A Mess of an Update

I've been in Israel for almost a year and two months now.

I've lived in two kibbutzim and two cities. 

I've become 'functional' in Hebrew.  

I've fought with more bureaucracies than I can remember, and been incredibly frustrated by their opaqueness. 

I've met people who have helped me navigate through said bureaucracies and been shocked at how easily previously impossible steps can be simply bypassed.  

This is a country filled with some of the rudest, friendliest, brusque, and welcoming people I've ever met, and I love it.  It's not easy and I'm still acclimatising.  Within the next year I expect to join the army.  From all I hear, that's going to be another huge culture shock.  For all that, I think that I'm going to notice it the most when I eventually go back to Canada for a visit.  I'm reminded of Michael Crichton's The Lost World.  It was not huge upsets and changes that caused problems to populations; it was when the environment went back to the old normal that they were driven to extinction.  I imagine that the reintroduction to Canadian society will be very unsettling.

With few exceptions, my life changes slowly in increments.  These blog posts are difficult for me, because like the frog in a slowly warming pot of water, I don't realise how now is different from before.  Whenever someone calls and asks what new, my response is almost invariably nothing much.  It is almost invariably the truth.  Today I'm working in a Cafe in central Tel-Aviv and living in a hostel in south Tel-Aviv.  Two months ago I was living and working in Eilat in the far south.  Two months before that I was living in a kibbutz and attending Hebrew lessons while working in a machine shop.

This blog post is a disorganised mess, and I apologise to any/all reading it.  I am writing this at approximately 24 hours from waking up and heading off to work, and I have another 3 hours to go before I can sleep.  This is a long day basically is what I'm saying and I am exhausted.  This week has been long in fact.  Since Sunday I've gotten a new job, sent a coworker out to the hospital in a taxi because he got hit by a car and was vomiting (turned out to be an unrelated case of food poisoning), drove a different coworker to the hospital for a broken hand (caused by punching a wall; the wall was fine), found someone to live with in an apartment, and went out to eat the best burger in Israel.  I also went on a rather unsuccessful date, met possibly the two biggest assholes in Tel-Aviv, and watched Liverpool defeat Southampton with a Gerrardesque wonderstrike from Philippe Coutinho.

Quite possibly I will go over this post this weekend and clean it up, however I promised my Dad that I would update my blog tonight during my shift, so here it is in all the first draft, stream-of-conciousness glory.

Tehenu

(Enjoy in Hebrew)

New Hebrew Words

I learnt a new word in Hebrew this week.  Nehereg.  It means to be killed.  I also learnt Nertzach.  To be murdered.  Earlier I learnt the words Chotef - kidnapped, Yoreh - shoot.

Thankfully, I also learnt the words Magen - protect, Mayeret - shoot down; and maybe most importantly, Kipat HaBarzel - the Iron Dome.

As you can probably tell, all these words were learnt while talking about the current situation in Israel.  It's a sad situation, and one which I don't think will improve as long as Hamas is in power in the Gaza strip.  There can't be lasting peace when one side has the destruction of the other side as their main goal.  I am grateful that I'm on the side that invests money into protecting its people.  The side that isn't almost entirely targeting civilians.  The side, that when it learns of an imminent attack, will evacuate innocents as opposed to congregating them.

I am currently in one of the safest places in Israel.  I have only had to run for a bomb shelter once while I've been here.  I know that my friends both further south and further north have had to go numerous times.  It is only through the grace of God, preparations by the Israeli government, and the soldiers in the IDF that many more people haven't died.

I hope that the situation in Gaza will resolve soon.  That Hamas will be removed from power, and that there will be leadership for the Palestinians that care more about Palestinian lives than Israeli deaths.

I wish to everyone a peaceful and quiet week.

Shabbat Shalom!

Up To Speed

Sorry it's been so long between blogs.  I have many good points and attractive qualities.  Keeping an up to date blog is apparently not one of them.


Looking back over my previous posts, I see that I've left quite a bit off.  I'll give a relatively brief summation:

   -  I switched jobs at the kibbutz from working in the Horsha (wedding garden) to detailing cars.  Upsides and downsides to the change, but it ended up being a much easier job with a lot more down time (finishing at 10:00 or earlier most days, as opposed to 13:00 or later).  It also gave me a bit more of a chance to work on my Hebrew, as not everyone at the Misrad Rechev (Car office) speaks English.

 - My application to join the Army is still going, albeit slowly.  Volunteering is a lengthy process, especially getting a hold of doctors to write notes.  I am confident that I am doing everything I can however, and hope to have some sort of update within the next few months.

 -  I've been helping a Kibbutznik friend of mine with a research project on calves.  I enjoy the manual labour aspect of the work, as well as hearing about the preliminary results.  I'm considering reading a book on Statistics to brush up my knowledge.  It seems a lot more interesting to me now then it was at Guelph.

 -  I've been accepted into a second ulpan at Kibbutz Ein Hashofet, also located in the north of Israel, about half an hour away from Yagur.  I've talked to the manager there and I am excited to get started soon.

 -   I've moved out of Yagur.  I'm sad to leave some good friends, but I'm excited to start a new program elsewhere.  I hope to stay in contact with people, and we'll see how that works out.

 -  I have a couple of projects that I'm thinking about.  One is a board game with a friend from Yagur (we'll see how far we go with that one), and the other is an application for phones that I'm excited to get started on (at the very least it'll give me a chance to work on my programming, always a useful skill).

So that pretty much brings things up to date.  If anyone wants to receive actual, physical letters from me, send me your mailing address and I'll do my damnedest to send at least one a month.  I can personalise those much more than a blog post, and I don't have to worry so much about what I say being posted online.

My Job In Pictures

On the kibbutz I work in the wedding garden (gan erohim) for the most part.  The Gan just purchased a bar (previously Bar Yehuda) as well, and I've been doing a lot of demolition.

This is where we have start every morning.  The Coffee is very important.

And this is where we drink our coffee.

There is a lot of landscaping to do, so we're often in trees.

This is my coworker, Nicolas.

We also have to clean the ravine of debris.

This is from in the ravine at night.

This is taken from the bridge.

Some debris.

Some more debris.

Even more debris.  We work hard.

The job I like more is working inside the bar.  It's just demolition right now.

This is a stage after we've removed the railings.

Slightly later on.

Even later.

This is Neuf.  He hurt his foot so that's why he has a sock.

Nicolas' handiwork.

We've been inside for a few days.

The other stage we had to disassemble.  It went much faster.

With the right tools, any job is easy.

"Make sure you don't hit the wall"
"Okay"
"...Oops"

We got lucky and another guy from the Ulpan, Dan, came and helped out.  We were able to get a lot more done with the extra person.

Dan working hard.

Dan not working so hard.

This is the last thing I worked on in the bar.  It used to have panels and a bartop.

This should be gone by the time I get back.  There's supposed to be a tractor coming in.

And that's my work in pictures.  Assuming each one is worth a thousand words, this is a terribly long post.  I hope you enjoy!

It's Raining, Hallelujah!

As you can probably tell from the post title, today it's raining!  This is great because when it rains it means that I don't have to go to work.  Today it was especially helpful because we were given a whole lot of homework yesterday, and on Tuesday we have evening class so it would all be due tonight as opposed to being given a whole day to work on it.  Also it's fun because I love lightning and thunderstorms, and we had a skookum storm last night.

I wasn't able to post on Shabbat (Saturday), because the wireless internet here is less than optimal.  But this Sunday I was able to go to the bank and pick up my new credit card and finally get a real phone plan in Israel.  Unlimited everything including international calling (not everywhere in the world, but landlines in 39 countries and mobiles in the US and Canada, which is more than I need).  I was also able to use my new card to get registered with Clalit Platinum, which is the extended health coverage here.  The basic covers most things, but I felt that getting that bit of extra coverage was important just in case.

The most frustrating thing to happen to me so far in Israel has involved my credit card.  When I first got here and signed up at the bank (Leumi), I applied for a credit card which they told me they would send me in a week.  I knew that I needed this credit card to get a phone plan and to pay for health care premiums.  After a week and a half went by I called the bank and they told me it was at the branch waiting for me, and all I had to do was go and pick it up.  Okay, that wasn't so bad, a slight miscommunication but no big deal.  I go in, pick up my card, get my code, everything is okay (for me anyways, the guys who went in with me had some other troubles because their code wasn't there and they would have to come back in another week).  I figure that now I can get my phone plan and everything.  I was wrong.

See, it turns out that the card I was issued is known as a Visa Electron, which means it functions very similarly to a debit card.  In other words, I can't pay bills or set up reoccurring payments with it.  (Those two sentences took me about an hour on the phone to figure out.  The language barrier is difficult at times).  Once I did figure this out I was able to go back into Nesher (where my branch is) and order a new card, which took another week to arrive.  It showed up on Sunday, and luckily my boss is nice and let me leave early to go and pick it up.  From there I went into the mall and signed up for a phone plan.

A word of advice if anyone reading this is ever going to make Aliyah.  When you apply for a credit card make SURE that the bank knows you want one that is not direct, and is not electronic.  Otherwise it's closer to useless than it is to useful.

In other news, I received my Tsav Rishon (First Orders) and am going into Haifa for my interview with the army on Thursday (what with the rain and being allowed to leave work early on Sunday, this means that I'll have worked for around 3 hours this week).  I don't know how this is going to go.  I'm almost certain that my Crohn's will knock my fitness score way down, but hopefully I'll be able to volunteer in a non-combat role.

Last off, I'm sorry there are no pictures in this entry, I know sometimes many words without a break can be scary, but I didn't feel it prudent to post pictures of my credit cards on the web.

I hope you all have a good week!

Shaun

Technical Difficulties

Sorry everyone.  I've had some techinical issues with the internet, but that should all be sorted out presently.  I'll try to have a new post up in the next few days.

Hello Everyone!

Hey Everyone! (Or no one, as the case may be)

     I’m starting a blog to attempt to document my time in Israel since making Aliyah in late December. I started the Aliyah process back in July, and it wasn’t too arduous but overall it wasn’t that interesting so I won’t take any further time to recap it other than to say it happened without any great difficulties. Since coming to Israel I have been living on Kibbutz Yagur, about a 20 minutes bus ride from Haifa.

Yagur from the Hiking Trail

.    
     I work at the Horsha (Wedding Garden).

When I work there it doesn't look like that.  That's during a wedding.

 
     Three days a week I'm there doing landscaping (i.e. raking leaves and cutting branches), and the other three days I'm in class. (In Israel it’s a six day work week with a short Friday). I’m in kita bet, which is the second level of three offered at the kibbutz.

      My average day is as follows:
 7am – Wake up, get dressed, etc.
 8am – Start either class or work. Either way this always involves strong coffee.
 ~9:15 – Go to Breakfast for between half an hour and an hour, and then go back to work/class
 1pm – Go to lunch. If it’s a work day I’m now off for the day. Otherwise I’m back to class at 1:45 until 3. 

     After that the day is basically my own until Dinner at 7 (which is free and kept warm leftovers from lunch). So far I’ve spent that time studying my lessons, wrestling with various bureaucracies (fun at any time, but even more so when only 1 in 3 people you connect with speak any English at all), or just hanging out with the other ulpanists.

      After dinner it’s more of the same. If it’s Thursday or Friday I might go to the pub on the kibbutz.

Yea, it's actually a bomb shelter

     It’s a relaxed pub, with prices the same as if I were to buy directly from the kolbol (the store on the kibbutz). The hardest thing to get used to is how much smoking there always is. People haven’t smoked in restaurants in Canada since I was very young.

     That’s basically how things are going with me currently. I’m going to try to update this blog about once a week (give or take), and we’ll see how that goes. Blogs usually aren’t all that interactive, and this will be no exception, but if you want to know more details about anything or if you feel I’m leaving something out let me know and maybe I’ll post about that.

 Cheers!

 Shaun