Chayim Kashim

I know I don't have such a hard life, all things considered, and the following is not so much a testimony of my own difficult life. But of course, it is that as well.

I left for Israel glowing so golden with happiness and excitement that I forgot that I was leaving to live in a foreign country alone for a year. I forgot that this can be a difficult thing. As the second month of the Ulpan draws to a close, I've been living in Israel almost three months. Life here, like life everywhere, is made up of waves. Things seem rosy and wonderful for a certain amount of time, you are high on the newness of life. And then--and now--the wave crashes.

Living in a small space with the same 40 people for two months is challenging. We're all starting to get bored, testy, and claustrophobic. Some days I feel like there is only a small handful of people I don't hate here.

I guess the point of this post is to say that on Saturday, I broke up with Lazar. Saturday night I chopped off most of my dreadlocks, and at this point I much more closely resemble a middle-aged lesbian than the "Rasta princess" my friend Shlomo from birthright calls me. Let me tell you, it's rough going breaking up with someone you care a lot about and who loved you, seeing him around all day every day, all the while looking like the type of person who is liable to rip off her bra and burn it in front of the Chadar Ochel. It doesn't help that my birthday is coming up on Saturday, I'm turning 20, I'm miserable right now, and I have no plans.

Okay, I might be a spoiled brat. But it also doesn't help that the atmosphere here is so negative that an Ulpanist was brought to the hospital last night because of psychological issues. I am unable to disclose more information at this point, even though half the kibbutz probably knows all the details already. Word spreads like a fire in Greece here. I saw my kibbutz family today, and even though I hadn't spoken to them in a week and a half, they already knew about me and Lazar.

So sometimes life is hard. And sometimes life is less hard. Aren't I brilliant for figuring that one out?

Ma Chadash

This is going to be a quick update because my laptop charger is still broken and I'm trying to conserve power here.

Last Shabbat I stayed on the Kibbutz for the second time since I got here, but I think I'll be spending more shabbatot here because I'm quickly running out of money traveling so much. It was Lazar's birthday, so Friday night a big group of us went out to dinner, including his brother (16) who was visiting. Saturday, ROSA, a family friend from when I lived in Israel in 1989, invited me over for lunch. Nikki, who also lived on Kibbutz Chanaton with Rosa's family and my family in 1989, was also there. In the afternoon, Rosa took me to Daliyat Al Carmel, a Druze village, and to the market there. I ate some delicious Druze pita with lebanah (a yogurty spread).

Saturday night Lazar, his brother, and I traveled to Bat Yam (near Tel Aviv) to be with his family for his birthday, which was Sunday. I met his mother, who spent most of her childhood in Israel and speaks Hebrew fluently, and his father who speaks much less Hebrew but talked to me in Ladino (Spanish with heavy Hebrew influences) and French, and also his grandpa who only speaks Turkish.

Also--I booked a flight to Greece! I'll be in Greece (and possibly Italy and/or Turkey, because there are ferries) from October 1-10!!

Tmunot-Kibbutz Yagur!

the first picture I took on the Kibbutz--Ayelet from Brooklyn with her cleaning supplies, back when she had the cleaning job. I thought this was hilarious. Then it happened to me.Shoshanna from Californiaview of Haifa from the top floor of one of the buildings of the University


Ulpan Kibbutz Yagur!Lucy from Brooklyn. She's adorable.


Lazar shows his beautiful face for the first time!During Rayna's free shabbat. Rayna and her friend Gaby
our family friend Benny from Hadera
sisters


Ari Kohn (USA) with my "This is what a Feminist Looks Like" shirtSpencer from England. Lazar's roommate. We love him.
Adam from Canada
Mike (California) and Josh (Pennsylvania)


Chen (Canada). This kid is my best friend.At Beit Tfutzot Museum in Tel Aviv. Left to right: Danny (South Korea), Eilad (LA), Josh (Pennsylvania), Anita (Hungary), Adam (Canada)

me and Michelle (Vancouver, BC)
Hilomi (Japan) and Bar (Israel/Hong Kong/France/Canada...don't ask)


Lazar looking hip with my bag, and hugging a tree suspended off the groundChantal (Germany), Lazar (Turkey), Natalie (Germany)
Shoshanna (California) and Artur (France)
Smadar, the Ulpan Mother. We love her.
John from Chicago
me in the Grand Kanyon Mall
Jackie, Lazar's friend from Turkey who lives in Tel Aviv now, ponders his next Shesh Besh move.
Sam (London) and Lucy (Brooklyn, NY)
Ayelet (Brooklyn) and Mike (Cali)
this is where we ulpanists hang out every night. It's always a party with nargilah (hookah) and shesh-besh (backgammon)!


Lazar and me before going to Ultrasound, the biggest discotheque in Israel, located on Kibbutz Yagur

Meital, my soldier friend from birthright came to visit! Meital and JackieLaura, USA (she left the Ulpan but came back to visit), Chantal (Germany), Meital, Jackie


Lazar and Michelle (Switzerland) at Ultrasound

yours truly at UltrasoundLazar and me at Ultrasound

returning home from Ultrasound at 5AM
Lucy, Lara, Michelle
Meital loves to visit me, and she loves to dance!
me and Natalie (Germany)
Tyler's birthday at Ultrasound (South Carolina)
Eric (Canada) and Lilian (Beverly Hills) in mine and Lilian's room
my side of the room
the papyrus on the bulletin is from Egypt, the elephant thing is from a shuk in Jaffa, and the blue plaque is a berchat habayit (blessing for the home) that Meital made me
Eric sitting on Lilian's bed


More ulpanists hanging out and playing shesh beshI am a hippie tree hugger! Waiting for a sherut outside the Grand Kanyon Mall after seeing the Harry Potter movie
Chen tried to stuff Michelle into this garbage can that John bought for the purpose of making jungle juice.
but Lazar thinks it's a hat
I think it's an outfit
Lazar crashing on my bed

Reflections

Some things that have been on my mind.

Today, as I was scrubbing the floor outside Building 3 with Sarah from Australia, it suddenly struck me how much freedom I have. I signed up for this kibbutz ulpan, but nobody is making me stay. Even if I do stay, I'm pretty much free to do whatever I want. There are some rules, but they are easily broken. I don't have a curfew. I can travel wherever I want, hang out with whomever I want. And then there are people like Scott and Laura, who decided the ulpan just wasn't for them, and they picked up and left. I think Laura is back home in the States now, but Scott is volunteering at that place for people with disabilities in Jerusalem, and he gets free (room and?) board. My cousin Adina was telling me yesterday about Sarel, the volunteer program she did, which also has free room and board. If I wanted, I could quit my cleaning job today, catch the next train out of Haifa, and travel until my money runs out, or volunteer at some place or another in exchange for a place to crash. I'm almost totally free. It's dizzying. It's so dizzying that I don't think I would ever just pick up and leave--but I can, I really can.

Sometimes I think about how my life has always seemed a little dull, a little too ordinary, and I wonder about whether or not I've ever made any important decisions. I've made small choices, I've made ordinary decisions that most people in my situation have chosen as well--to go to college, for example. I even chose a school that I love and that I can't wait to return to senior year. But I have never made a big, important, surprising decision for myself.

Or maybe I have. I chose to come to Israel, after all. And although it often seems to me that I don't have that much say when it comes to my own life, I realized today that I do. I realized how free I am. But freedom and responsibility come hand in hand, right? So maybe with all this freedom I've got, I also have the responsibility to use it wisely, to choose wisely, to make smart decisions. But still, there was that dizzying and breathtaking realization that I could--today, I honestly could--go wherever I want. Nobody's stopping me.

*

Another thing I've been thinking about: some of the subtle differences between Israel and America.

One, as I already mentioned, is the unbearable heat and the lack of rain here. It's been so hot that they opened the ulpan bunker, which is air conditioned, for students who don't have air conditioning in their rooms. Lots of people moved their mattresses down there, and are sleeping in the bunker.

That bunker is another thing. There are shelters all over the kibbutz, small cement squares labeled in Hebrew as "Miklat" (shelter). Most of them are closed, but one doubles as a pub, and another is the ulpan bunker. There is a steep flight of cement stairs leading underground, to a pretty open, completely sheltered space. No matter where you are on the kibbutz, you're not too far from a Miklat.

Last summer, there was an ulpan like this one, also with around 40 students. And then the Second Lebanese War started, and many of those students left for home, or to the south of Israel, where it was safer. About half stayed on the kibbutz, even though every day there were reports of more rockets landing in the area, more deaths. Two rockets even landed on kibbutz property, although no civilians living here were killed. The students, instead of learning in the classrooms like we do on our ulpan, had all their classes in the bunkers. They, like the students on this ulpan who have no air conditioning, also slept in the bunker, but not for the same reason.

Security here is always an issue. After my Taglit Birthright trip, I was traveling to Egypt via Eilat with my friends Kim and Zibby. We had just boarded the bus to Eilat from Tel Aviv, and people around us were still stowing their luggage under the bus, boarding, finding their seats, getting settled. In Israel, a bus ride like that from Tel Aviv to Eilat will have assigned seats. A man started to make his way to the back of the bus until he reached the row behind where Kim, Zibby and I were sitting. On his seat there was a bag. Does this bag belong to any of you, he asked us? It doesn't, I said. The man looked around, but there was nobody else sitting in our vicinity. Does this bag here belong to anybody? he shouted to the bus at large. Nobody answered. The man hurried to the front of the bus and conversed with the bus driver. More and more people were boarding the bus and finding their seats, but nobody had claimed the bag yet. A few minutes later, a uniformed man rushed onto the bus and asked, Where is the bag? Over there, said the man who had discovered it, and led the uniformed man to the bag. He was about to confiscate it, when a young soldier burst onto the bus and shouted, It's mine!

In the end, it really was the soldier's bag, and she had simply gone to the bathroom for a few minutes and left her backpack unattended on her seat on the bus. In the States, if somebody saw a bag like that on a greyhound, they probably wouldn't think twice about it; they would assume that its owner had gone to the bathroom, or something like that. But ownerless bags in Israel are a really serious situation.

Bags in general pose a problem, whose solution is to search everybody's bags before they enter any public place. Restaurants, train stations, bus stations, malls, supermarkets, bars, pubs, clubs, the Kotel--outside of all these places, there are security guards whose job it is to search your bags before you enter. It's like mild airport security wherever you go. But you get used to it. It's not uncommon to find, when you're looking at the bill after you've eaten in a restaurant, that there is a small charge added at the bottom for security.

*

Sunday night I went to my kibbutz family's house for dinner, and the children helped me with my homework.

Yesterday after class, I traveled to Netanya to meet my cousin Gary and his 14-year-old daughter, Adina. We went to the beach, had a falafel, and licked ice cream cones while we window shopped. I bought a pair of sandels that every breathing Israeli owns, so now I am officially Israeli. Adina and Gary had been volunteering at an army base, that program I talked about in the beginning of this really long post, and they had a fabulous time. Even if I'm not about to pick up and leave the kibbutz, it might be something to look into for next summer.

Adina's really excited about being in Israel. She wants to do the volunteer program with me next summer, she wants to spend her last two years of high school here, she wants to make aliyah, she wants to go to the army.

This country is just the kind of place people fall in love with.

Achayot means Sisters!

My sister is already on her 12-hour plane ride back to the States. Somehow, she's become my best friend. We used to fight so much I could hardly stand the sight of her face. And now, she's one of the people I know best in the world, and probably the person around whom I act most like myself.

On Tuesday, the Ulpan had a tiyul (trip) to Jersualem. We went to Har Herzl, a cemetery where many famous and important political people are buried, and also a military cemetery. We took a tour of the Old City, visited the Kotel, had a picnic lunch, and went to the City of David, where we did the same underground water hike that I did with birthright. Actually, everything we did in Jerusalem on Tuesday I had already done with birthright. I'm like a super-tourist. Or maybe I live here.

Rayna and her friend Tali were staying with Tali's uncle in Jerusalem, and they were going to try to meet our bus and take it back to Haifa with us, but it turned out to be too complicated and they took a public bus later in the evening. Rayna got to the kibbutz around 10PM, and I introduced her to all my cool new international friends. On Wednesday I had class at 8AM, and she slept until lunch. She went to class with me in the afternoon, which was also pretty sweet because I happened to be giving a presentation on my life that day and I had a real live breathing exhibit for people to stare at. I showed her the center of kibbutz life in August, the pool, and she also got to experience the misfortune of the Ulpan dinner. I introduced her to Ori, my friend and Lazar's kibbutz sister, and the three of us watched the movie "Ratatouille" (in English, but it's so cute, ani mamash mamlitzah oto, I really recommend it--if you're a kid at heart). Thursday I only had work until 10 in the morning because I don't like to linger around those toilets, and then a bunch of us headed off to the beach with half a watermelon. We had dinner there too, which was much more satisfactory than the Ulpan dinner

but less satisfactory than my cousin Sarah's cooking. On Friday, after class, we traveled via train and with Rayna's two HUGE duffels (this was quite the experience, running to catch the train carrying half the stuff a 16-year-old girl packed for two months) to our cousins' house. There was a big family dinner with our cousins Sarah and Moti, our great-great-uncle Chaim, our cousin Ben and his fiance Dana, and our cousin Nir, his wife Sigal, and his two sons Aviv and Ori. Ben and Dana are getting married in November, when my dad will be here visiting me! The last time I was in Israel five years ago, I was at his brother Shai's wedding with my mom.

Rayna and I spent Saturday reading, sleeping, and playing shesh-besh (backgammon--you HAVE to be a decent shesh-besh player to live in Israel). And eating, because Sarah is one of the best cooks I've ever met. And then last night I came back to the kibbutz, and Rayna flew home late this morning.

Lazar messed up his foot playing football (soccer) on Thursday, and now it's all bandaged up and he's on crutches.

My laptop charger broke.

I'm going to try to see my cousin Gary and his daughter Adina, who are also visiting Israel right now, sometime in the next two days.

Tonight is movie night at the pub.

That pretty much brings everybody up to date on everything that's going on here. I'm going to try to post kibbutz pictures as soon as possible, and that will also bring you up to date on the pictures.

Tmunot-Sinai

relaxing
life is good
this camel went swimming in the Red Sea--and so did I!

the Red Sea in Sinai, Egypt...probably the most amazing beach everWe slept in one of those huts. They're like 20 feet from the water. And cost $3/night
Beach huts
Kim going for a morning snorkle in the Red Sea
Beach huts, water