Blogs from Center District, Israel, Middle East - page 3

Just a note . All the pleasures of home...I am so fortunate for a friend like Cynie and her mom . Their Israel is easy to enjoy and just BE...I have been sleeping a little later , having coffee and breakfast without having to get dressed and going out , reading a paper and generally recouping my energy for the travels of the next few weeks. Cynie's town is a pleasant place and the home they built there is a weloming space . Her mom's is an apartment overlooking the Mediteranean and featuring the most amazing sunsets. I am a fortunate woman. Israel has bee a real surprise to me . I had not realized that it is such a beautiful place . The Galilee and the wildflowers , the Jordan valley that is filled with ... read more

So my time has come, its the end of my three months in my Partnership city Rehovot. It is pretty sad but I think it was the perfect amount of time. I got to say goodbye to the babies in the gan I work in as well as the second graders at the afterschool program and as well as the special needs teens that I saw twice a week. It was my second shabbat in Rehovot, just how times played out I was traveling all the time this track which was nice (tiring though). We got our last shabbat sponsered by Birthright where you can invite up to 16 people if you register in advance and get 100 shekel per person. It was a lot of fun, we had a the six girls from rehovot (some ... read more

Part two is finally beginning. I was extremely ready to move here from Beer Sheva and to see what is too come. We moved here Jan 4th and had a week of touring our different volunteer places. My schedule got switched a bunch of times, and this is the final version. I am working in a kindergarten and a couple matnasim. In the afternoon in one I work with an after school program for kids with special needs, and then the evening with at risk teens. The other night that I work is an evening program for kids with special needs and then lastly I work at an after school program called a tzharon for kids to have a place to go when the finish school at 1230. I started volunteering the first week and it ... read more

So...funny story. Yesterday I was walking towards home in a semi-happy daze after going to a job interview (probably won't get the job but I had fun in the interview anyways!) I then see a fire truck passing by, which always confirms to me that because I focus a lot of my energy on the FD, this is why I see it everywhere. I'm walking along and these 2 children ask me to help them get their basketball down from the rooftop where it got stuck by throwing a rock at it. I say Sure why not (this was my 1st mistake) and I throw the rock (2nd mistake). It gets stuck right on the edge of the roof, so I climb up on the small fence - we're talking about 2 feet here - no ... read more

This is not a country made for waiting. In any form. Which I find ironic considering that technically the Jewish people have been waiting eons, I'm talking biblical years, for Israel to come to be. So maybe in a way, the lack of patience of the Israelis is a form of rebellion against time which is constantly threating to end. I find it fascinating that on certain days of the year, such as Yom Ha'zichron and Yom Ha'shoah, the whole country will stop what they are doing and stand still as a whole for the duration of the siren. It's a collective time when this country, who so dearly hates waiting for anything, stops and stands completely and utterly still. There is no screaming, no annoyed yells of “Hayiti po!” (I was here!), no cutting in ... read more