The Change-Over

Section two left Bat Yam around one after a lot of waiting around on Monday morning. Our first stop was a JNF forest where our job was to cut down the small branches on the bottom of the trees in order to keep the trees growing up straight. While the staff member was explaining what JNF was and our plans for the day, he pulled out an old picture with a group of kids at that very spot. The guy looked at me, then looked at the photo and said, "this is you." In confusion, I looked at the slightly torn up photo and realized that it was of my Muss group when we came to volunteer there. I was shocked and ran over to my friend Jenna who went on Muss with me and who is on YC with me to show her the picture. It was a blast from the past especially because it was the two year anniversary of when I left for Muss. Half of section one, kids leaving Jerusalem, showed up to the JNF forest, too. The mingling began between our Israelis and their new roommates. The fact that we were leaving the scouts started to become a reality.

Our second stop was a bedouin tent where all of year course would be meeting up. After dinner and a small dance party that YC set up for us, a few friends and I went star gazing then to bed. We woke up bright and early on Tuesday and had to quickly decide if we wanted to go on the easy, medium or hard hike. I wanted to go on the hard hike but most of my friends and most of the scouts were going on the easy hike which also had a camel ride. I decided to go on the easy hike so I could spend as much time with the scouts as possible. It turned out that I had been on that hike before with Muss and that at the end of it was naturally colored sand that i learned, on muss, was used in Israel for natural makeup. For lunch, we make an hour long stop at a mall in Demona then off to Mamshit, an excavation site where I had been sighed up to work at while in Arad. Once we got ot Mamshit, everyone traded buses to their respective new locations and it was time for section two to finally say goodbye to the scouts and let me tell you it was a tear-fest...lots of crying!

Apartment by apartment, we got divided up in Arad to our new homes for the next few months.

Wednesday:
Orientation began with repeating YC rules we already knew, and some we didn't. Kate, the assistant director came to talk to us and made an honor code with us involving the fight that happened the Friday night before. It wasn't a very exciting day, except for the fact that I found a computer store and got my computer fixed...but it broke that very night.
That night was the first night of Hannukah!!! My new apartment and I decided to host a little Hannukah party. We had people bring potatoes and food needed for this kind of event and we all made latkas and apple sauce from scratch! It was a very fun and successful night!

Thursday:
We started off the morning with a hike that took us around 1/4th of Arad's perimeter. In Arad we had three options, volunteer in Arad or nearby, live on the Kibbutz or do Marva, an army training course. The Marva kids had interviews starting at 10:30 in the morning and lasted until 6PM. Midday for normal Arad kids was mini volunteer meetings. I was put into Mamshit but I wanted to do Massada. Over the past few days I had been talking to the staff to figure out how I could switch in. I decided to go into the Massada meeting to get some information about it to make a final decision whether or not I wanted to volunteer there. I introduced myself and told him that I am not signed up but am plan on switching in. He said "OK," crossed my name of next to Mamshit and wrote my name down next to Massada. Then he said, "you're in." To make sure, I asked if it was official and he said yes then jokingly told me he owed me one. I said anything he wants, I'm very grateful! He told me he wanted a great steak. I told him I was a vegetarian but would buy him one anyways, and we all laughed. I couldn't stop smiling after that! Since my computer was still broken, I went back to the computer store to try to fix it again. They took the computer for 4 days to see what they could do with it.
Thursday night we went to a local temple. We lit the candles and sang as many Hannukah songs as we could think of.

Friday:
We started of the day late after sleeping in and wandered Arad for a bit. We also found out our host families for Shabbat. Before Shabbat, my roommates and I made sufganiot (donuts with jelly inside, a hannukah dessert) for our neighbors. Most of our neighbors are elderly Russians that don't know any English and know little Hebrew. It was nice to meet them.
For dinner, we were assigned host families. After dropping everyone off at their hosts, Ilana, Aliza, Bekkah and I finally got to our family. We knocked on the door and the man of the house opened the door to tell us that his wife is sick, she is asleep and they already ate. What our madrich didn't tell us was that the man also said no one called to confirm that we were coming, so we were left without anywhere to go for shabbat. We decided to go home, cook a small meal then take a nap because we knew people were going out later.

In one night, a bunch of us went to all the bars in Arad then got bored and went home. Arad definitely can't compare to the night life in Tel Aviv.

Saturday was another late morning, and a good thing because I have been developing a cough. Saturday night a few of my roommates and I went to the local Ball Room Dancing Competition in Arad. These kids who were competing were incredible!!!! We went out to the bars again, but this time it was everyone just hanging out outside.


Upcoming week:
sunday-no volunteering
monday-start volunteering at masada!