Life in Olive Green

After spending weeks stressing about how I was going to pack everything to move, it turned out not to be too bad- everything actually fit in my suitcases. Leaving Natzrat Ilit was not quite as easy. It was really sad for all of us to say goodbye to the people living there. I'm going to especially miss the people I've met through the English sessions. We got to know them really well. It was pretty sad for those of us who have made a connection to leave. It was also hard because we were able to see how much we could have done but didn't. Although the first part of OTZMA is not supposed to be about volunteering, more about learning Hebrew and getting used to Israel, it is still disappointing to see. Hopefully, we learned enough from living in Natzrat Ilit to prevent that from happening in Kiryat Malachi.

We now have a two week session before we have some time off for break and then head to our part 2 locations. I decided to spend these weeks living on an army base and volunteering through a program called Sar-El. The base they sent us to is called Tze'elim. Tze'elim is a huge base, comprised of a bunch of little parts. The part we live on is called Mali. So far, we've mostly been organizing storerooms. Every now and then we get to do something a little more interesting; I spent Thursday morning cleaning the M-16's for the reserve soldiers. It's really fun to get to know the people in the army and to hear their stories. As a group, all the girls have already fell in love of with a bunch of the boys we work with.

As we've all learned, life in Israel is neither fast-paced or organized. Apparently, nothing is different in the army. When we ask people what they do in the army, a fair amount of them tell us, "nothing". On a basic day, breakfast is from 6:45-7:30. Those of us who haven't given up on waking that early, get there by 7:25 for a couple of eggs. Then we have flag raising at 8:00. Around 8:30 we get our positions for the day. We're normally divided into around 4 groups who all do different things. We hang out until around 9 when they come and offer us coffee before we work. We start working around 9:30 and put in a good hour until we have a break around 10:30. At about 11 we'll start working half-heartedly again until 11:45 when we have lunch. Lunch lasts until 1:15, so we normally have time to take a nap for about an hour. Slowly we go back to our stations for the day, sometimes new ones, and pick up work, around 2. Work officially ends at 4:30 but it actually ends around 3. We then go and take a nap or shower, usually both, before dinner. After dinner we have another break and then evening programming until about 9:30. There's a central part of the base with a store a lounge and a little restaurant that we have nicknamed the Student Union. We hang out there and get to know the soldiers until 10:30 or 11 when we go to sleep, exhausted by a hard day at work.

As you can see, life in the army is tough for us. When we first came we worked considerably harder. Then everyone would come by and say, "Why are you guys working so hard? Slow down, take a break. Do you want some coffee?"

The army has also taught all of us to love shoko b'sakit. Shoko b'sakit, also known as boker shok! is chocolate milk in a plastic bag- but it is the best chocolate milk you have ever had. The army must get shoko b'sakit for free because they have it everywhere. It is served with every meal. In the morning, there's no milk for our cereal. In the army, you eat you're cereal with shoko b'sakit. What a way to start the day.