Come on England!

Before I came to Israel I didnt really follow football and it wasnt until I got to Tel Aviv that I'd even

attended a football match (thanks super friendly Northern Ireland supporters). After 9 months I think I might almost be considered a football fan, I've watched enough games in Mafia here.  What started as an excuse to get out of the volunteer house and drink a few beers has turned into something more.  I am looking forward to the England vs Uraguay match later this evening. Hopefully we dont get kicked out of the cup like Spain, last night. 

In none football related news, on Saturday we had the option of going on a walk in the Negev desert organised by the kibbutz.  If we could manage to get up for the 8am start, which meant a

few people didnt make it.  The walk wasnt very long but the scenery was beautiful and the weather scortchio! I cant remember what the place we went to was called.  It was very close to Ben Gurion's tomb which we also went to see.

Tomorrow I am going to Kibbutz Geva to visit my friend and see some new faces for a change.
I havent really made a plan but its close to Nazereth so might do a bit of travelling around on Saturday and Sunday too.  

Catch you in a week or so!


 

A month of swimming, gardening and another Jewish holiday

This kinda old news but the pool finally opened on the 24th of May!   All that painting and weeding finally paid off. Now a large proportion of my free time is spent swimming and cooling down from the 30 degree heat.
 

Welcome to the pool!

The pool opening has also meant me changing work again as there is nothing to do at the pool anymore.  I now work in the gardens, which I am loving even if the 5:30am starts don't feel so great at the time.  There isn't much planting to be done as most of the public gardens on the kibbutz are already over grown with plants and weeds.  Pulling out weeds and trimming bushes is how i spend most of my day. It is satisfying to see how much the work we are doing is improving the aesthetic of the kibbutz.  Especially when a kibbutznik notices and decides to buy all the gardeners a beer (that  really was a good day at work!)

Two British guys have arrived in the house! so I am no longer the lone Englander. Added bonus that one of them is northern (from Middlesbrough) so I can start talking like I do back home and be understood for a change. We even managed to play a game of scrabble the other evening. 

One Saturday night all the volunteers went to the Bedouin camp that is located in Ein Hashalosha fields.  We feasted on lamb, which I haven't eaten in about 8 months, rice and laffa.  It was delicious, and the lamb literaly melted in your mouth. 

The Bedouins preparing our food.

 
Yom Shavout was on the 4th of June, so we got the day off work and a half day on the Tuesday before, like Shabbat.  Yom Shavout is a celebration of agriculture and the kibbutz put on a meal and a live band on the Tuesday evening. The food was only milk products and wheat, lots of bread, pastries, cheese and yogurt, along with lots of chocolate milk (no wonder its so difficult not to put on weight here).   There was no free beer this time but some of the young people from the kibbutz made their own outdoor pub in the kibbutz gardens.  A few of us volunteers went along and drank and chatted the evening away there. 

The temperature on the actual holiday was unbearable 42 degrees.  I didn't leave my air conditioned room until the evening.  TOO HOT! Luckily it seems to be back down to around 28 -31 degrees this past week, working in that heat would be horrible. 

I have less than a month before I come home so I will try and keep you lovely people updated on a more regular basis.   

One plate between 3!

 

Remembrance and celebrations

Monday was national remembrance day for all the soldiers who have died in Israel Defence Force and the civilians who have been victims of terrorist attacks. Much the same as Yom the whole of Israel came to a stand still for one minutes silence. Here's the IDF video explaining it all:

Post by Israel Defence Forces.

There was also a memorial service at the kibbutz on Sunday evening, that I and most of the  other volunteers attended. All in Hebrew of course but you could get the gist of it from the atmosphere and what was going on visually. The first three people that were named in the ceremony were the first 3 kibbutz members to fall in the war of independence, which is how the kibbutz got its name. Ein Hashlosha roughly translates to this. There were 6 other son and daughters of the kibbutz, each one a flame was lit for. One was for Carlos, an Ecuadorian volunteer at the kibbutz back in 2008 who got shot by a Palestinian sniper, whilst working in the fields. (The only volunteer to die here.)

A sad evening, living next to Gaza really made it hit home, it meant a lot to the people here. The feeling on Monday evening was quite different. The 6th of May is a national holiday in Israel as it is Independence day, when Israel kicked out the British.  The kibbutz put on a party with free beer and falafel, a DJ and even dancers all the way from Tel Aviv.

I was "working"  helping the kitchen make and serve the falafel and then clearing the tables after everyone had finished. By the time it got to clearing the tables I'd had enough beer to be dancing around the tables as I went.  It was such a  fun night and I got talking to a couple of Israelis who now live in London and run their own gardening company doing irrigation work in the south of England.  One of them was born and bred on the kibbutz and ended up in England after falling in love with an English volunteer many years ago.  I am currently looking at getting a job in gardening when I return to England in two months so that was pretty cool too.

Sunset photo time

As I write this my skin feels like its on fire. Yogev and Nitai took us volunteers for a  weekend of camping at the beach and quite a few people are looking a little on the crispy side this evening.   We went to Ziqim beach, which is the first beach to the north of the Gaza strip.  It was so nice to be out of the house and the kibbutz for Shabbat.  

We had potjiekos and beer, went swimming, sat around the fire. We didn't get much sleep as, some idiots arrived at midnight with a generator and two big speakers and decided to play trance music all night and morning. It was also pretty damn cold.  I slept next to the fire in a sleeping bag and warm clothes and it was still chilly!    The lack of sleep didn't really matter that much though we had the rest of the day to fall asleep in the sun, plus a few cups of turkish coffee and Nitai's delicious homemade biscuits helped. 

Yom HaShoah: National Holocaust Rememberance Day

Today is when Israel remembers the 6 million Jews killed under the German Nazi regime.  At 10 o clock this morning a siren rang for one minute across all of Israel to mark the

minute of silence to remember all the lives lost. In cities people stop their cars and stand outside their vehicles in silence when hearing the siren. On the kibbutz it wasn't so defined. We were working at the pool and no one else around just the volunteers. We heard the siren and radio cut out  and we stopped working. Then had a coffee break once it was over.

In less sombre news April has also featured Passover, a Jewish festival celebrating their liberation from the Egyptians. It also involves not eat any wheat or anything with yeast in it. Most people on the kibbutz in the  weeks running up to Passover were clearing all such products from their kitchens.  Most of us volunteers not being Jewish a lot of it ended up in our kitchen! When the Cobal does have bread and pasta on sale for the week long festival period, you can imagine the appreciation of some bread and pasta appearing in your kitchen.

On the first day of the Passover celebration the kibbutz had a Passover Seder, which translated into a mass amount of delicious food and wine. I did have to spend two days previous to this working in the kitchen helping them to prepare everything. The one major perk of working in the kitchen, which is getting breakfast every morning, was ignored as there was too much work to do!

I did help cook and then later ate, at the meal, a delicious fish dish that had root ginger and sage in the sauce. Never come across the combination before and I'd definitely like to try experimenting with it when I get back to England.

After a week of weeding I have decided that nothing pleasant grows naturally in the desert. Everything has thorns that can penetrate gloves and give you lots of splinters! Luckily we have moved onto painting everything surrounding the pool: the sun shades, volley ball net etc. Slowly getting closer to the point of actually seeing some water in the thing.

Still alive, just enjoying the sun too much!

Hello out there. Lots been happening I just haven't been plugging into the world of social media very often. Here's a quick run down of this month's events:
Changed jobs. Now working for Tony, getting the swimming pool ready for opening at the end of May.

Purim leopard costume

Went to the volunteer seminar in the north and learnt a bunch of stuff about the arab Isreali conflict and met loads of volunteers from different kibbutzim.

It was the Jewish festival Purim where you are obligated to get drunk. Open bar on the kibbutz so we all dressed up and got super drunk. I went to sleep after sunrise, was a fun night of dancing and halarity! (For those that remember it.)

I hit my head at work and managed to give myself delayed concussion in time for my mum

Bahai Gardens

coming to visit me! Still a great week with my mum even if our plans had to change a little.

We didn't go to Jordan unfortunately due me being sick and time constraints due to hotel bookings. We chilled out in Eilat in one of the big hotels then headed to Tel Aviv and Haifa. The  Bahá’í Gardens were beautiful but mainly it was just nice to spend some time with my mum, after 5 months. I showed her around the kibbutz and we ate delicious food and had a few drinks. She was impressed by how beautiful Israel is and started to understand why I love it here so much.

I am now the person in the volunteer house who has been here the longest, everyone who was here when I arrived has been and gone.  I just booked my flight home the other day. I will be flying into Manchester on the 7th of July! Time to make the most of my last  3 months here and try figure out what to do next.

Drinking Hoegaarden with mum

Windswept in Haifa

Gaza severly attacks Israel for the first time since 2012

This afternoon most of the volunteers went on a shopping trip to Beer Sheva. There were 6 of us left in the house, sat around playing cards and one person was in bed asleep. Around 5 we heard a really load mortar go off. Got a phone call to go to the bunkers. After about an hour and a half we get told its safe to leave the bunker but we should stay in the house and be able to get to a bunker with in 15 seconds. Turns out this happened. Then we watched out the window and heard Isreals attack around 10pm. An eventful evening. Israels response. Hopefully that will be the end of it for the evening.

10 day catch up

It's been raining so I have some time off work. No need to irrigate when nature does it for you, which means plenty time to have a recap of Jerusalem, Garam leaving and the volunteer trip around the North of Israel.

Last weekend in Jerusalem was nice. Daniel, an Israeli guy I met while travelling around China, and his flatmates kindly let me stay on their couch and invited me to hang with them and their friends a in the evening. I met a lot of people and got to do my own thing during the day.

The Old City

Thursday I spent wandering around the Old City looking at churches, the Western Wall, being amazed by the dedication of the religious and drinking tea with a Bedouin shop keeper whilst discussing the philosophy of life, as you do.

Friday I went to the over crowded market which was full of delicious food. I came back with a bag of pastries and a load of strawberries. There were a lot of buskers there too but these guys were definitely having the most fun.

Saturday with no buses running, for Sabbath, I walked from the New town through the old city and up another hill to the Mount of Olives. Here I bumped into some history and politics students from Leeds University who were getting a guided tour with all the history and links to the bible explained, so I tagged along. It was super interesting and especially as a non believer. Hearing the conflicting factions of the different religions how ones hell is another's heaven and all kinds of interpretations in between.

Church at Mt of Olives where Jesus was arrested

I came to the conclusion there was definitely someone called Jesus about in Jerusalem but that seems to be all anyone can agree on. Just the pure basics. Religion is definitely a powerful thing. I kinda found it shocking seeing people kissing the stone where Jesus was meant to have died and such. I do love the art and architecture that religion has left us but I am definitely sticking to being an observer rather than a participant in this religion malarkey.

Ein HaShalosha says bye to Garam

Garam left on Friday. A sad day. Lots of people have come and gone in the house but this time was a little different. Someone who has become your best friend over the  past 5 months. I miss her but it just means I will have to add South Korea to my list of places to visit!

It was also a good day though, everyone in the house went on a trip the north along with volunteers from two other kibbutz. We walked through a freezing cold Roman aqueduct, then to Nazereth to  see an architectural impressive church and a quick stop for an ice cream and some shopping next to the Sea of Galilee in Tiberius. In the evening we BBQ'd and chatted the night away at Kibbutz Affikim.

Saturday we headed for a walk along River Banias to see some amazing water falls and the Golan Heights in the distance. Unfortunately I have zero photos of this as my camera died and my SD card in my phone is broken and no one seems to have put any on facebook yet apart.

On the  bus on the way home things got a little crazy,  the bus driver put on the radio and it started playing Isreali dance music so the guys at the back of the bus started dancing and jumping around to it.  Crazy volunteers.   Considering the bus driver had insisted we wore seat belts for the majority of the trip, the party bus was a little unexpected.

Next trip is a Volunteer seminar with volunteers from all over Isreal in Tel Aviv in a few weeks time.  The four of us that have been here the longest are going. Should be interesting!