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!