Otzma Chai
Monday, June 28, 2004
Done with One Program, On to Another
Immediately following Otzma, my friend Deb and I hauled all our stuff to the Jerusalem central bus station and, three hours later, boarded a bus down to Eilat. Eilat is the southern-most part of Israel, a port and resort city on the Red Sea. It's good four and a half hour bus ride from Jerusalem. For a country as small as this one, that's very very far away. We were not actually headed down to Eilat, but rather to a kibbutz about thirty minutes north. For the next three and a half weeks, Deb and I would be living together, eating together, sleeping in the same room, hanging out together, hiking together, and most importantly learning together.
The program that we are doing is called Keren Kolot, at Kibbutz Ketura. Although they had planned for it to be a larger scale program, as it turns out the only two participants are Deb and myself. We have classes in the mornings five days a week, go on some sort of hike one day a week, and have lots of evening activities to keep us busy. (Though, to be completely honest, the pool keeps us as busy as our homework does). The classes are quite interesting, and have quite an diverse range. Each class meets four times throughout the program, for an hour or two each time (not to mention the readings and other assignments we do in preparation). We have Tanach (Bible), Zionism as Messianism, M'forshim (Commentaries), Parshat ha'Shavua (Weekly Torah Portion), Midrash, Kabbalah (Mysticism), Talmud, and Liturgy.
The classes are for the most part quite interesting, though I must admit it's intimidating to be one of two students in a class. If nothing else, it certainly forces you to do your readings before class. You can't hide in the back of the classroom when you don't know what the teacher's talking about if you are half the classroom population. Like anywhere else, some of the teachers are better than others, but luckily all of our teachers provide us with great readings and advice about where to look for more information. There are two big libraries on the kibbutz, so we can continue our readings there. The best learning tool, though, is definitely Deb. We take the same classes, read the same readings, go on the same hikes, and discuss all of it together so we can practically read each other's minds by now. Since we're practically inseparable here, I can roll over at one in the morning with a new insight to something we learned last week and she'll roll over from the other side of the room and we'll keep talking until we either fall asleep or reach over to check some of the texts we learned recently.
Another integral part of the Keren Kolot program are the tiyulim (hikes). The first two hikes we went on were in the kibbutz's 'backyard.' We saw a Neolithic altar angled directly in the rays of the setting sun, some interesting and colorful sandstone formations, flint scrap heaps, and a surprising amount of desert vegetation. We also climbed "the mountain" under which the entire kibbutz seems to sit in the shadow of. The climb up "the mountain" isn't so difficult, and the view is phenomenal. Kibbutz Ketura is in the Arava desert, south of the well-known Negev desert. These two deserts are separated by a few series of mountain ranges, and "the mountain" is a peak on one of these border ranges. Last week I woke up before five in the morning and climbed "the mountain" alone in time to see the sun rise over Jordan. Wow.
Another hike we went on took us to this stone-age structure, just sitting next to a highway next to an air force base. It was a large circle of stones, and within it, a smaller square bordered with larger stones, with the corners in the cardinal directions. The western corner had a 'walled off' side area full of fifteen standing stones of various heights, just standing up in the desert for thousands of years. South of the square, still within the larger circle, were lots of small stones, standing in the earth and forming pictures. Pictures! Of leopards! There were all these leopards, pictures made out of stones from forever ago! There was even this one group of pictures of a few leopards attacking a hyrax. I've looked all over for pictures of the Leopard Temple online so I can show you how amazing it was, but I haven't found any. So for now you're just going to have to take my word for it and hope my pictures develop well.
Another day we joined a local archeology dig excavating a Roman fort not far from our kibbutz. We sifted through their garbage pile, finding more broken pottery than anyone could ever need, plus a number of bone remnants. After a few hours of work and breakfast, Deb and I got to work in the actual fort. We were given an area that they were pretty sure didn't have any important finds at the particular level we were working on. (Phew! I wouldn't want to mess up all these peoples' life work because I don't know how to use a shovel delicately enough.) Although we didn't find anything in that particular room of the fort, it was really neat to work alongside all these American archaeologists and grad students and listen to their finds and watch as everything was painstakingly documented.
The dig site is located across the road from a nature preserve in the desert. The preserve includes an actual oasis, and or guide/teacher taught us how to differentiate a true oasis from other vegetation that grows in dry river beds that flood during the winter. At one point, while filling buckets with sand to be sifted through, I looked up and saw a wild ostrich walking through the desert across the street. I'd never imagined those strange creatures could exist outside zoos and farms, and certainly never thought I'd ever see one roaming free in the middle of the desert in Israel.
The Keren Kolot program, as amazing as it has been, has only been one small aspect of my experience here in the desert these past few weeks. I'll write about all our extracurricular activities next time I have computer access.
Hope you're enjoying your summer,
Sarah....
Monday, June 21, 2004
A Change of Pace
I'm sorry this email is so incredibly late. We have very, very limited internet access where I am currently staying, and there isn't even any internet cafe in the vicinity, like I used in Jerusalem. I apologize for this email's tardiness, and will write more as soon as I have the opportunity.
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The last week of Otzma was certainly a change of pace for me. After two and a half months of kibbutz life, consisting almost entirely of individual work in the fields, eating, sleeping, and bonfires, I was suddenly hurtled back into a world of people to see and places to go. A bit disorienting at first, but certainly worthwhile in the end.
Immediately following the wonderful wedding extravaganza at Sde Eliyahu, my roommate and I took a van to join the rest of Otzma in Tiberias to begin our concluding hikes and seminars. Unfortunately, I was unable to join everyone on the first day of hiking because I was sick, but after a day of sleep, television (Turkish children doing international folk dancing, of course), and more sleep, I was well enough to join everyone for a picnic dinner and a bit of a reunion.
The next day began bright and early with a beautiful hike in the Golan. From where the hike ended, we were able to enter the park containing Nimrod's Fortress. Built, captured, recaptured, and refortified in the 12th century, the fortress is located north of the Golan Heights, near the borders of Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. We crawled, climbed and explored the castle, and right as we were heading back on to the bus I literally bumped into an American couple. After apologizing I turned the corner and saw that their daughter was my friend Alisha! Imagine running into a friend from southern Israel in a centuries old Crusader's castle in the absolute northernmost part of the country, two days before she returns to California. It's quite a small world, especially in Israel.
From Nimrod's fortress we headed down a bit to have the crazy adventure of rafting down the Jordan River. Now, don't get me wrong, most of the "great and mighty Jordan" resembles more of a trickle, a puddle even, than a river. But up in the north, it could definitely be considered a river, albeit not a terribly powerful one. Not two minutes into our peaceful raft down the river, the forty of us quiet, peace-loving, do-gooder volunteers from abroad turned into vengeful pirates. Even our staff members got into the fights: splashing, pushing, pulling and capsizing as many of us as they could get their hands on. By the end of the trip, nearly every Otzma-nik was completely soaked, somehow injured, and many possessions had mysteriously changed owners. Back on dry land, our helpful, volunteering spirit returned as we bandaged the injured among us and hobbled back to the bus.
After some discount sandal shopping we returned to our hotel to prepare for Shabbat. It was restful and relaxing Shabbat, with some programs, some fun, some reading, some napping, and lots of eating. On Saturday night, we went on a "disco-boat" on the Sea of Galilee. For an hour and a half we danced, drank, and played drums as our boat floated in the middle of the lake. After docking us back in Tiberias I went out for dessert with some Otzma friends to celebrate my birthday a day early.
Sunday morning we woke up earlier than planned because some people decided they wanted an extra hike instead of the previously scheduled activities. I wasn't too happy about this decision (shouldn't a girl get to sleep in on her birthday?) but I generally enjoy hikes, too, so I got on the bus with sleepy eyes. A few birthday calls later we arrived at the beginning of our hike - the foot of Mount Gilboa!
Now, if you remember, Mount Gilboa is one of the two mountains I worked between on kibbutz for the months that I was there. Mount Gilead (the historical, biblical mountain east of Sde Eliyahu) is in Jordan, so we weren't about to climb it, but Mount Gilboa was rather accessible. We'd made a number of plans to hike it while we were volunteering, but something always got in the way. Now, after leaving kibbutz, I was finally going to have the opportunity to finally climb it! The hike was reasonably hard, and it was quite hot out, but as our leader promised, when we got to the top the view was worth it and we were quite proud of ourselves.
Back on the bus we headed to the coast, to a small town called Michmoret. My old roommate from Beit Shemesh, Lara, had had an internship here while I was working on kibbutz. She worked at a sea turtle rescue and rehabilitation center, the only one of its kind in the entire region. Lara gave us a tour and introduced us to a number of the turtles currently living at the center. Back on the bus we drove down to Jerusalem, to a hotel we'd be staying at for the conclusion of Otzma. [The hotel was conveniently located across the street from my airline's central office so I was able to officially get my plane ticket back. For those of you not yet in the know, I'll be arriving state-side on July 13th.]
That night I skipped the Otzma programming to have dinner with some of my non-Otzma Jerusalem friends in celebration of my birthday. Quite a diverse group, we had a great time (or, at least I did, which is all that matters on June 6th, anyway) eating, meeting each other, and just shmoozing in general. As I looked around the table I realized that of my twelve friends, I had slept on the couch (or its equivalent) of every single one of them at some point throughout the past year. In case I hadn't noticed, this proved that I really had crashed at the homes of almost everyone I knew. After an amazing dinner and dessert, I finished off my wonderful day with rousing games of shesh-besh (backgammon) into the wee hours of the night. It was truly one of the best birthdays ever.
The next two days were a blur of workshops and lectures and classes that formed our closing seminar. Every bit of spare time was filled with some last-minute gift buying, photographing, socializing, bar hopping, and attempting to "suck the marrow" out of a country we'd called our home for the past ten months. After a formal and informal closing ceremony, we lugged our bags separate ways and promised to keep in touch. Otzma 18 ended on June 9th.
That afternoon, my friend Deb and I took a bus down to the desert to begin the next segment of our Israel adventure....
Monday, June 07, 2004
What a Way to Say Goodbye!
Wednesday night was our last night on kibbutz before rejoining the rest of Otzma for some concluding hikes and seminars. Wednesday night also happened to be a kibbutz wedding at Sde Eliyahu. All kibbutz members were invited (although some more so than others) so we volunteers were able to join in on almost all the festivities. And let me tell you, it was an absolutely phenomenal way to end my two-and-a-half month stay on kibbutz.
Looking at how people were dressed was a very entertaining way of spending the reception. The bride was from the kibbutz, but she moved here with her family from Canada many years ago. The groom was from northern Israel, but most of his Sephardi (middle-eastern) family was from Tel Aviv. In general, the dress at Israeli weddings is much more casual than their American counterparts. This becomes even more exaggerated when the wedding actually takes place on a kibbutz. The Canadians were wearing what would be appropriate at your average American wedding, moderately formal dresses and suits (mostly without jackets). The Tel Avivians were dressed in even more gaudy, stylish dresses, often with boots or very high heels. The kibbutzniks were wearing blouses and skirts, or white untucked shirts and slacks or jeans. Every kibbutznik wore sandals or flip-flops.
And where else but a kibbutz can the majority of the guests arrive on bicycles?
As the receptions ended (one for the groom, one for the bride), people began to make their way to the chuppa (wedding canopy). The men got in a big group and led the groom, dancing and singing across the field, to the chuppa. Then we women gathered together around the bride and, surrounding her in all directions, sang and danced with her to the chuppa and to her waiting groom. The ceremony itself was very beautiful, and it was amazing to watch the bride and groom together under the canopy. They made an absolutely perfect couple.
After the brief ceremony (interspersed with lots of humming and singing), the now married bride and groom were taken to a small room where they could be alone together for a few minutes before joining all the hundreds of guests in their celebration. This being a kibbutz, they were driven off to their private room on a decorated golf cart!
We all then proceeded to the kibbutz dining hall, decorated especially for the wedding. After some good eating, the dancing began. There was a live band and we danced and danced for over three hours, hoping to fulfill the commandment of bringing joy to the bride and groom. We were informed that usually at our kibbutz, the dancing begins separate, with men in one part of the room and women in the other, but toward the end of the night the two groups dance together. However, since the groom's family was more traditional, the dancing was separated all night by a small wall. That absolutely didn't stop any of the excitement or energy and within an hour nearly everyone was drenched in sweat. And throughout it all, the bride seemed completely grounded in all the festivities. She didn't seem lost and not-part-of-it-all like many bride seem, she was down and dancing with us all night.
The dancing paused for a bit for some speeches and then performances. The bride's friends from her seminary [scandalously, according to some] performed a song for her, A Woman of Valor. It's traditionally sung to a wife on Shabbat, and it's from the very end of the book of Proverbs. The groom's friends then did an amazing dance routine which was some combination of line dance, Israeli folk dance, and cheer-leading routine. They ended their show by forming a huge human pyramid with a sign proclaiming "Mazal Tov M'Yeshivat Ha'Golan!" (Congratulations from the Golan Yeshiva).
After some more dancing, we volunteers left the wedding early to return to our rooms to pack and pack and pack and clean. We were up until nearly three in the morning, and woke up two hours later to get in a van and join the rest of Otzma for our closing hikes and seminars. Sleep deprivation and all, it was an absolutely phenomenal way to end my stay at kibbutz. It was a culmination of all the wonderful energy and community, alongside traditional Judaism in a natural setting, that made this last part of Otzma so amazing for me.
Goodbye Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu. I miss you already.
