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.
