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!

sprinklers, pipes, exhaustion and hunger

On Sunday I moved from working the kitchen to the fields. After working there for 4 months I had got pretty used to having a delicious breakfast every morning and finishing work by 2pm every day. In the fields you get a coffee in the morning, home around 4 and the work is physically demanding.

I have spent my week moving pipes, throwing sprinklers off a trailer, connecting pipes and sprinklers up,   and helping with sprinkler checks. It's been tough but I quite enjoyed the physical challenge means I don't have to work out anymore! I have been going to bed at 9:30 most nights from how tired I've been but I imagine in a few  weeks my body will get used to it. I am little concerned about it getting hotter though. There is no shade in the fields and when it's 23 degrees the sun already feels relentless to a Brit.

 Being outside the kibbutz is nice too driving around the fields seeing everything growing. I do miss the social side of working in the kitchen and dining hall a little. Literally had the opportunity to talk to everyone on the kibbutz there but its good to try new things, learn new skills, challenge myself.

I now know connecting pipes at a certain angle makes it much more likely that you will successfully connect them. I learned this after several hours of utter frustration in a massive field me and Garam were left to connect.  I had moments when I was ready to smash some sprinklers! Turns out I really hate not being able to do something that in my head shouldn't be that difficult. Since I seem have got the nack to connecting pipes and stay calm when things don't fit together straight away. Things usually work out in the end.

I am currently in Jerusalem for the weekend,  so I will be updating you on my trip in a new post sometime soon.

Me & Garam in front of one of the trailers of pipes and sprinklers

Windswept wanderings in the desert

Looking out over Mitzpe Ramon with Garam

On Friday Garam, two of the German guys Marian and Christian, Dennis who's Polish and lives in Germany ( but hates being put under the German title),Joram the new Canadian guy and myself headed for Mitzpe Ramon a big crator in the middle of the Negev desert.

We stayed the night as the sunrise, sunset and star gazing are meant to be amazing out there. Unfortunately the weather was not on our side it was cloudy! So we didn't see much. A storm was on its way after about a month of glorious sunshine. Typical.

At the start of our Green trail trek

We spent the night sleeping on couches (as we hadn't booked) in a tent with no electricity and still had to pay 80 shekels each. A little steep but we did have a fun night. Met lots of people: more Germans, Canadian, American, a lot of Israelis. It was super busy.

Me and Garam made spicy pasta by candle light and Garam made one of her delicious cocktails for us to drink and share. The night passed pretty quick until about midnight. We wanted to sleep but a bunch of other people didn't. Sleeping in the common area can be a pain in the ass.  I gave up about 1am waiting for people to shift off the couch where I wanted to sleep and went and grabbed a mattress that was free in another tent took my sleeping bag and headphones and got cosy. Have to say it wasn't the best nights sleep I've had but it was sufficient to get me through the next day. Although I did get a little grumpy later on.

We woke around 8am and were out of the hostel with a plan to go on the shortest and most accessible by foot trail around the crator. A couple of days with a 4x4 would have been handy but we are kibbutz volunteers so we made do with our feet!

The views were pretty spectacular and the walk was full of rocky terrain. Joram, the Canadian guy decided that it wasn't exciting enough and he went off trail where successfully managed to injure his foot. A rock came lose and fell on his ankle so he limped and bled his way to the end of the walk.

On the way down into the crator

We had to carry all our stuff with us while we walked as we weren't staying another night at the hostel. Jordan had the biggest and heaviest backpack. He packed for every possible situation yet the one thing that would have been useful, a medical kit, he didn't have in there. This combined with the limp definitely made it a tough trip for him but he did well keeping up with everyone and didn't complain. Was an enjoyable trip. Really windy though! The wind was as strong as we got off the North Sea back in

Whitley Bay. Luckily without the biting cold element!

It took us about 3 hours to complete the walk and as it was Shabbat there were no buses running until the evening. We decided to hitch hike back. This was an adventure in its self. Mitzpe Ramon was super hard to get a ride. Most people had their cars filled with family or just didn't care for hitch hikers. Me and Garam took the longest to get back cos we kept sheltering from the rain unlike the guys who just stuck their thumb out all the way through it. It was a very long day but interesting and unlike any other trip I have been on so far.

The last few kilometres as we head for the road home.

Its all so quiet..shh

Not really. I have just been being lazy with my blogging activity.

The weather is beautiful unlike England right now with your extreme weather warnings.

 Hope no one is flooded. There is a pretty red flower kinda like a poppy all over the fields around the kibbutz with clear blue skies, every day. Love Israel!

We have a few new volunteers. Canada and Portugal along with a bunch of Latinos and half the people here now are going to be leaving in the next two or 3 weeks. Lots of change in the house so it was time for another group photo. We weren't all drunk this time so it actually came out pretty good!

Anyway I am off to Mitzpe Ramon tomorrow with Garam and a few of the German guys so should be another update on that coming soon.

Oh I almost forgot! On the 4th of February at 6:40am we had the first 'zeva adom' alarm, which means colour red. If sounds whenever a rocket lands in close vicinity to the kibbutz. I heard it and ran straight to the bunker my adrenalin was pumping. I was scared. A bunch people practically slept through it! One of the volunteers had to run out and wake people up. Luckily it wasn't actually anything serious there was no rockets from Gaza was just a computer malfunction. Was a bloody good alarm clock though. There was no way I was hitting the snooze button after that.