Shalom Ramla!

Hello Everyone,

I know I haven't written anything in a few months, but since I'm back from the trip I thought it would be fitting to write one final post from Israel. 

First off, I was able to volunteer at a high school with new immigrants from South America, teaching them English. These are all Jewish teens who's families moved to Israel, so they speak Hebrew fluently, but lack English skills, which they need for testing at the end of high school. First, I was happy to be able to use my Spanish positively. However, it was a difficult task to teach this class (for about an hour and a half on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays), because there would be anywhere from 3-12 students there on any given day, with varying degrees of English competence. I would help them with their homework if they had any, but mostly I would be at a whiteboard (with my program-mate Karyn as help), giving them verbs in different tenses; having them make sentences, and say phrases with them, as well as giving plenty of vocabulary to study. To keep things fun, I would help them translate song lyrics, and teach them things to say in a conversation, slang, and even pick-up lines, or whatever we felt like. They were a great group of kids, I hope I was able to help them pass their future exams, build their skills a little bit, and hopefully have a little fun.

I was also able to travel quite a bit, and near the end we took a group trip to the Israel Valley, where there was a series of biblical battles, as well as an army training base and for what it's worth, a few Israeli fish farms. We saw the tombs of Theodore Hertzel (the Father of Modern Zionism), David Ben-Gurion (Israel's first P.M.), as well a few other biggies (Golda Meir, Levi Eshkol, etc.) at Mt. Hertzel outside of Jerusalem. I was able to get up close to (alas, not inside) the Dome of the Rock and the El-Aqsa mosque, see a few big churches in the Armenian quarter, and shop around at the Arab market there. I was able to snorkel in Eilat and see the mediterranean from atop the Carmel in Haifa. 

In the end, I am very happy to have had this opportunity to go to Israel. It was cool to both make a difference in people's lives as well as see the world, travel, and learn a little history. I would recommend anyone else to do the same. 

I'm Alive!

Hello everyone!

It's been a little while since my last post, and quite a bit has gone one since then! My apologies for the hiatus. So, from the middle of September to the end, we had the High Holy Days here, which start with Rosh Hashanah (new year), and end with Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). This spans a ten-day period. Also, Yom Kippur is like nothing else I've ever seen. It's the only time one can witness nearly absolute silence in an actual city, which was pretty cool. It's also the most important holiday of the year, so I'm pretty lucky to have been here at that time. The next week is Sukkot, a celebration of nature, when many people make sukkas, which are small structures outside of their house or business, either traditionally made with leaves and branches, or are simply tents. Since Sukkot is a one-week break, added to the High Holy days it encompasses the equivalent of an American "winter break," incidentally also including the turning of the new year, though school goes on for some and work goes on for most during the middle of the first ten-day period. Sukkot ends with Happy Torah Day (a day of rejoicing because the Torah can be read again after a certain period of time when it cannot be read), and this is known as the one day of the year that the Orthodox Jews get hammered. 

During the Sukkot vacation, six of us stayed four nights at a hostel on the water in Tel-Aviv, one block away from the very same beach where the beginning of You Don't Mess with the Zohan was filmed. The beach there is amazing, complete with amazing women, warm water, and people playing paddleball (for some reason Israelis love this). We would hang out there on the beach, or meet people's relatives, and we had a great time. 

The volunteering has been going well, and we now have a semi-regular schedule, which is good because we can get to know the people we work for now. I have gotten to really like the schools, and helping the kids there learn English. I go to the schools two or three times a week, and the other two I go to the soup kitchen. I think we're actually starting to make a difference, which is good. In a few weeks, we're going to Eilat with all Oranim members from around Israel. Eilat is at the southern tip of the country, and apparently it's like a Miami-esque destination city, but with a lot of awesome hikes (i.e. the best of both worlds), so we're looking forward to that. 

Well, goodbye for now, and another one is coming soon! 

Golan Heights and more...

Yeeeeeaaahhhh, it's that time again. I'm back, and sorry about the hiatus, my friends, I've just been a little lazy. Slothful. Laggard. Somnolent. And, for all you Spanish speakers, perezoso. But anyway, here I am, back at the keyboard, ready to pour out to y'all my blend of heart, soul, and cold hard facts (with scant tablespoon of intellect, of course :-). So, again, anyway. The past few weeks I have been engaged in an intensive ulpan, i.e., a class for noobs (i.e., rookies) trying to learn Hebrew. For those who don't know, some sadistic Hebrews back in the day decided that vowels weren't necessary. We have them in our textbooks, but all they are are a few dots or a line below or next to the letter. In the real world, they're nonexistent. Like training wheels. The language is oddly similar to Spanish (noun before verb, same word for "on" and "about"). It's SLIGHTLY helpful. However, that's neither here nor there. I can sort of read now, and I can write. Which is good. At some point, I may try to write a blog post in Hebrew, which will suck for all of you who can't read Hebrew. Let me rephrase that. It will suck for ALL of you. But thats beside the point.  

Ok, so I'm making some egg rolls. Wait one second. They're in the microwave, so I have some time to regain my composure. I shall continue. On thursday, we went to the Golan Heights. A little history here. This is the spot of conflict, where Israel and Syria had the six days war. (Anybody remember this? If you do, you're old, mom and dad and grandparents.). Anyway, Israel took this area over in 1967, and even though it's not considered a disputed territory anymore, it's still got the same reputation. Reportedly, a city near us took some rocket fire about an hour after we left, so lucky for us. Standard protocol. Good times. Ok, back to the beginning. We got on the bus at 6:45 AM with our bus driver Boris, and headed toward Tel Aviv to pick up the peeps living there (lucky bastards got an extra hour of sleep). After picking them up, we apparently had half an hour before reaching the destination (that was Israeli time, in American time that's about 2.5 hours). We got there, and hiked around the heights for awhile, a lot of us, like 90. Although it was warm, it was good times. We got to see some bomb shelters and whatnot, as well as the Jordan River. Our tour guide was Ron again (Crocodile hunter 2, from the last blog). He is the man. (The link to his video will be on the next post, sorry.) At some point during the hike, we ended at this resplendent waterfall, which happened to be the second highest in Israel. We got to swim in its corresponding lake, which was very rewarding. We ended, and took the bus back to the hotel. We ate dinner with everybody, and that night we had a straight-up Oranim RAGER (party). I went around and had conversations with tons of peeps. I got to know about sixty people. Tons of good vibes, liquor, and Jews having a good time while giving back to our motherland. Ron was hilarious. The cornerstore peeps gave him a beer, which he didn't drink but carried around with him the whole night. Oh, the imagery. Unfortunately, one kid from the one of the other groups got kicked off for smoking the ganja. That was sad, he seemed like a good guy. But anyway, we all (90) loaded ourselves onto the bus; tired, hungover, and sweating out alcohol. In a little while, we got to our site. We started off on a hike through the Jordan river, waist-deep for me, chest-deep for some of the shorter (i.e. unfortunate) ones. Pretty surreal. Good times. We got out and were on our way back to Ramleh, stopping to get some Shabbat groceries. We cooked our meal, which leads me to now. Anyway, until later, Shalom!!!!!!! 

Shabbat Shalom

Hey all, welcome to post number two! You guys all read the first post I hope, so I'll just cut right to the chase and start off right where I left you all hanging after most recent installment. So the next day after I left off, we had our second legitimate job.  Well, it was actually more like a hazing. After buying a few house necessities (including a new hookah) we headed over to Herzel Street to "do some gardening." We ended up in front of the residence of some senior (25-30) Oranim program members. We cleaned their yard, trimmed their trees, and pulled stumps out of the area in front of their house, while they sat around, smoked hookah, had a few beers and told jokes. (Ya know, with most of us being freshmen next year, a little practice couldn't have hurt any of us.) All of us young-uns hung out at our pad (Weizmann 18, the best) later that night. Well, the next day was quite an adventure. We woke up at 5:30 AM, IST and met at seven at the same yard we had cleaned, and headed off with the older kids to meet up in Jerusalem with some other Oranim peeps from all around Israel. We then began one of the most mind-blowing tours I have ever been on, with a charismatic, hilarious, and insane tour guide named Ron, who I am convinced could be the next Steve Irwin (for those living under a rock, that's the Crocodile Hunter, may he rest in peace). When I can get my hands on it, I will attach a video of his presentation to a later blog post. He gave this presentation from a beautiful place overlooking all of Jerusalem, including the Old City, which he gave us the entire (albeit fascinating) history of. We subsequently boarded a bus (complete with our personal armed bodyguard) to around the Old City itself, in its full, historically charged splendor. We visited a bunch of ridiculously relevant religious (the new Three R's) sites, the first of which was King David's tomb (yes, the same shepherd young, he who cheers both heart and tongue, for all you Waldorfians). The next was the room where Jesus consumed his last supper with his twelve homies/apostles. After a falafel/shwarma break (nom nom nom), we spelunked (is that even a word?) with the aforementioned Ron through the underground city water tunnels, which the old-school Hebrews (i.e. from 5000 years ago) constructed without a GPS, or even a map. It was reminiscent of the California Caverns. After drying off, we went to the Wailing/Western wall, where I donned a kippeh, said a couple of prayers, and got as close to a spiritual high as relaxed old Dre is ever going to get. It was the first non-jetlagged experienced I had at the Real Wall (my apologies to Pink Floyd). Boy was it something else. Anyway, after that, we took a bus back to home sweet home in Ramla for a quick nap and dinner. At 10:30, we headed to Tel Aviv for some clubbing. For all of you that have clubbed before or like clubbing now, you haven't lived. I mean, that place was POPPIN'! Absolute insanity, complete with techno, vodka, and beautiful females. Anyway, when we got back at 5:30 AM (a full 24-hour circuit), we slept like  rocks. The only event worth mentioning the next day was when a few apparently love-stricken young men buzzed our door and booked it after leaving a roses and a note for my roommate Shuly saying "Here or som flowers for beautiful gurl" [sic]. Cute, cute. Anyway, I went for a run later that day, and we ate dinner together. That is all. The next day was Shabbat, which means Friday. That afternoon, we all went to services, and then paired up and all had post-service dinners with some families from the shul that we were at. Me and my roommate Kerry went to the house (really close to ours) of a very nice couple with three children. My roommates Olga and Sam went to the house of the rabbi and his wife, who have ELEVEN KIDS. ELEVEN. Wow. Anyways, we crashed, woke up at around 10:30 AM and a little later went to the house of Kerry's grandparents and ate Sabbath lunch. We then took a van taxi back home. Which leads me to now.

Anyway, ta ta for now, and remember the next one is coming soon! Bye. Love to all.

First Week

Hey Everyone! I'm hanging out here at our place in Ramla with my roommates Olga, Shuly, Kerry and Sam, our newest addition (more on that later). For those of you (non-family) that didn't get an earlier email, I'm going to go over everything again. I'll be brief. So, it started off at JFK airport, at the El Al check-in station. Soon after getting grilled about my luggage and chided about not knowing any Hebrew (that will change!), we were off and in the air on a 747. I was lucky enough to score an aisle seat in a row at the front of the middle section of a plane (the thorax?), but that was slightly offset by the existence of the 6'5", 270+ pound behemoth occupying the seat next to me. We were later treated to both dinner and breakfast by a crew of quite attractive but slightly bitchy stewardesses. (Any of you old-timers remember when they used to be both cute AND nice? Seems like it's usually one or the other these days...) But that neither being here nor there, after eleven hours I and an assortment of families, rabbis, tourists, and 15 other Oranim members just like me began our final descent into Tel Aviv; tray tables up, seats in the full upright position, and minds open to travel, hard work, good times, and experiences in a culture completely foreign to that which we were were part of less then half a day before. (Shout out to mom, hoped you liked the alliteration!)

The day we landed in Tel Aviv, we hopped directly onto a bus to Jerusalem, the holy city, for THREE of the worlds most important religions (the most important Mosque for the Muslims, Al-Aqsa, is also there, along with the Church of the Holy Sepulcher). I visited the Western Wall, a surreal experience. It blew my mind that it has been around for 5000 years, and millions of people have worshipped at it. I will go back, so as to get the full experience when I'm not so jetlagged. After a few days living in a hotel in Jerusalem, we were on a bus to Ramla, where I moved into the apartment with the aforementioned roommates (minus Sam). We took the first day to clean the entire house, and now it is a gem. We kept only a few of the things from before, such as a sign over the sink that read "Do your $@%^ing dishes your mom doesn't live here!", as well as full clip of AK-47 rounds. It's good luck. Me and my roommates have an excellent rapport. We are all so close already, it's uncanny. We are completely different, yet from the day we went to the supermarket for groceries, and had pretty much exactly the same preferences we realized how how well we would get along. 

Our next day was our first day volunteering. We completely cleaned up and repainted a preschool/day care place (ages 0-4). The proprietors were slightly strange, but they were extremely grateful for our help. Soon afterwards, I went to the shuk (an open-air shopping center crossed between a farmers market and a flea market for household necessities), before settling down to eat dinner, then subsequently heading to one of the other apartments to hang out with the rest of the group. Then trouble struck.

Apparently, earlier in the day, two of the young ladies in our group became acquainted with a few (slightly) older and hormonal young guys from a near apartment. I won't go into too many details, but it ended up with a few of the other boys in our group getting in an altercation with the building guys. Me and my roommates  were slightly out of the loop (we live farther apart than the rest of the group). It ended with the girls switching apartments and the boys pressing charges. It was pretty stressful, and the four of us roommates went on a cathartic run together around mid-day, ate lunch, and met with the rest of the group. Sam, another kid, is now living with us, because of the switcharoo, and he is already part of the family. We are headed to Tel Aviv this afternoon to go to the beach together and get some food. We'll go there again thursday to partake in the nightlife (thursday here is like friday there). Well, to all you family peeps and other peeps, until later, Shalom!