Lila Lavan

It's late morning, but I'm free because I finished my job a while ago. It's not so bad, I guess. I wake up tired and annoyed that I have to clean, and the job is kind of exhausting and so hot (after a little while there is usually sweat streaming down my face), but by now it only takes us a little more than two hours to finish everything, and I have the rest of the day off. Sarah from Australia, the girl I work with, is really sweet. And sometimes mopping the floor can even be rhythmic and relaxing.

So this past Thursday, instead of going to the pub on the kibbutz as usual, a bunch of us took a sherut (big cab) into Haifa for this street party they had there. This big street was closed off to cars, and all the bars and pubs had tables and were serving people in the streets. There was music playing and huge sweaty suffocating crowds. Lazar and I broke away from the rest of our ulpan group to find my friend Kara Block from Vassar. She's doing research at the University of Haifa this summer. It was nice to see her and (try to) talk to her a little bit over the ridiculous noise and throngs of people. After a while she went home and Lazar and I met up with our friends Lucy and Michelle from the ulpan, sat at a restaurant for a while, decided we'd had enough, and grabbed a cab back.

On Friday, I travelled with my ulpan friends Michelle, Anita, and Chen to the Kineret, the Sea of Galilee. Chen's cousins took us, and together we were a group of over ten people. It's very interesting there...we got there around six and set up the tents and grill and started bbq-ing. All around us, every five or ten feet were tents, grills, mattresses, boomboxes, nargilas (hookahs), backgammon sets. It was so crowded and loud! The water was nice, kind of warm, not salty, no jellyfish (meduzot). The jellyfish in the oceans are supposed to be vicious, so it's a big plus that the Kineret doesn't have any. We saw the sun set over the mountains on the other side of the Kineret, and we swam and ate and floated well into the night. It's so hot there that it's really comfortable in the water even at midnight, and there are people who are awake and swimming and haning out all night long. The next day was SO HOT. I heard it was 45 degrees celsius, but regardless, it was probably the worst heat I've ever been in all my life. I slathered sunscreen all over myself a few times, but I still got a decent burn. Around 2 we decided we absolutely couldn't stand the heat anymore, and we packed up and left. Before that, I alternated between thinking I was going to die or pass out from the heat, and falling asleep on a big blue mattress in the water.

In other news: I have a root canal scheduled for half an hour from now.

Tisha B'Av

Sometimes it's sort of frustrating being in Israel, the Jewish state, living on such a secular kibbutz. Today is Tisha B'Av, the ninth of the month of Av, an optional fast day to remember the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash, or Holy Temple. A few of my friends took the day off and travelled to Jerusalem, but I was unable to since I'd already taken a day off. And as I had a full day of work and I'm sick, it would be too difficult for me to fast. But imagine what an interesting and spiritual experience it would be to go to Jerusalem and visit the Kotel, the one remaining wall of the Temple, on the anniversary of its destruction! When I expressed this to Ari, the Ulpan manager, he kind of rolled his eyes, reminded me I had already taken a day off, and told me to get back to cleaning toilets.

Yeah, cleaning toilets. My job has been switched on me, because all the girls in the Ulpan need to take turns cleaning toilets (and the rest of the ulpan) for a month. So for the next four weeks I'm not working with my adorable and incomprehensible Israeli children. Instead, I'm working with bleach and clorax. Mom, you probably think this is funny--and anybody who really knows me knows how much I HATE cleaning and how bad I am at it. Today I stormed around the buildings with my bucket of cleaning supplies and angrily sloshed water and chemicals all over the place. I'm also disappointed because I was learning so much Hebrew at the gan, and the showers absolutely refuse to speak with me, unlike the kids, who were so eager to open their mouths and spew out rapid Hebrew.

So it hasn't been a very good past few days, but on the bright side at least it's just a month. Plus, I work fewer hours (I'm done by 11 instead of 2, and I get to start an hour later). But honestly, how sexist is that! All the girls have got to do the cleaning, but the boys get to keep working in the zoo or whatever.

GRRR.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Hmm. Harry Potter is a universal phenomenon. Reading it, I feel connected not just to everybody back in the States who's HP-crazy, but to fanatics all over the world. So the Potter craze is kind of silly, but it's also kind of neat, plus it makes me feel like a seventh-grader again. Besides, I was able to pre-order the book from Steimatsky's, speaking only in Hebrew.

On Friday, my friend Mike from the ulpan and I went to Haifa to play some ultimate. I've really missed this game, and I haven't played in over two months. But it's so different here! At Vassar we have a huge and lively and enthusiastic team. In Haifa, we barely managed to scrounge up ten people for a five-on-five game. And although Noyes Circle at Vassar can be frustratingly muddy, it was nothing compared to the sand that had taken over this scraggly field next to the biggest mall in Haifa.

This weekend Meital came to visit me on the kibbutz. It was my first sof-shavuah (weekend) here and not travelling. Lazar's kibbutz sister just graduated from high school, and the graduating class from the kibbutz put on a hatzagah (play) and had a really nice party in the wedding gardens on the kibbutz. It was very difficult for me to understand the hatzagah, but the party was so nice. The wedding gardens are beautiful, and I even felt a little bit like I was at a wedding. They had all these fancy and delicious desserts there. I danced with my 11-year-old kibbutz sister, and met this guy, Dan, who did an ulpan here a year ago, during the second Lebanese War. It was really interesting to hear about his experience here and how it differed from mine because of the war. They combined the kitah bet and gimmel classes, and they learned in a shelter. I also met a friend of Dan's who volunteers at a feminist center in Haifa, and I'm going to try to volunteer some time there as well. It should be nice to get off the kibbutz some more, and establish some connections in Haifa--plus, I really miss Vassar-esque feminist communities!

After the party, we went to Ultrasound, the huge club on Kibbutz Yagur, and it was insane. The place is HUGE and consists of four different soundproofed rooms, in which they play four different kinds of music. It was Ultrasound's birthday on Friday (as well as my dad's and Becky Brehl's--Happy Birthday!), so there was extra celebration. We stayed out until 5 in the morning, and then slept until 12:30 yesterday.

After lunch on shabbat, these two kibbutzniks pulled up to the ulpan in a pickup truck and announced that they were going to these natural springs, and they had room for three more people. So Lazar and Meital and I put on our bathing suits, and we drove to this trail near Haifa. I thought we were going to get out of the truck and walk, but Matan, one of the guys, ordered us to buckle up, and he started to drive the truck on this rocky hiking trail! It was really scary, but fun.

THe spring was really cool. It was like this cave with water up to my stomach, and it was really narrow and pitch black and low.

I'd give more details but Anita is waiting for the computer.

Tisha B'Av is in two days.

Post Veroffentlichen!

One of the interesting things about being on a program with people from so many different places is how many languages are constantly in use. For example, right now I'm using a computer whose language is set to German. Today we had a tiul (trip) to Tel Aviv instead of having class, and we went to a museum about the Jewish Diaspora. We had separate tours for English-speakers and Russian-speakers. In my English tour group we also had translation from English to Spanish, because although most people here speak English to some degree or another, this is not true of everybody. Lazar, my boyfriend, speaks very little English, and it's always a challenge communicating with one another solely in Hebrew. If I don't understand something, I can't ask him to translate into English. It's not just practicing my Hebrew, it's living it. And imagine being Jimmy Katz, the guy from Columbia who doesn't speak any English or Hebrew, and coming to live in a new country where almost nobody speaks your language, and you don't know anybody! I think I'd cry all the time.

I've got to go because the girls have finally kicked the guys off the soccer field, and we're having a girls only game tonight. I should wear my "This Is What A Feminist Looks Like" shirt.

Hebrew Words I Love

• mishmish--I love saying this word. It means "apricot" but it's so fun to say.
• melafafone--Also so much fun to say! It means "cucumber"
• lafa falafal--My reasons for loving this word are twofold. One, it's also really fun to say. And two, it's delicious! It's a really big falafel that comes in a huge pita that they fold over, instead of the pocket pita.
• balagan--This is just the most useful word in the world. It means something like "chaos," but Israelis use it all the time. For example, in the gan where I work: "When we go to the pool, make sure to keep your sandals, hat, and towel in the same place so that there won't be BALAGAN." Balagan, balagan, balagan. It's also the name of the kiddie amusement park on the kibbutz, which is a play on words: it also means "ba la'gan," or "come to the park."

Yesterday I went to Tel Aviv AGAIN! This time to say goodbye to my fun and dear friend Lily, whom I met on birthright. She's supposed to fly home today, but by the time I left Tel Aviv last night she was having second thoughts. Israel sucks you in like that. So who knows--maybe she hasn't flown home yet, after all!

It was lots of fun in T.A., as always. Lazar came down with me, and there was a great group of people there. Lily, of course, and Gil, one of our armed guards who was with us on birthright, and Meital, the soldier from birthright whom I visited a week and a half ago. Also two of Gil's friends, two more of Lily's friends, this awesome guy Dan who I met when I went to Jerusalem a few weeks ago, and a friend of his from the hostel he's staying at, a guy named Ben from London.

We went swimming and boogie boarding in the ocean, smoked some nargila on the beach, and went out for Ethiopian food. Not a bad night at all!

Tomorrow there is no shiur (class) because we're all going on a trip to Tel Aviv. Looks like I just can't get away from that city!

I love how much of Israel is coast and beach and sea.

People I Love, People I Miss

I've got so much to say! I'm finding that the more I update here, the more I use this blog as my journal, and I'm less likely to write in this darling little journal I started in a notebook that Lauren Pringle gave me for my birthday last year. But it's also so strange to write here! This blog is at the same time a journal for myself--an account of my emotions and experiences abroad, a place to sort out some of the mess in my head and to catalog the story of this year--and a kind of multi-purpose letter to lots of people back home. Not only that, but a wide range of people are reading here--myself, friends from home, friends from school, my sister, my parents and grandparents, other family and family friends. This brings up a whole host of questions and possible problems. Does this kind of thing, this personal reflection, bother people who might log into my blog just to read about what I am physically doing in Israel? Maybe it's boring or uncomfortable. And what about myself? What do I lose and gain by transferring my journal from a private notebook to a public website? I've often been in this awkward, precarious position since I love to write, and I've always written about personal things and then sought to publish them. For now, I think I'm comfortable exploring this new type of writing/journaling. But feedback is certainly welcome, especially if something I'm writing about is uncomfortable or unclear--or fascinating or happy or sad, for that matter.

Last week I travelled to Tel Aviv to see some very close friends from Vassar. It was wonderful and sad to see them. Our time together seemed so short! I came after class one day, and stayed out with them all night and returned to the kibbutz the next day. Before seeing them I hadn't been missing them at all, but you know how it is. The next morning, standing outside the hotel, watching the other students from their birthright trip board the bus and knowing this was the last time I was going to see my best friends for months--that was difficult. Part of me still doesn't believe they will be returning to school without me in the fall. How can life at Vassar go on while I'm not there? What a naive, egotistical way to think of things! I am glad to be here in Israel, and I am glad to be studying away from Vassar for a year. And yet, and yet, and yet. Really, I'm lucky to be so close to friends whom I will miss this dearly. Maybe it goes to show how everything has more than one side; nothing is purely good or purely bad. Our world is not a simple place.

I saw my sister this weekend. She had her free shabbat on her program, and we both met in Hadera where we stayed at family friends' house. When they dropped me off tonight, it was the same. I had hardly missed her before, but there's a something that expands in your chest and wells in your throat when you hug goodbye a person that you love.

I guess part of what I'm trying to say is that I miss you, whoever you are, my reader.

Live Earth

On Friday after class, I travelled to Rehovot to visit Meital, a friend I met on birthright. She was one of the soldiers who met up with our trip for about five days, and one of the sweetest and most outgoing people I've ever known. She reminds me a lot of Rayna.

During class, our teacher had talked to us extensively about public transportation in Israel and how best to use it. In fact, she went around the room and asked each of us if we were planning to travel that day. For those of us who said yes, she explained to us exactly how to get where we needed to go. She explained to me in great detail how to get from Kibbutz Yagur to Rehovot.

At home, I have absolutely no sense of direction. I always get lost. In Israel, as it turns out, I'm the same way.

So in the end, it took several hours, a train, and far too many buses--and a lot of questions--before I made it to Rehovot. But very luckily, I managed to catch the last bus from Tel Aviv to Rehovot, and Meital met me at the mall I managed to get dropped off near.

It's nice to get away from the Kibbutz on weekends. While I'm here, everybody has such similar schedules, and students from the ulpan are together so much of the time that it can be a little stifling. It's a lot of fun, and these are people I'm going to be very close with by the time I leave, but sometimes I feel suffocated hanging out with the same people all day, every day. Also, I hadn't seen Meital since the end of my birthright trip, so it was excellent spending time with her.

She really likes art a lot, and her artwork is displayed all over her house--in her living room, her bedroom. She took me to see scultpures in two different places. I liked visiting these scultpures with somebody who loves art so much, because she made me feel really excited about what we were seeing, and she also had some interesting insights on a lot of the pieces.

On Saturday night, we went to the live earth festival in Tel Aviv (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_earth). It was a lot of fun. There were all these booths on environmentalism, and environmentally friendly products and foods being sold. Meital and I decorated pinecones. There was also a big concert featuring lots of Israeli bands I had never heard of. I was glad to be at a Live Earth festival; it reminded me a lot of home, of Vassar. I'm so conscious of sustainability and environmentalism there, because it's so easy to be--everybody around me is like that. But I'm beginning to realize how much easier it is to be focused on something when everybody is focused on that thing, when you have a support structure like that. And how much of our identities are affected by our environment and by the people we surround ourselves with.

Maybe Mariel in Israel is more different from Mariel in Poughkeepsie than I at first realized.

Mishpacha Chadashah

I've got a new family.

Today after class I brought my homework to the pool. I was laying out on my towel near the water, writing out sentences with new words we had learned today, when a heavyset woman in a flowered one-piece shouted from across the patio. "Is there somebody here named Mariel?" she called in a heavy Israeli accent. "Ken," I answered. I speak Hebrew just about everywhere, to just about everyone--to the extent that it truly feels strange to write out this blog in English. "You have a phone call," she told me.

It was Smadar, the Ulpan Mother. She was calling to tell me that I had an adopted kibbutz family, and they'd be by the ulpan to pick me up at six. It was ten after five, so I gathered my towel, notebooks, and Hebrew-English dictionary and walked back to my building to shower and get dressed before they picked me up.

They came in one of those motor wagons that everybody here has. It looks like an oversized tricycle with a motor and a white cloth roof. In the front seat sat my new mom, Shani, and riding backwards in the small bed were two four year olds. They're twins named Asaf and Gali. There is also an 8.5-year-old boy in my family, and an 11-year-0ld girl who is truly nechmadah. She showed me all the gymnastics she knows and I showed off my split.

They had me stay for dinner, which was really nice. It felt good to eat outside the chadar ochel, to sit down at a kitchen table with a real family and eat a home-cooked meal. Besides, there's no better feeling than having four-year-olds correct your grammar as you eat.

Both my cousins and family friends called me today, and I exchanged numbers with Shani so we can see and talk to one another regularly. When Sarah, my cousin, called, she told me she missed me already and where was I, how was I, please come visit soon, I'm always welcome. When Shai, our family friend, called, it was to arrange a visit to his house in another week, where I'll see my sister.

I'm thousands of miles away from my parents and all my college and high school friends. And sometimes, I feel really lonely. But it's also like this. Everywhere I go in Israel, with everything I do here, there is family.

Kitah Gimmel Begins

I'm slowly settling into the sweet, lazy kibbutz life. Nothing is rushed or hurried here; the days are hot, people mosey slowly from one place to another. Meals are eaten in the chadar ochel, or dining hall, which is right across from the Ulpan dormitories. The entire kibbutz can eat there for breakfast and lunch, and then there's a special ulpan meal for dinner. The first two meals are bright, crowded affairs. There are babies and small children with their parents, teenagers eating at a table with their friends, ulpanists from all over the world conversing in English, French, Spanish, Russian, German, and of course Hebrew.

On Monday and Wednesdays, I've got class that starts at 8, so I have to eat breakfast before then. The chadar ochel is opens at 7, so I get there around 7:30. Everybody in my class, Kitah Gimmel, is there, and so are the people from Kitah Bet, who have class at the same time that we do. Kitah Aleph works on the days that we study, and everybody's work schedule is a little different. Class is long, we have it from 8-3 with a lunch break and a few shorter breaks, but the teacher is nechmadah, great. Her name is Sarahleh, and she's been teaching Kitah Gimel at the ulpan for 25 years. The entire thing is in Hebrew, which makes sense, because it's the only common language we all have. There are about 12 students in my class.

On Sundays and Tuesdays I work at Gan Oren with 4-6 year old children. They are really adorable and a lot of fun, even though I don't understand half of what they say to me. It's also neat to see them around the kibbutz outside of work.

Every other week we have class on Thursday and work on Friday that ends early. The other weeks, we work Friday and have a short day of class on Thursday. When this happens, we have an extra shorter session Tuesday evening. After class or work, we're free to do what we'd like. Today I went for a hike with a few other ulpanists. It was really nice to get out and do something active, as I hadn't really exercised very much since I got to the kibbutz.

I'm getting an adopted ulpan family soon. Smadar, the head of the Ulpan, told me that they have four children, and the oldest is 11. It'll be nice to be able to hang out with a family once in a while, since mine is so far away.

My big news, I guess, which I'm a little hesitant to post on my blog--but I'll do it anyway--is that I've been seeing one of the guys in the Ulpan. His name is Lazar and he's from Turkey. He's really nechmad. He made aliyah six months ago with his family because the anti-semitism in Turkey is so bad. His family lives in Tel Aviv, and this is his second Ulpan at Kibbutz Yagur. He doesn't speak much English, so we mostly talk to each other in Hebrew, which is challenging but also fun. Communication is so different like that. In a way, it's almost easier to say what's on my mind, because I get so caught up in trying to communicate in an effective way, that I don't have time to be embarrassed or hesitant about the content of what I'm saying.

We have a day off each week for shabbat. This past shabbat, I travelled with two other ulpanists, Michelle and Scott, to Jerusalem. I stayed with Dana, my friend and Hebrew teacher from Vassar, and had shabbat dinner with her family. That was also nice, to spend shabbat with a family like that. We saw an Israeli movie, Meduzot, which means Jellyfish, that I absolutely loved. I really recommend it to anybody who can get their hands on it. I also met up with some friends from my birthright trip-Lily, Shlomo, and Matt. We went to shul together Friday night, and then Lily and I hung out Saturday during the day. In the evening, we walked over to the Livnot House, where Shlomo and Matt were staying. Livnot does programs with young people in Israel, lots of community service things I think, and they had offered our friends a shabbat meal and a place to stay. There were lots of people hanging out there, and they were really interesting to talk to. People doing all kinds of things in Israel-studying, ulpans, hiking, Livnot programs.

My sister is in Israel now, which is very exciting, and hopefully I'll be able to spend some time with her soon. I know she has a free shabbat in a few weeks, and we're going to get together at our cousins' house. My friends Golan and Rachel from Vassar are also coming to Israel tomorrow on birthright, and I really hope I get a chance to see them.

Tomorrow is actually the fourth of July, which seems so strange. Mike, an ulpanist from California, is planning a BBQ tomorrow for us Americans, but I almost don't want to go. Israel feels more like my home than America in so many ways, and I don't feel any need to celebrate the 4th. This time last year, I guess I was working that hellish but fascinating job lifeguardng at High Tor. Fourth of July is one of the crowdest, busiest, most dangerous days for us there. And here, it's just another day. I've got class and that's about all.