A Long One...

After Rosh Hashanah, we had only a little time in Natzrat Ilit before we left for Yom Kippur. While we were there, we were able to have our first English class. Unfortunately there was a scheduling conflict we weren't aware of, but our class was set for the same time as the Ethiopians had programming. A lot of them came to our English class anyway and their madricha came by and found them and was pretty angry. The class was for the residents of the absorption center and there were all different levels of English. Most of the Russians had pretty good English- they could have a basic conversation about themselves. Some of the Ethiopians had learned English in school in Ethiopia so they could speak fairly well but those who hadn't didn't even have any basics.
Right after our English class, we started to prepare to build a playground. The absorption center is a lot of concrete and the only recreation area is a basketball court that people play soccer on a lot. Behind one of the buildings is a dirt area that we're trying to turn into a playground. We spent the night planting a garden and planned to start the actual playground as soon as we got back from the holidays.
There were only a few days in Natzrat Ilit before we left but we could already see the impact of our English class. People felt more comfortable saying hi to us and coming up to us. All of us got asked multiple times when we were going to do the next class.
I also spent my first afternoon in the afterschool club. All the kids in the absorption center are allowed to come and do homework, art projects, play, etc. We set up a dance class for the kids one afternoon. All of the little girls loved it and took their ballet practice seriously. A few of the boys got involved too.
We went to Jerusalem the day before Yom Kippur and had a seminar their. There were a few interesting activities but most of it didn't interest me. We did to a yoga class that was fun though. The most interesting part was to see all of the people from Beer Sheva again. It was our first time seeing all of them again after orientation in the beginning. We were able to compare experiences in the north and the south. (Otzma is divided into 2 groups-half of the people live in Beer Sheva, half in Natzrat Ilit)
Being in Jerusalem for Yom Kippur was really interesting. No cars are allowed to drive through the city on Yom Kippur so everyone walks in the streets. It was really peaceful to be able to walk around. Our hotel was right by a few nice parks and as I walked through them I could hear all the kids playing and birds calling instead of horns honking.
We had a seminar in Jerusalem on Sunday so most of us decided to stay in the city for the weekend. My friend Zara and I stayed with Zohar's family. (Zohar works for Hillel of Silicon Valley). His family was very sweet and very welcoming. Neither of us had experienced a Sephardic Shabbat before. The tunes to some prayers we knew were different- and the food was delicious. Zohar's family lives on the edge of Jerusalem and we had spent the day with our friends in the center of the city, walking around the old city, Ben Yehuda Street area and Mahane Yehuda Shuk. By the time Zara and I were going back, the buses had already stopped running so we walked back. On the way, we had to walk through religious neighborhoods. As we were walking, everyone was going to synagogue. Almost everyone was wearing somber black, so Zara and I definitely stood out dressed in our bright colors. They had set up barriers on the streets so that no cars could drive through on Shabbat. As we were leaving a taxi was driving towards the neighborhood. A bunch of men were all standing by the barrier. As the taxi approached, they all started yelling, "Shabbas!" at it. The taxi turned around pretty quickly.
Our seminar on Sunday was all about the different quarters of the old city. We toured around the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim quarter. We were able to go up to the Temple Mount. It was definitely an interesting experience- once in a life time (check pictures on facebook). We also walked Via dela Rosa- the walk that Jesus made as he was on the cross. We also went into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
After our day touring Jerusalem we were dropped off in the bus station to begin our sukkot break. Earlier that day I had called Danna (a good friend from high school who had made after graduation and joined the army) to see if she had any free time over sukkot. It turned out she was free that night so I went to go stay with her on her kibbutz. We spent the night talking and watching classic movies, just like at home. The next day (Monday), she had to go to Haifa for a family gathering and I headed back to Natzrat Ilit.
Before we had all left for Yom Kippur, everyone made sure to finish all the food they had so it wouldn't go bad before we left. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that when we got back, it would be a holiday so no stores were open for us to buy some food for the day we were there. Pretty much all of us spent the few days we were there eating pasta and ketchup.
Tuesday night, everyone left to begin a volunteer project called Students Moving Green. It was a college-student run project that did a few days of volunteer work every year. When it began two years ago it was called Students Moving North as university students from all over the country went north to help rebuild after the Lebanon War. Last Year it was called Students Moving South as everyone went south to help rebuild Sderot. This year, the project was focused on taking care of the Kinneret because of the water shortage this year. There were 500 people involved in the project and 150 of them sleeping in the kibbutz with us. We all made a lot of friends and improved our Hebrew! I spent 2 days working at a center for mentally disabled adults. The first day we had a bunch of drums and did a dance party with them. The second day, we did art projects; my group made crowns with them. It was definitely really rewarding work. They had mentioned to us that most people living there don't receive visitors and that our coming to help would be something they remembered for the rest of their life. We could definitely see how happy they were to have us there and how excited everyone was when they saw we had come back the second day.
After that, I spent the weekend in Rishon Letzyion with family friends. I pretty much did nothing except sleep and watch TV. None of us have a TV in the center and our internet doesn't work very well so we can't watch TV online. It's a pretty exciting event when we can watch TV. The six of us who are moving to Kiryat Malachi after this just found out that there's a TV and a DVD player there. All of us were so excited to hear that.
After I spent the weekend relaxing I went up to Haifa with two friends from the program. I stayed with this girl Nira that I had met on the volunteer project. Nira is from the US and was friends with one of the other girls on OTZMA before she moved. She's in Israel studying abroad for the year at Haifa University. Nira at home goes to American University, where I will be next year. She told me a lot about it. The good news is that she really likes her classes and all the opportunities she's gotten out of going to American. The bad news is that she hates it socially. I'm just hoping that the people who transfer into American and nicer and I can make friends better than she did entering as a freshman. Nira and I hung out and talked and I spent some time traveling around Haifa seeing the city. We also saw a movie at the film festival. It was an American movie called "Praying with Lior" about a boy with Down's syndrome preparing for his Bar Mitzvah. It was a really good movie. It was also really nice to be able to go see a movie. There are no move theaters in Natzrat Ilit and going to see movies is definitely an activity I
miss.
After I left Haifa, I went with Avi, another OTZMA participant, to stay in Zicharon Yakov. We spent a night there and spent the next day hiking through the city and a nearby nature reserve. It was really gorgeous there, but we definitely got lost. By the time we got back, both of us were exhausted. We then went down to Shoan, right next to Tel Aviv, to spend the night with Avi's family friends. Avi had been friends with one of the sons in college, but the only kid there was the fourteen-year-old, Roy. Roy was one of the coolest fourteen-year-olds that I've ever met. We spent the night playing poker and other card games.
The next day, Thursday, we had our first OTZMA activity in almost two weeks. It was really nice to be able to see everyone again, although everyone had realized over the break that we really do spend way too much time together. We had a seminar in Tel Aviv. I chose to see the business side of it. We went to see a presentation in Super Derivatives, an international finance company. After that we went to the trading room for Bank Hapoalim. That was really interesting to see how the run and the activity in there. After that, we came back to Natzrat Ilit for the weekend and to return to life as normal. I had a visitor come with me- Naama, from Hillel of Silicon Valley, who also moved to Israel, has come up for the weekend to visit! We were all also reunited with the internet, a beloved friend whom we have all missed dearly for the past couple of weeks.