thats right it says "parking camel"
So my first official blog, it's coming a little later than I had hoped it would...but apparently it takes threeish weeks to get 47 people organized enough to get internet. Not that our internet currently works too horribly well but that is beside the point.
anyways so ive decided to keep as irreverent and yet still factual account of my time here in israel as possible. seeing as its been so long since the beginning of the trip i know im going miss out on a bunch of facts but ill rememeber what i can.
the trip started with a much delayed flight into tel aviv, which resulted in a much delayed arrival to jerusalem...which meant like some ungodly hour shehechianu that we said all together at Kiryat Moriah (where all of my mail SHOULD be going to, ahem. We stayed there for a couple of days to acclimate, before we left on tiyul. or more acurately 6 hour hikes in the negev desert in heat im relatively sure it was illegal to have us out in.
the group on the Nachal Tamar hike (courtesy Sol Israel)Followed by a stay at Mamshit Camel Ranch...sound vaguely familiar, thats because its the same fake israeli run, permant structured, electrically rigged arab, nomadic encampment birthright took me to in June. not that i didnt love hearing all of the same speaches for a second time, or the timeless musical sounds of the coffee grinder (which actually is really cool im just being whiny because its easier), we also got the distinct pleasure of riding camels yet again which is potentially the worst thing ever, not that going in a circle on a gross smelling animal that defecates on itself every 30 seconds isnt fascinating but once would probably have been good enough to last a lifetime, that and the fact that they jostle both the male and female genitalia in ways I had previously thought impossible.
lauren and our madrakah jenny aboard the camels
feasting Mamshit style
(please keep in mind I am the embodiment of eternal cynicsm, but I'm a bleeding heart optimist and while I complain it's mostly because that's the only way I know how to talk...to date I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this trip *the exception to that being this ridiculous lecture about education in Israel in which I almost attempted to insert my key into my temple)
Anywho after tiyul we did the obligatory trip to the Dead Sea, which admitedly is an amazing experience if you've never been, and then spent Shabbat in Jerusalem just relaxing. That following Monday we moved into our GORGEOUS apartments (side note gorgeous in this context means heinous) so we live in Be'er Sheva, for those of you who don't already have a map of Israel ingrained in your minds, this is the middle of the Negev Desert...it's fucking hot here, we don't have a/c. You do that math. I think the square footage is smaller than my freshman dorm and thats including the "dining room", kitchen and bathroom. I live with four other young ladies, all of whom have proved not to be blithering idiots so I'm relatively thrilled about that.
The following day we went to Dimona to help build student apartments, for a tuition break the students who help build these homes get to live in them as long as they do something like 10 hours of community service a week (or at least thats what I understood of the program, and I'm always paying vigilant attention). The day after that was Table-to-Table, a non-prof which gives fruits and vegetables to the overwhelming poor population here in Israel, so we got to pick onion in the hot sun for hours on end, which actually was probably the most rewarding thing I've done, it was something in which I could tangibly see how what I was doing affected a peoples. Immediately following the onion picking was our first trip to the Med Sea, apparently I don't hate swimming - I will however still die a water related death, as I have long suspected. From there a large group of us went to Tel Aviv for the weekend, you know to unwind...aka drinking, beaching, clubbing, shopping, all of the obligatory touristy things.
(courtesy sol israel)It was of course amazing, the artist market was beautiful, and to bring in Shabbaz we watched a drum circle on the beach, while crazy Israeli's (and Stephanie) played with fire.
stephanie and that damned fire
Upon our return to hell (Be'er Sheva) which surprisingly the accomodations seemed luxurious after MoMos hostel, which actually IS hell, we had an ulpan test...obviously since I've basically never seen the Hebrew language I was placed in kita alef, which apparently means class a, not so shocking.
dorm style accomodations, minus A/C
obviously the shower at the hostel OF COURSE
anywho from there we just had some free time until wednesday, 1 am where we loaded the bus for Jerusalem and then had a 2:30am educational session with Jared, our "funky educator" about Rosh Hoshana - look up Hebrew words you don't know, what am I your mother? This lecture was conviniently followed by a 4 hour tour of religious neighborhoods in Jerusalem so we could watch different minyans doing their slichot prayers/aka a bunch of secular tourists peering into religious peoples homes and shuls at like 5 in the morning. Then but only because it was a good idea we met our adoptive families, random Israeli's we were placed with to spend Rosh Hoshana. Mine happened to be 2 gen -xer's about 32, she spoke some english, he apparently didnt think that was necessary for hosting an American he knew didnt speak any Hebrew. Point being I didnt talk for 4 days, but they were needlessy sweet and kind, and inexplicably had a horse (this of course was not their original horse, that one was of course stolen by the arabs {apparently all of them, and apparently for some sort of wedding ritual}) in the backyard which I rode to the JFK memorial located about 20 minutes outsides of Jerusalem to see the tree Jackie Onassis obviously planted, obvious stuff.
a horse, if its unclear to you this is in fact NOT their horse sue
So again after returning to our new homes we started ulpan this week and have already had our first exam...would you believe that I can already read and write in Hebrew, granted we do have 5 hours of class a day. Besdies that we've just had constant lectures and meetings (I now know the entire history of the Israeli Palestinian conflict), and today we put together a carnival for all of the children. It was much more rewarding than I would have thought seeing as how I generally find that I hate children, and it is interesting to have to try to explain a relatively simple game to a child who speaks no English and you certainly dont speak any Russian or Hindi, so you both use your broken common denominator of Hebrew. Tomorrow morning we leave for Jerusalem again for Yom Kippur this weekend.
carnival fun!!!! (i got my nosed {af ba evreet that means nose in hebrew in hebrew} if you couldnt tell)
both courtesy of sol israel
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11828079@N07/
Other than that I think i should include the fact that there was an attempted bombing on the mall here in Be'er Sheva last Wedensday, a memeber of Hamas was apprehended making his way through the desert strapped with explosives...so I guess in closing what I'm doing is real and I finally had that wow moment, I live in the middle east and I am a Jew and there are certain undeniable and unpleasant facts that go along with that.
(again to sol israel for the photo)even more pleasant than that is the fact that right outside the US embassy in Tel Aviv is this lovely graffiti, while ive yet to hear any israelis have anything other than positive things to say about our being here there certainly is no denying being american in other countries in and of itself isnt always the best thing either. That being said, this is home *for now* and I am in it for the long run.
More later
Anne
***egregious spelling mistakes are obvioulsy purposeful (aka blogger doesnt have spellcheck, and I am virtually incapable of spelling anything correctly)
No comments:
Post a Comment