Tu B'Shvat, Volunteering in Lod, just the beginning

Sunday, my move to Lod, met my new group, the German Hachshara, they're really nice and I'm really enjoying their company in Lod. The rest of day we spent sitting in the living room in the dark, because there was no electricity because our youth movement didn't bother to pay the bill so the electricity got turned off. After we got the electricity back on I went to the boys' house to say hi and they invited me for dinner, where I found quite a cooking drama, we couldn't get the gas stove to work, and every time we tried using the electric plug in stove it turned the electricity off in the house. I managed to fix their stove after about 3 hours of this drama and then we made dinner. Monday, we had a Bnei Akiva event called the Ve'eda, basically over a weekend every few years members from different year programs from Bnei Akiva come together to make decisions about where Bnei Akiva should go from now, so Monday we had a day in Haifa,the city was voted to be a new focus for Bnei Akiva's volunteering work, youth groups etc. We toured the Technion (Israel institute for Technology), met the mayor of Haifa and had a couple of lectures with top technology companies that have bases in Haifa, and some of employees who have made Aliyah. After a very long day in Haifa, we finally went home to Lod to get some sleep. Tuesday, the first day of work, volunteering in a special needs school in Lod, it's hard, demanding volunteer work but very rewarding. The kids have a variety of needs from autism to down's syndrome, they're very sweet and always smiling. I find it difficult to work with my class with an age group of 18-21 it's hard to see people your age who can't do some things that we take for granted everyday of our lives. It really humbles you, as well as the fact that the students at this school are so happy even though they have a disability but its because they are unaware of it in a way that they are different or have a disability. Tuesday through Thursday, from 8:30am to 12:45am we did our work with our class, we basically work during our shifts helping the students solve puzzles, do assignments, like coloring pictures and writing in Hebrew, these are things we do simply but we always take for granted it makes me really happy to be able to help do things that children do all over the world the teachers at this school have a difficult job, but it is a job that is so important to be done in every community in the world. Thursday evening as well as Wednesday evening we celebrated Tu B'Shvat by eating lots of dried fruit and drinking 4 cups of wine, I didn't really know that there was such a thing as a Seder Tu B'Shvat so it was a true learning experience. Friday through Sunday I spent Shabbat in Rishon LeZiyyon with family.

Second week of Sarel

1-9-2011: Sunday morning, we met at the El-Al Junction to head back to the base to continue our volunteering venture. The volunteers and myself were a bit disappointed in our madrichot being a half hour late to our meeting point to head back to base, after getting packed lunch because of our tardiness, picking up a clean work uniform from the supply center, we continued work in the warehouse. In the warehouse, we worked on our sewing and folding skills with the tedious task of taking camouflage nets that are used to cover tents, checking for holes, sewing up holes and then folding them up again. After just a couple of hours of work, we went to dinner and then had an evening activity. Our evening activity was really interesting and I learnt a lot, the activity was a game of guessing places in Israel based on a fact about them, and then placing a card with the city's name on it's actual location on the map of Israel. It was a really fun game and I got answers that I didn't realize I knew such as the city Netanya, means something like 'gift of g-d', I thought about it because the Hebrew word for gift is Matana and the root is similar to that of Netanya so I guessed it and got it right. I was very proud of myself it shows my hebrew is improving since I've been on base.

1-10-2011: Monday, I went to breakfast and work not feeling great but I worked wanyways, even through being nauseous and just not well, in the warehouse we continued the camouflage net work with the tedious sewing and folding. It was funny because the senior citizens were there in the morning and there are two old ladies who have a serious FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), when we work so they wouldn't let us do anything and always taking over the work we were doing. It was kind of annoying but at the same time really funny because we just seemed really lazy to the warehouse commander because the ladies wouldn't let us do anything. After painstakingly trying to do some work with the senior citizen obstacle, we headed to the classroom to meet the commander, he gave us a presentation about the Iranian missile crisis and the Arab countries surrounding Israel. He gave us shocking information that the Iranians were not only a threat to Israel but the missiles range could endanger countries as far as France, so it is quite frightening to think that just one country can but truly detrimental and extremely dangerous the world as we know it. After lunch I was still feeling sick so the madrichot sent me back to the room to rest. After the volunteers got back I had someone to talk to after a lonely wait in which I couldn't sleep, I crocheted a lot though. After dinner we had another evening activity, this one was a game where a person had to answer questions based on facts given to a group of people,and the person answering the questions has to guess based on the questions who the person is that they are answering as. It was really interesting and I learnt a lot from the facts and they were a lot of things I didn't know about the people. There were three people we guessed Golda Meir, Yitchak Rabin and Theodore Herzl, I was the person answering for the questions about Theodore Herzl and I couldn't guess it until someone mentioned his book Der Judenstaa or "The State of Israel" in English. It was a good evening activity and I've really been enjoying the evening activities the last week and a half they've really interesting and I've learnt a lot about Israel and its history, more than I knew before.

1-11-2011: Tuesday, in the midst of our volunteering we went on a day trip to various places. We went with about thirty soldiers in tow, which made our departure quite delayed because they weren't expected and also quite unorganized. We were meant to leave base at 8:30 AM but we didn't leave until about 9:45 AM, so after getting the soldiers' guns checked out and museum reservations organized for the added members to the group, we finally left base to our first location, Abu Gosh. In the city we visited a monastery where we met a monk, Olivier, who works for the I.D.F.'s education unit. He told us about the city's history with a population with Muslims, Jews and Christians all living harmoniously, he told us his story about his life in France, his time in the French army as well as his moving to Israel from his monastery in France, and quite a few anecdotes about his interactions with the I.D.F., I really enjoyed going to the monastery because it was something new to see compared to majority of our day trips on Bnei Akiva. After leaving Abu Gosh, a city not far from Jerusalem we went to Tel Aviv for an hour lunch break, where me and friends from my program that are volunteering with me went on a long trek for a cupcake shop off of Dizengoff St., I got a red velvet cupcake, it was definitely worth the trek. After lunch we continued our day trip with a visit to the Palmach museum in Tel Aviv. The Palmach was an underground military movement in Israel back around the time that Israel was established, they played a big role fighting in the War of Independence. The museum has a really good set up they organized the tour into 12 rooms that all have short films that follow a group of people (members of the Palmach) and go from the start of the group to the establishment of the I.D.F., with all of the obstacles that were in between and the problems that Israel dealt with in that time period. After a long day traveling around we went back to base, had dinner and a free night in which we did nothing and were bored out of our minds, I don't know what the soldiers there do all the time for 2-3 years, kudos to them. Sleep being completely inevitable, that's exactly what happened next, we had an early night.

1-12-2011: Wednesday, we had our last Sarel work day, although bittersweet we were are pretty thrilled to be finished with our volunteering commitments. We had the usual volunteering jobs, painting cardboard boxes with the certain colors and wooden tool boxes just with a new coat of paint, cleaning grease off of tools. Throughout the day, we were bugging our soldier friend in the warehouse about the cookies and treats he promised us all week, he kept joking how he said nothing like that or that he lied, but of course he kept his promise, after a long paint covered work day we had a lovely treat of cookies, chips and peach iced tea. After lots of goodbyes to our warehouse friends we went back to the rooms, we saw our soldier friend at the dorms, who said he was really going to miss us, because we were his only entertainment on the base for the last two weeks, because it's truly that boring on the base. It was really cool that we made friends with soldiers on the base it was really nice to meet some new people. After dinner, we had an evening activity about Gilad Shalit, if you don't know who he is, he is an Israeli soldier from the Armory unit who was kidnapped by Hamas in 2005, near the time of the Second Lebanon War, he has been held hostage in Gaza for what is now 5 years. He has become a largely debated issue in israel because of the double edged sword that he represents, firstly his parents have been petitioning for his return outside of the Prime Minister's home in Jerusalem, although it seems simple. The Prime Minister should just go ahead and agree to the demands of Hamas for the return of Gilad, but the price is very high, Hamas wants the release of 1000 prisoners being held by Israel for acts of terror. So although it would be ideal to reunite family and son, just getting him back and releases so many multiple offense terrorists back, could just spurt a large amount of terror back into Israel. So what does the Prime Minister do, does he let these terrorists go to possibly bring more terror attacks to Israel, but still leave an Israeli soldier in Gaza, in captivity, and how would he explain that to Gilad's family and if he frees the terrorists what does he tell the thousands of Israeli families affected by the terror attacks committed by this particular 1000 terrorists. I'm in the middle, I just think its such a double edged sword, what do you do about a situation like this, that would be satisfactory for everyone. After this heated evening activity about this issue, we returned to the rooms, yet another early night.

1-13-2011: Thursday, our last day on base, with a small sleep-in of a half-hour we went to breakfast and then went to flag raising. On Thursdays, flag raising is more special because the whole base comes to unlike the rest of the week. Guess who got chosen to raise the flag in front of a large number of Israeli soldiers, yeah me, it was more than a little embarrassing, I'm pretty sure I turned as red as my hair. But either way, it was quite an honor to raise the flag for the base. After flag raising, we returned our uniforms and sleeping bags, and then had our last activity with the madrichot. This activity was a farewell activity, the first part was to vote for people for various awards, kind of joke awards, example I won "The Night Bird" for the person who slept the least and stayed up latest and "The One Who Looked Best in an Army Uniform", I don't know about that, I think I looked a little weird, but I guess its popular opinion. After giving out the joke awards which were pretty dead on, not many surprises. The madrichot gave us gifts from Sarel, a t-shirt, pin, chocolate bar, certificate and contact list, it's a nice gift, and will help me remember the program a lot better. After the activity we went to the warehouse we worked at the whole time to say goodbye to our commander and soldier who worked with is all the time. Then after lunch, we headed towards the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv, and we were done, now I'm ready for a nice Shabbat in Bet Oved with family.

Last week of seminary, winter break and start of sarel

The last week of seminary basically consisted of lots of packing,cleaning and goodbyes. We started the week with our last shiurim with our teachers, Tuesday night we went to a musical on the life of Devorah the judge. The musical was performed by religious women their troupe is called "Raise your Spirits" they formed during the Second Intifada to perform biblical stories by religious women performed only for other women. It really was a great production and I was impressed by the talent in the area around our seminary. Wednesday was dedicated solely to packing up our rooms as well as cleaning our cabins (if they can be considered cabins). After cleaning all day, we went to Gush Etzyon winery for a farewell banquet with the girls and most of our teachers. The Rosh Midrasha pointed out to me, approximately a thousand times that I had perfect attendance for the morning Seders, he was very impressed by that, made me proud that my hard work was appreciated by someone else. After sad goodbyes wednesday night, thursday morning we said goodbye to our Migdal Oz home and set off to our various destinations for the winter break. As we sat on the bus waiting to leave, all of the stray cats were sitting outside the cabins, like they were waving goodbye to us, it made my day, it would've been great if just one rose a paw like a wave. When we got to Jerusalem, eight of us heading to Netanya got on a shirut to our respective locations there. When the five of us got to our friend's flat, after we got ourselves organized in the rooms we were staying in for Shabbat and the week for some of us; four of us got in a taxi to go to the supermarket for groceries for the week. The next day we received 2 more guests to stay for Shabbat, we had a lovely dinner with chicken and soup, a lot of gossiping about our groups and the drama involved. Saturday morning, Christmas morning came in the Israeli/Jewish fashion, treeless, snowless, but we did have plenty of christmas music playing in the house. The weekend was normal Shabbat activities, hanging around the house, not doing much for the day. When Sunday morning showed up the Shabbat activities kind of continued the rest of the week, I left the flat only twice for six days until thursday when our friend's mom came to the flat to visit from England and also surprised her by bringing her older brother who our friend hadn't seen for seven months, was a really cute moment and we were all really happy and teary from their reunion. Thursday night I left to go to the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv to meet my boyfriend, after I met him from his bus coming from Eilat we continued to our Shabbat location, my stepmom's cousins who live close to Rehovot. We had a really lovely weekend and really enjoyed being with them, they have the biggest hearts of gold and the highest hospitality level and it was even hard to get a dish to the sink before getting scolded to sit back down. Sunday morning I started a new adventure of going to volunteer for the army in a program called Sarel, on this program we are sent to an army base and do the tedious little jobs that the soldiers don't have the time to do. In the last week we have done a lot of tedious tasks like painting signs and boxes, cleaning different equipment like stretchers and canteens, polishing boots, folding and sorting through sweaters, all the little and tedious jobs that the soldiers in the warehouse don't have the time for. I find this volunteer work rewarding, although it doesn't seem like much help to the army for us to clean a bunch of stretchers or organize sweaters but it helps to some degree when they have all those little tasks done so the soldiers don't have to worry about them. This weekend I'm heading to my dad's cousins who live in Renana until Sunday when I have to go back to the base in the morning. I'll be volunteering at the base from Sunday to Thursday when we go to our new locations in Netanya and Lod to volunteer while the remainder of our group are either doing army basic training and Magen David Adom volunteering