...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!
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