Christmas craziness!

This post is long over due but I feel I have been really busy and very hungover and therefore unable to write in a comprehensible way. Considering I am in a Jewish community we definitely managed to create some kind of Christmas spirit here.

Me, Rosie and Garam: coffee & sunshine on Christmas!

On the 19th of December it was my room mate, Garam's 25th birthday and it was also the kibbutz 63rd birthday party. As the tree toppling storm was over  we had a BBQ! Lots of beef and kosher chorizo as well as the usual hummas, pita, salad and free red wine!

Garam is a cocktail queen so we had wine at dinner followed cocktails and some dancing round the house. Most people went to bed pretty early but it was her Birthday so I stayed and made sure she had fun. Then it was Friday and we had to go to work...horrible hangover at work number 1. 

Friday evening the Jewish Philippinos who live and  work on the kibbutz had an Xmas party on the 20th, which was funny. I arrived a little late and they were all on the dance floor moving in synchronised rows. I only heard one Christmas song but the place was decorated pretty well.  There was loads of delicious Asian food and cake and more drinking. They also played a party game which seemed to have some interesting rules. It seemed like musical chairs but spiced up a little. The guys stood in the middle holding a cup? between their legs and the girls dancing around and when the music stopped the girls had to put a straw into one of the cups a guy was holding. I am not sure exactly as I was sat at the back in order to avoid being coaxed into joining in.

Later there was the usual dancing the night away at mafia and then Saturdays day of rest.
Okay time to skip to Christmas eve.

Forgot to take photos but this does the trick!

Me and Rosie have decided we are making Christmas dinner like we would have back home for all the volunteers! I got Rami to order us a turkey an  then did an improvised version of Nigella's ingenious way to keep the turkey from being dry  with the species I physically managed to sniff out in the kitchen, as they are all written in Hebrew and everyone else had gone home. I did get chili powder up my nose and in my eye at one point was not a pleasant experience. We even managed to get our hands on sausages and bacon to make pigs in blankets.

So you would think the other volunteers would be appreciative but due to cultural differences on Christmas eve this was not the case. Turns out the rest of the world apart from the UK does Xmas dinner on Christmas eve. I sat down to eat lunch with everyone on the 24th and all got was people moaning at me as to ask why we weren't having dinner that evening. I was a little pissed off to say the least. The Brits were cooking so everyone else  would just have  to accept we would be feasting on Christmas day. Not my most diplomatic (in fact a little colonial) of moves but turns out I needed the whole day off work to cook the thing anyway!

Eventually we got over that drama and we all had a few drinks to pass the evening. Then it was time to wake up hungover and cook for 20 people! At 10am it seemed like a mammoth task and coffee was needed before any planning or cooking was going to happen.

I think we made about 4 or 5 trips to the Cobal to buy ingredients but it was going well.

Dining hall looking festive thanks to Garam!

Although we both felt drained of energy and started to get a little nervous towards the end in case things just didn't taste good.  But after 6 hours slaving away in the kitchen making all the trimmings, desert and lots of turkey basting. 7pm arrived. Everyone enjoyed the food even if there was a little bit of tension between a few of the volunteers. Guess even when you not with your relations you can't have Christmas without an argument!

The night ended with free tequila shots in the Mafia. Thanks Tony!

Boxing day was not such a fun day at work but I did have a fun evening! Horrible hangover at work number 2! Hope you all had a great Christmas too or a great ordinary week of you're  Jewish :p

I've had a bit of a detox since no drinking and ventured my poor football skills onto the kibbutz football field on Friday to burn off some of the Christmas excess.

Oh and one last thing if you ever need any illustrations or cartoons The Whole Hogg is the place to go!

Merry Christmas

Just a quick post to say Happy Christmas to everyone I am unbelievably tired but 20 people are about to sit down to eat the food that me and Rosie spent all day making! Hope it tastes good! Will give you a more in different depth post after I get some sleep. Hope everyone has had a nice day.

Kibbutz economy: Why the hell aren't we getting paid on time, again?

 For the past month or so we as volunteers have not been paid on time. We are meant to get 500 shekels at the end of every two weeks. Friday should be pay day or Sunday at the latest (the first day of the week here) but due to the quirks of the kibbutz money system this hasn't been happening. The smokers in the house are going nuts about this. Cigarettes are super expensive so they are pretty much always desperate for pay day. I tend to manage to have enough money survive on even if we get paid a few days late.

All the members of the kibbutz and the volunteers get paid from the same bank account ans the problem is there is only one single person on the whole kibbutz who can take money out if that account. I was informed yesterday that they are now also managing the kibbutz factory as well as all the money. If this guy is too busy to go to the bank on the day we are meant to get paid then you get an angry house of volunteers.

Before credit cards apparently the whole kibbutz had major headaches. Any time a kibbutznik wanted to buy like a durable good, say a fridge, they would have to get the one person with the access to all the  money to come with them you to buy it in the shop. There also used to be problems with families getting into lots of debt as there was no one really policing it. Anyone who managed to live within the money they got paid by the kibbutz were supporting the over expenditure of others. Now a days they have that under control with people reviewing people's expenditure on a regular basis but It inevitably slows things down a bit by the sounds of it.

Still to not have pay taxes, worry about health insurance, your kids education, saving for a pension, it all seems like a pretty good deal to me.

In other news the weather is bloody cold here! Was 3 degrees yesterday. I know you Brits out there will be calling me soft, is probably icy as hell over there right now. But when you combine that temperature with no central heating  and a massive storm that causes a blackout all night. Oh and windows that are not built to provide any barrier against the cold and wind.  Brrr! I did not bring enough winter clothes for this. 

Jerusalem even came to a stand still due to snow earlier in the week!

The Dead (Sea) Healing

I had a great Sabbat this week on a trip to the Dead Sea organised by our volunteer leader, Yogev. We rode on camels in the middle of the desert and went for a float (not a swim) in the super salty sea. We were

meant to go on a short hike to a Roman fort too but, due to a football injury, Yogev didn't make it on to the trip to be our guide.

Almost everyone on the  bus from Ein Hashlosha (We went with a few other kibbutz volunteers in the area) was hungover from their partying at Mafia on Friday night.  Thanks to my antibiotics and managing to sleep through the night I was feeling pretty dandy on the bus while everyone else, apart from the two German girls who had stayed off the booze too, dealt with the morning after. In the kitchen we had also made some cookies to take with us so I went down the aisle offering biscuit to everyone on the bus. Although I had to do it discreetly cos supposedly we weren't meant to eat on the bus.  From the dirty look I got in the mirror from the driver I am pretty sure I was rumbled but he said nothing.

It took about two hours for our bus to reach the desert. By this point my bladder felt like it was about to

Such long eyelashes!

burst and my first thought as we drive on the winding road through the massive sand dunes with only a few goats frolicking about on them was I really hope this camel place has toilets.  Going to the loo in the middle of the desert would not be good.  There is no where to hide!  Tourists would see your arse for miles.

Of course being one of those must do tourist activities there were toilets.

Don't they look like they might bite?

I liked the camel ride. A lot of people didn't enjoy it too much as they thought it was pretty uncomfortable but I felt pretty good sitting on Lady Humperdink (we named our camel). Being on their backs was fine but when it came to standing anywhere near their faces I got pretty scared. They have big teeth and spit..  So much so when Rosie tried to take a picture of me with a camel I ran away as soon as it moved its head in my direction and kept looking at the camel not the camera out of paranoia that it would attack at any moment.  Hence the not so great photo.


At the Dead Sea I was also pretty fearful.  I still had the big cut I had got from snorkeling on my foot that wasn't fully healed and I new the Dead Sea with its

This is much safer. 

34% saltiness was going to hurt so much.  Lots of expletives came out of my mouth walking into that sea but I did manage to get in there and lets just say my foot wasn't the only thing that burned.  I wasn't in there very long as eventually the pain just gets too much but I was floating on the top in less than a meters worth of water.  It was crazy.

The cut on my foot is also now completely healed.  No more pain and the skin isn't red raw anymore. Magic of the Dead.

The Dead Sea

Homesick and a broken dishwasher

I had my worst night on the kibbutz on Friday. On Thursday I got the results from the swab of my throat the nurse took before I went to Eilat. Turns out I have Strep throat infection so I am on antibiotics for 10 days. Hence no drinking for me as I don't want to weaken the effects of the penicillin. Will be so nice not to cough all the time!

As everyone gets drunk on a Friday I was prepared for it not being the best of evenings but it was worse then I expected. For some reason people went crazy! There are two kinds of people here. The 18 and 19 year olds who are pretty much straight out of school never lived away from home before and the over 20s who ars escaping stressful jobs or unemployment and generally trying to figure what to do with their lives. Friday night the children kicked off. The house was a mess on Saturday and I was super angry as someone had tried to wake me and anyone else who was trying to sleep up at 5am.

It was like being back in university halls of residence all over again. I really wanted to

New experience..Putting my hand in a Calf's mouth..

teleport my way back to Whitley Bay to have a chilled evening with my friends. More than anything that night.

 The next day I sunbathed in the 30 degree sunshine, helped clean the kitchen Rosie took me to see the baby cows, went a bike ride, ate lots of chocolate and ice cream and escaped the house tension at the soldiers house. Saturday wasn't so bad.

Then this morning I got angry again as someone had eaten almost a full pack of salami I had sitting in the fridge and just left me the empty packet there. I got to work to discover the dishwasher was broken which made work a difficult day too. That probably doesn't sound like such a big deal but when you're cooking food for over 100 people that is one he'll of a mountain of washing up.

Things can only get better and they have! Rosie and I did a workout and I went for a run after. Feel so much better for it. Then I watched the zigiest movie with a few other people in the tv room. The rest of the evening I have been on Skype catching up with my mum and dad, which is always nice.