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The office
Early mornings, Turkish coffee, "Yala, Dale, Vamos, Come on" to work. We settled quickly back into the kibbutz routine on our return from Northern Israel and entered the final straight. With something like only three weeks left and two holidays eating up a few days there really wasn't much time left on kibbutz. Unfortunately the work had increased again and as much as we all loved it, finishing at 7pm was simply too much. There was unfortunately a period of tension in the house, mostly fall out from our frustration with our volunteer leader. We all felt that in working such long hours we should be entitled to far more priviliges and days off. After a couple of heated rows however we reached a compromise including a daytrip to Masada and the Dead Sea.
For the most part the work retained its novelty factor though and so wasn't too tedious. It was nice when I was given the chance to work with something totally different (within irrigation, ha) towards the end. This was laying the drip irrigation, or "dif-duf". It had adopted the name "Movie" due to the appearance of the tractor used to lay it. Three huge coils of black thin rubber hose were attached to the sides and back
and looked like movie reels 😊 The Thais particularly liked that joke. The beginning of each reel was tied to a peg at one end of the field and as the tractor drove the length of the field the reels turned and the hose was layed. Two people were required to sit in between the wheels (on what looked like office chairs, bizarre) to control the breaks on the reels, pulling the line taut. Unfortunately the lines broke all too frequently and had to be repaired and the process was all in all inneficient and slow. It took about two weeks to lay 3 sunflower fields in this manner. Funnily enough, on Independence day in Israel the kibbutz held a huge bbq outdoors and what was it that made perfect dining tables? The dif duf reels. How very autonomous. On the last day we were all able to work together which was a real bonus.
We always had much to do too. Whether it were driving to a Thai party drunk in a tractor driven trailer, or at a bbq we had plenty of friends on kibbutz to keep us entertained. Some relations towards the end were so cemented
The office 3
Toooo early. A familiar sight that it really was very difficult to leave. I think much of the strength of relations was due to the fact we had to cross the language barrier with people who spoke no English at all, but once crossed the friendships and conversation seemed all the more special for it. This meant on some nights we had to speak Hebrew all night. I would have loved to observe us on such a night, quite remarkable after 2 months. This doesn't mean you can expect fluent Hebrew, but enough to get us by comfortably. On our last night we had a big drink up at the Monkey pub to which all those who really mattered came. It was a bit of a mess but an amazing night and really quite poignant in the end.
And then suddenly all was packed, the kibbutz rooms were returned to their bare, unlived in feeling and we were in the back of a pickup again, but this time on the way to the bus station, goodbye to Ein Hashelosha. To Eilat, for a send off weekend.
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