Settled In!

I spent my first weekend at my new house in Israel and it was amazing! It is such a beautiful kibbutz & I've already fallen in love with this place.

This is what the kibbutz looks like....It looks a little old, but I promise it's a lot prettier in person! haha

Palm trees everywhere!

We spent Shabbat as a garin (my group) and I think we all became closer than ever from gadna plus spending the weekend together. We had Shabbat dinner together and when we were finished we all sat around the table singing different hebrew prayers as loud as we could. It was so much fun and I enjoyed every second. Once the sun sets every Friday evening, this is a start of Shabbat. Typically we attend synagogue, have dinner right after, and sing many hebrew prayers. Also, we are not allowed to use any form of electricity or technology until the sun sets on Saturday evening and you see three stars in the sky. Usually I do not follow this, but because I am living on a religious kibbutz I must follow it. I do enjoy it because it is a good break from technology and just time to socialize with the people you are with. This past Shabbat, after we all sang many prayers we cleaned up and just played games. We finished around 1 or 2 am and then I was planning to sleep, but me and a few others all decided to stay up later and just chat. We all ended up going to bed around 3 or 4 am...no idea what the actual time was since we couldn't use our phones. We all had to wake up the next day pretty early to go to synagogue, which is about a minute walk from our house. We were all so exhausted, but it was okay because after we finished we had the chance to go back and rest for about an hour. For lunch, we all were set up with a host family to eat with on the kibbutz. The family I had lunch with was very sweet and had four children. I was there for about 2-3 hours and spoke in hebrew the whole time...I must say I was pretty proud of myself for doing that! I felt very comfortable speaking it, which most of the time I'm too embarrassed to speak it so I choose not to. Afterwards, I went home and slept for hours on end catching up on all the sleep I missed out on while on gadna, plus for going to sleep so late the night before. After sleeping for a while, we all had activities we had to attend with our counselors. We just did that and once the sun set, we all sang more hebrew prayers. Overall, it was an enjoyable and relaxing weekend! Now, I start ulpan (intensive hebrew course) tomorrow morning so wish me luck!

Gadna Week

This past week, I've been extremely busy with Gadna. Gadna is an Israeli military program that prepares you for your service in the real IDF (Israeli Defense Force). It is only a week long, but it felt like the longest week of my life! Because it is not the real army, many people who do it don't take it very seriously. My roommate and I actually decided to switch names because we thought it would be funny, so I went as Naomi all week. Basically I can't really tell you exactly what I did because it was a lot of standing around for hours doing nothing. I think when we first arrived to the base, that was the most difficult and exhausting day. Once we got there, our mifhakedek (female commander) started yelling at us in hebrew immediately. She gave us IDF uniforms to wear all week and we had to put those on immediately. At first, if we misbehaved, got out of our lines, our uniform wasn't tucked in properly or buttoned, the mifhakedek just yelled at us to fix it. Later that night she started to punishing us by making us do push-ups if anything was wrong. Everything had to be perfect and her way. But like I said earlier, because this wasn't the real army many of the people in my garin (my group) misbehaved and wouldn't listen to her. Many people also liked to play "dumb" pretending like they didn't understand a word of hebrew. Another thing my tzvet (unit) did was because we are considered a religious garin (group), we would try to get as much time to pray as we could so we wouldn't have to do as much as the mifhakedek (commander) would make us do. Many times it was very difficult not to laugh! It was very hard to take it seriously because we all knew the mifhakedek was probably younger than us. She did not look younger, but we knew she could not be older than 19 because all Israelis serve in the army at 17 or 18. Our tzvet (unit) did get in trouble a lot of times because we would talk and move too much. Anyways, after a few days of standing around all day doing pointless things the mifhakedem (commanders) told us we were going on a hike and sleeping in the shatacks (fields).

My roommate and I 

"Hiding" in the bushes 

The Shatacks

 I thought the hike would be difficult, but instead it was more of a walk. It took us three hours to walk about 3 kilometers (almost 2 miles) that was completely flat too. We had to stop every 10-15 minutes so the mifhakedem could make us get into our lines and yell at us about pointless things. During our "hike" we also could not talk at all or we would get yelled at again. We also ran a lot of the way in our uniforms, which are extremely hot because they are long pants and long sleeves. It was around 33-34 Celsius (around 94 or 95) so everyone was drenching in sweat. When we finally arrived to the shatacks (fields) it was more getting yelled at in hebrew and standing. We were all exhausted because we had woken up at around 5am that morning.  We finally were able to get a short break that day, but we just set up where we were sleeping and ate. Of course they did not give us enough food at all. They gave us just 2 loafs of bread and 3 cans of tuna for the 15 of us. We were all starving so it wasn't enough whatsoever. We were finally able to go to bed early that night, like around 8pm. It was really beautiful sleeping outside because the stars were amazing. I had never seen so many stars like that in my life. There were many shooting stars as well. As I was finally falling asleep, all the commanders started yelling and woke us all up about an hour later which was probably the most annoying thing ever. We had to go stand in line while they yelled at us in hebrew again. Of course everyone was annoyed and wasn't really listening to them. We had to do that for around 30 minutes and then they let us go back to sleep. It became extremely cold later that night because we were in the desert. We had to wake up around 6 am the next morning and everyone was so tired. We ate more bread and tuna for breakfast. I don't think I've ever eaten that much bread in my life until that week. Everyone probably contained at least one full loaf of bread within a day or two. After some time, we got to learn about guns and go shooting. I had never shot a gun before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I actually liked it, but many of the girls hated it. We were there for hours and hours waiting for every one to shoot. Finally we were able to return to our base and many of us showered because we didn't shower the night before. Even though I knew I would get gross again from putting on my smelly uniform everyone had been wearing all week, it just felt good to take a cold shower.

Adam and I

Later that night, we did more pointless things and same with the next day. Friday was our last day I was extremely happy when that day came. Even though I showered basically every day, I just felt gross because of the uniform. It smelled so bad! Also, the night before we left I accidentally ripped my only pair of pants I brought with me so that was a little bit of an issue when I had to return my uniform back.

Sara & I

Good thing I had brought shorts, but I had to wear them over my ripped pants since we weren't allowed to wear anything shorter than our knees. It looked a little funny but it was okay. That Friday morning, we also found out we were able to FINALLY go to our kibbutz (similar to a socialist community) so everyone was very excited to finally be able to get settled and see where we would be living for the next few years as a soldier. We arrived yesterday afternoon and everyone was so happy. They recently remodeled our house so basically everything is brand new. It is so nice and beautiful! I'm so happy to be here now! I'm still unpacking and decorating my new room:) Anyways, so that's all for now!

Living the Dream

So I haven't written a blog in a while, but I thought I'd start again since every one has been asking me what I have been doing and what life is like in Israel.

I arrived to Israel about two weeks ago and I've been extremely busy with the program I am currently on. This program is called Garin Tzabar. Garin Tzabar is a program for lone soldiers in Israel. When I arrived I stayed in Tel-Aviv that night and the next day I had a big welcoming ceremony at Tel-Aviv University for Garin Tzabar. There are probably about 200 on my program who made aliyah and joined Garin Tzabar. They split all of us up though, so there are probably around 20 garinims (groups). My garin has 14 of us and we will be living on Kibbutz Sa'ad. I am the only American girl in my garin, which was a big surprise! My current roommate at our temporary kibbutz is from Belgium and the others are from France, Switzerland, Denmark, Australia, and England.

 The kibbutz we are on right now is called Kibbutz Yavne which is central Israel, just south of the city Ashdod. We are staying there for a few weeks until we are able to return to our kibbutz that we will be living on the next few years during our service. Kibbutz Sa'ad is south Israel, just 3 kilometers from Gaza. Yavne is still a little close to gaza, but obviously not as close as Sa'ad. I hear the tzeva adom siren go off at least twice daily. A tzeva adom siren is a warning that there is a rocket and we have 15 seconds to run to shelter. It is sad seeing all the children wondering what they are or crying because they are so scared. Once we are in shelter, we must stay there until we hear a large boom which means its been blown up by the iron dome. A few nights ago, I saw the iron dome and it was at night so I could see it pretty well. It was pretty cool to watch & hear it! Today, I was in Tel-Aviv and another siren went off so I ran to shelter but a little 4 year old boy was hit by the shrapnel and died. It's so sad and crazy to think I was in the same area as him. So anyways because of all the craziness there now, we are not allowed to be there for another few weeks. It's a little difficult because we are not able to unpack and get settled. Anyways, the past two weeks we have been doing a lot of programming and preparing what life will be like as a soldier. This Sunday, we are all going to an army stimulation program for one week called Gadna. I am a little nervous for it, but I know I probably shouldn't be because it's not the real army. Anyways, I do love being in Israel and I am happy for my decision but it has been a little difficult. We are not allowed to speak in English which has been pretty difficult for me. Everything is spoken in Hebrew and yes, I do understand most of it but its difficult. If you ask a question in Hebrew, either our madrichot (instructors) will make us say it in Hebrew or they will respond in Hebrew. Another difficulty I've had is almost everyone in my garin is European and their culture, language, and just way of life is so different from America. I don't really feel a connection with them yet and I'm hoping that will change once everyone is fluent in Hebrew. I am not a person who will put myself out or open up to people I don't really know, so I've been quiet. But until next time....