Tuesday 16 November 2010

penultimate week on kibbutz-almost

Lots and lots of photos to come ...please check back later


Tuesday- Volunteering, Chinuch?
Wednesday-
Day on Lotan-making seed balls, making bricks, building bridges, tikkun olam peula, tea time, ma'omadim
-machon prep in the eve
Thursday-Machon interview in Jeru
Friday-Sunbathing
Saturday-Sunbathing, other people hike
Sunday-Chinuch (reform Judaism), Ulpan
Monday-Ulpan, volunteering
Tuesday-Volunteering

Last Wednesday we spent the day on Kibbutz Lotan which is the other reform kibbutz about 20 minutes from Yahel. We spent the day being bitten by flies and constructing various things. Firstly we were introduced to the compost toilets and given a detailed description of the way they work.


We then made little seed balls which basically involved mixing some dry clay with soil and water until you had a paste and then mixing in a random variety of seeds. The clay dries and the seed balls become solid making them quick and easy to put in the fields without being easy for the birds and wind to destroy.





Following this we learnt out to mix and form clay bricks using clay, water and straw to strengthen them.
Then we had to construct bridges out of clay bricks. Admittedly our first bridge wasn’t a massive success but our second one was truly epic and our entire group was able to stands on it.



Then they took us on a tour around Lotan and showed us the little clay domes some of the volunteers live in and the solar powered grill and ovens they have outside. As you can probably guess and in case you don't know Kibbutz Lotan is massively into Eco-friendly everything


The afternoon consisted of a Tikkun Olam peula, some discussions with various kibbutzniks and a final closing ma'amad.

Thursday was my machon interview, the less said about that the better. Luckily I think it went well, but I’m going to leave it at that.

Both Friday and Saturday consisted of chilling on the kibbutz, sunbathing and reading for the vast majority of the weekend. We went to a 'Texan style' kabbalat shabbat service at the kibbutz as there was a wedding or something going on during the weekend. The service was nice but a little bizarre. There appeared to be a lot of -what I associate with orthodox services- rapid ivrit rambling tailing off into silence. The boys went for what was meant to be a gentle ambling 'hike' but turned into a Hike up a cliff face on Saturday. Was quite satisfied I stayed on kibbutz.

Monday consisted of a fairly productive Ulpan session in which we started translating the phone conversations out teacher was having-turned out we actually knew a lot more than we thought we did. Volunteering was pretty standard followed by hours and hours and hours of Sikkum Seminar planning as I’m roshing this weekend (our last weekend) with three other girls. We also did a peula focused on the Israel 'bumper sticker' song which developed into a massive debate about hebron and the Israeli's right to be there etc


So today we FINALLY FINISHED ALL THE DATE BAGS. We have officially arranged, rolled and tied 7000 date bags in the last month and we finished with a day to spare. If you’d seen us in the date fields today you probably would've thought we'd won a war. We were literally euphoric. It was truly epic. After all the ridiculous arguments and discussions we had about folding these stupid date bags (and when I say arguments I mean properly heated fights) we are finally FINALLY finished. I don't think you can quite understand this feeling without being here. It really was no mean feat.

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