issue.
Saturday night, Nathan and I went to the observation point to see what the stars looked like from farther out of the city. It was cool, but also absolutely freezing, so we headed back after a short (yet of course romantic, because Nathan brought his speakers) stargazing.
Then on Sunday, I woke up and went to volunteering, but there were few kids there, so David and I left pretty early. I headed back to the apartment and went shopping with Nathan and Ephy at מגה בול "Mega Bull"--I can't believe we ever went shopping at שופרסל "Shufersal," it was so much more expensive, did not have a cheap delivery service, and did not pick us up from our apartment and take us to the store for free. Shopping at מגה בול has been infinitely better. When we got back from shopping, I did several chores and then went to Service Learning class, where we once again worked on our projects. My group is going to examine the current struggle for gay rights (particularly marriage and civil unions), see what groups are involved, analyze their approaches, and then come up with our own campaign for the issue.
Honestly, I think the way we feel now about the African American Civil Rights movement in the 60s is the way we'll feel in 50 years or so about the Gay Civil Rights movement. We'll look back, much as we do now, and say to ourselves
"Why did we and how could we have done that?"
Anyway Sunday night was also the night of the Superbowl, so Scott and I hung out at Lizzy's apartment for a bit before meeting up with others at Muza to watch the game. I wasn't all too interested, so I left after the halftime show (which meant I got home around 4 A.M.).
This morning we went on a hike that took us to the outskirts of town and via a roundabout way to the observation point. It was fun, but long and tedious. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been so exhausted. Upon arriving at the observation point, though, I finally walked out all the way to the edge of the diving board (a long board protruding from the structure hanging out over a giant cliff overlooking the desert), something I've yet to do.
I then came home, had lunch, and went to Ulpan and immigration class. After this, I returned home shortly before going to play soccer with Sudanese youth--while at the field, I ran some laps around the track and saw how fast I could run 1500 meters. Considering the 10k is next Tuesday, I should start doing some more intense training this week. Scott and I also ran to and from the soccer field, which is considerably far from our apartment. When we arrived today, we met three students from Ben Gurion University in the nearby town of Be'er Sheva (the largest city in the Negev desert region of Israel). Two of them were medical students there, which was interesting because that is where my father went to medical school. I should make a point to visit there sometime before I leave Arad.
After that, I returned home to dinner. I'm looking forward to the next couple of weeks--it's supposed to heat up in Arad, and the siyurim we have left should be a good deal of fun. The past week and a half has been fairly busy (except for the weekend), and life just seems to move at a different pace here. If you've ever been to summer camp, it's kind of like that. I believe I've heard it said before that "days feel like weeks and weeks like days." In any case, I hope all is well with you and that we can talk sometime soon. Thanks for reading, take it easy!
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