Day One of my Sar El Adventure

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It was a hectic morning, but by paying an outrageous amount of money to return the car with the tank half empty and my making a couple of illegal left turns, I made to Ben Gurion only 10 minutes late. There was already a crowd of 50 or 60 people waiting.
I was assigned one of the first groups to leave. It turns out I was made a part of the small group being sent to an air force base in the Negev. It is the first time that this base has hosted Sar El volunteers. In my group of 13, only 2 people and me are first timers. The rest of the people have been participants as many as 15 times. There are 8 men and 5 women, one man from Poland, one from France, 6 from the US and 5 from the UK. Most of the people are approximately my age with a couple of younger people. All the people are really nice and friendly. My roommate, Sharon, is from Manchester. She’s here with her husband, but men and women sleep separately.
Evidently the accommodations here are deluxe compared to the other bases where people have been. Sharon and I have a little suite with a sitting room and two bedrooms with a bath off each bedroom. Sharon and I are going to share the bedroom with two beds and reserve the other bedroom in case someone snores.
On the way down, our bus broke down and they had to send another bus for us so we were late in arriving. Our first activity was unpacking and listening to everyone uh and ah over the accommodations. As someone who loves salads, lunch was great. We eat in the mess hall with all the soldiers. After lunch we were fitted to our uniforms: shirts, pants, a belt and boots. Once we were properly dressed, we had a meeting to the administrative commander of the base. After asking for questions, I inquired if the routine here had changed with all the turmoil in the Arab world. He politely declined to answer which wasn’t a surprise. By the time we got to work it was 4 o’clock. Our group is working on two projects. The larger project is opening kits that are distributed to reservists when they come for exercises to make sure they have the correct contents (clothing, blankets, etc.) and the smaller project is checking and cleaning gas masks. Exactly the type of boring work I expected.
We have 2 experienced guides who are near the end of their military service and 2 guides are in training. They are all adorable 20 year-olds. One was originally from South Africa and she told the group how proud she is to be in the Israeli army and another guide moved her with her family when she was 6. It is amazing how much responsibility is given to such young people.

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