Problems in Gaza, Classic

So you've probabaly heard more and more news lately about Israel and the Gaza...well I'm very safe where I am if you were worried or concerned. The problems are around central Israel & I am north of Israel. But I must say I did hear the missile alarm (Tzeva Adom) go off about two weeks ago while having dinner in Ashkelon, which is very close to Gaza. When we first heard it, I thought it was an ambulance or something so I wasn't scared at all. The Israelis kept saying it was music and didn't really do anything about it. This alarm goes off for exactly 15 seconds because that's how much time you have to find a bomb shelter. After about 5 seconds, my madricha comes running towards us while we were still eating and tells us to just take everything and run to the bus. The bus was about a 15 second walk, so then she realized it wasn't a good idea/not enough time. After that, we just ran to another building away from the streets that had a roof because we couldn't find a bomb shelter anywhere. We stood there for a few seconds and everyone was really confused since none of us had experienced this before. After the 15 seconds, our madricha explained what had just happened. It was a warning that a missile was coming towards the area I was in. It was a miracle because we found out later that night, about 80 missiles went out that night and the only one hit by the anti-missile from the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) was that specifc missile. To be honest, I was not worried at all. I just did not think about it at all.

The next weekend, I decided to go to Savyon with my friend Kate to visit family. Savyon is about 30 minutes east of Tel-Aviv. Earlier that day a few people from our program warned us that there would be a bomb in Tel-Aviv that weekend. To be honest, I didnt care because I just had other things to worry about. I knew I would be safe with my family. Anyways so we took the train from Haifa to Tel-Aviv...which takes about 1 1/2 hours. My aunt picked us up, we were fine. We turned on the radio and every time a tzeva adom (alarm) went off a red line would appear on her gps....it would literally go off every 30 seconds. It was just constant....again I wasn't scared because I just felt comfortable with my aunt. We got to her house, ate, and then Kate & I went to watch TV. I left my phone upstairs because I just felt like I did not need it. Everything was perfect and relaxing. Around 8:30 pm my cousins start running inside and changed the channel immediately...I did not know what was going on until they told me bombs and mssiles just went off in Tel-Aviv. Eh whatever. I heard it too from inside the house, but I just thought it was something else. That minute, Ale (our Madricha) texted us immediately asking where everyone was. Like I said before, I did not have my phone on me but Kate did. So before even telling me about the text, Kate responded to her saying we were both in Tel-aviv......we weren't in Tel-Aviv. I told her like 100 times before that we were in a completely different city. It was actually very frustrating. Anyways long story short....it was the absolute worst weekend of my life. We were forced to evacuate to Jerusalem. We got there and it was just very uncomfortable. I had no blankets or pillows, it was freezing, there was no food, I had no clean clothes or underwear, nothing. We did not even get settled there until like 12 or 1 am. It was just so crowded and awful. The next morning, we had to wake up early so we could leave and go back to Yemin Orde. We left Jerusalem around 9am and we ended up getting back at 11am. On Fridays, there is not food for lunch. So again, no food. Finally we convinced Ale to order pizza....but we didn't even get it until like 3:30pm. So I basically didn't have food for a day...whatever. She also did not even order enough so everyone was still hungry. It was just so annoying because I had to spend the whole weekend at Yemin Orde. I mean it's great and everything, but I just really look forward to leaving every weekend to spend shabbat with my family, relax, actually have my privacy, & not eat the gross food here that makes me want to throw up. I am also not being over dramatic. Overall, it was a frustrating weekend and I'm done ranting. Xoxoxo Simcha.

Celebrating the Ethopian Holiday

 

Most of my group in Yemin Orde.

Last week we had the oppportunity to celebrate one of the Ethopian holidays, called Sigd. It is a traditional holiday for Ethopian Jews. The ethopians danced and prayed in the Amharic language.
If you want to know more about this holiday, this is the perfect website to look at: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/sigd.html. After this, we went to eat an ethopian meal. This consisted of Injera, which is a flatbread that you put different foods in like chicken. Personally, I did not like it at all. It had a weird sour taste to it, but it was still interesting. They also had many other types of food. Everything was delicious, but very spicy. In the Ethopian culture, you are supposed to share everything and eat with your hands...very different from America! Everything was so messy! After dinner, there was more dancing and singing. Overall, it was such a good experience and I learned many new things I never knew before.

Ein Hod: The Artist Village Puelah

So every week we have different puelahs(activities) run by Ale(my madricha or counselor) and usually they are boring...but this time she decided to actually make it fun. We went a small hike to the village of Ein Hod, which is only like a 30 minute walk. Ein Hod is an artists village, so it is very artsy and everything is decorated. It is a very small town..there are only about 200 families living there. We usually go there if we get bored just to walk around and hang out there. But anyways, we went to a few art gallerys when we first arrived. Some of the art there is amazing! After looking at all the art, we took another small hike and went to a place to pick olives off olive trees.

I'm not really sure why, who, or where those olives we picked went but whatever. I thought it was a random thing to do, but it was a fun surprise I guess. Afterwards, we walked some more and went to someones house and made a bonfire. We all made fresh pita and it was delicious! We all made a spread that had olive oil, salt, and sesame seeds mixed together...it was so good, especially after we put it on the pita! Then we decided to make more pita and to put chocolate spread on that piece. It was so filling, so none of us ate dinner that night. It was a fun adventure because everything was just one surprise after another..which made it a lot funner since none of us were expecting to do anything exciting.