An Eventful Week

So last Friday morning, I embarked on an Aardvark-organized Shabbaton with Tel Aviv's staff rabbi, Rav Fivel. Let me just start by saying that I really love Rav Fivel. He's this great little Birkenstock wearing, reusable water bottle toting hippy man who went to Dartmouth and Harvard and then came to Israel, became a religious nut, worked for Nesiya, and settled in the oPt. So yeah. Politically and religiously, we disagree on a lot of things. But he's a great guy, and I adore him.

The Shabbaton itself took place at Givat Haviva, an educational center about two hours northeast of Tel Aviv focused on peace (and language) education for Jewish and Palestinian Israeli students. We didn't get to experience much of what happens at Givat Haviva because it was the weekend, but before Shabbat came in on Friday we had the opportunity to visit an Arab village called Baka'a. This particular village is split directly in half by the green line, but the IDF chose at this point not to build the security fence through the village, but to build it behind the village, leaving nothing but a ditch between the PA controlled half of the village, and the Israeli half of the village. It was fascinating to see the difference. Literally there were Israeli flags flying on one side, and Palestinian flags on the other. You could practically taste the tension in the air.

As we were walking through the village, suddenly, very dramatically, the sky opened up and it began to pour. We all ran for cover, but the villagers all ran out and held up their arms, praising God and Allah and Jesus and whoever else for the end of a five-month drought. Even Rav Fivel's five-year-old son, who has lived in Israel his whole life, ran out and started jumping in puddles and shrieking with joy. It's amazing how different the associations with water are here. Rain is never something to complain about in this country. It's amazing.

It continued storming through Shabbat, with strong winds and thunder and lightning. The power even went out at some point, which was incredibly frustrating, because when it came back we couldn't turn on the lights because it was Shabbat. We spent most of Saturday huddled up in a dark room singing and studying and debating and, of course, eating. I was immensely frustrated with people at some points (there's this one kid on my program who is so blindly racist it makes me want to scream), but hanging out with Rav Fivel is always a learning experience, and overall it was a nice weekend.

We returned to Tel Aviv to find that it was storming there, too. I woke up Sunday morning to the wind HOWLING outside my window, and when I ventured out of the apartment to go to work, I discovered that the city was a complete MESS from the storm. Trees were down on every block, there was broken glass everywhere, cars and even small buildings had been destroyed, and half the city was without power (shockingly, my building not included). I arrived at the Windows office to find that not only did we have no power, but a tree had fallen on the street right outside, and taken down with it the power lines for the whole block. What a balagan. Rutie, my boss (sort of), sent me home to work on my own computer and to stay safe. On my way home I stopped to buy some vegetables, and literally got blown into a telephone pole. The sky was GREEN. It was terrifying!

Later that night, about ten of us were huddled under blankets in my living room when we heard a dripping (not really dripping, actually, more like gushing) noise coming from Tal's room. Four months with no rain, and suddenly Tal had a half inch of water on her floor. Classic Florentin. I woke up the next morning to find all four of my roommates sleeping on the couches. Of the three bedrooms in the apartment, only mine was not flooded. Great luck for me, but it SUCKED for my poor roommates.

We left Tel Aviv just as the storm was subsiding, ready for a three day field trip with the whole Aardvark group (including Keith, our director, who had yet to accompany us on any field trips). We drove six hours south along the Dead Sea into the Arava Valley to Kibbutz Ketura, a pluralist kibbutz focused on environmental sustainability and peace building. The kibbutz is home to the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, which has about 50 students per semester, from Israel, the oPt, Jordan, Egypt, the US, and other countries around the world. In addition to studying the environment and desert sustainability, students at the AIES study each other and their respective cultures, creating a sort of multicultural community working to create environmentally friendly solutions. I am SO studying there at some point in college.

We spent the next three days on and around the kibbutz, learning about kibbutz life and desert agriculture, building mud structures (and having mud fights), making friends with cows and camels, hiking, biking, singing, eating, and exploring. On Tuesday night, we drove up into the mountains of the Negev, and spent several hours playing in some sand dunes, which was kind of a weird experience. The Negev is a very rocky desert, and you really don't get the whole sandy Sahara feel from it at all, but there's this one spot at Nahal Kassui where there are three or four dunes that are just pure, fine, soft sand. Very Sahara-y. It was windy and freezing cold up there, and we all inhaled so much sand we could barely breathe. I was smart and brought a scarf to cover my face, but I still spent much of the next day coughing up sand.

I've always thought of kibbutz life as something that I would be really good at. Upon arriving at Ketura, I immediately decided that I wanted to move there someday. Over the next few days, though, I had the chance to do a lot of thinking about what kibbutz really means. In the simplest form, it means a community that functions as one economic unit. It's an incredibly cool concept; the cow-milkers and the dining room servers and the solar panel builders and the doctor are all of equal value in the community, and they all ultimately serve to support each other. I would LOVE to live in a community like this, especially Ketura, which is in the most beautiful oasis surrounded by the most beautiful desert. Eventually, though, I came to the discovery that I don't think I can ever live on a kibbutz long-term. Why not? First of all, I really like to cook, and I really like to cook for other people, and the cafeteria eating thing is just a really big problem for me. Second... I'm allergic to EVERYTHING. Ketura (like most kibbutzim) is filled with dogs, cats, horses, donkeys, camels, cows, weird pollens, and tons of dust. I was literally gasping for air almost the entire time we were there. When someone starts a strictly fruit and vegetable growing kibbutz in the forest in Vermont, I'm totally there, but until then, kibbutz is a problematic concept for me.

We arrived back in Tel Aviv last night, exhausted, dusty, and ready for a good night's sleep. There is currently a repair man in my apartment draining the water out of Tal's room, and the upstairs room is mostly aired out. Most importantly, my family arrives in Israel today!!! Around 3pm, my mom, dad, sister, and aunt will land at Ben Gurion aiport ready for two weeks of adventuring in my new home! I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!

Love and peace...