This Has All Been Wonderful

But now I'm on my way.


In short: It's been a very interesting month and a half and while I intended to spend another month here, the kibbutz and I are breaking it off.
We both benefitted from the relationship, but it's reached its end.
No hard feelings.
No awkward glances.
I know what's mine and I'm happily packing it up and heading out.
The Seinfeld exit, if you will: leaving on a high note, somewhat unexpectedly and before the craziest of all the characters shows their true colors (by which I mean, Cosmo Kramer is a racist)


So, come June 1st, I will board an Egged bus (most probably stuffed with adorable and mature-looking Israeli 18 to 21 year-olds named Itai and/or Liron) due north for Tel Aviv.
I'm dealing with a salad of mixed emotions because I've made some really amazing friends and have had some really great times here.
But, when you know, you know.
And I know.
It's time.
I'll be heading home sometime before June 10th (13 days early, give or take) and I can genuinely say: I'm ready.
Just like ripe fruit only spoils if you don't eat it on time, I'm ready to go and delaying it any further would only cause fruit flies and mold.


In theory, this trip had a very specific purpose:
To Figure Shit Out.


At the same time, I had no fucking idea what I was doing, a lot of the time.
Literally, there were days when I'd just doodle for 2 hours or walk to a beach and stack sea shells until I got hungry.
Not that those days weren't terrific.
Of course they were terrific.
But they helped me realize that I prefer a little structure.
As uncool as it may sound, I like having a job.
I like knowing what's expected of me (it makes not doing what's expected of me that much more satisfying) and I like feeling productive, constructive, and useful.
I also really, really like Home.
I like You.
And sometimes, you need to go really far away to learn how much you like being really close.


(Cue the John Williams musical montage)

5 Weeks To Go, I'm Absolutely Counting

I come home in just over a month!!!
I am thrilled.
I'm ready to go and trying to remind myself to linger on the here and now at the same time...
Because it'll be gone so soon.
But 5 weeks seems like a very long time.
Especially when you've been gone since November and it's May 16th.


As for updates: I went to Eilat with my friend Sara from Canada and we had a good time not being on the kibbutz.
We met a lot of interesting men who offered us things ranging from drugs to the ability to Google at their house.
All in all, it was a lot of fun.


So now I'm generally doing what you do on a kibbutz in the desert...relaxing in air conditioning/missing the conveniences of home, such as: doorknobs.

Ponder This

"I love you sons of bitches. You’re all I read any more. You're the only ones who’ll talk all about the really terrific changes going on, the only ones crazy enough to know that life is a space voyage, and not a short one, either, but one that’ll last for billions of years. You’re the only ones with guts enough to really care about the future, who really notice what machines do to us, what wars do to us, what cities do to us, what big, simple ideas do to us, what tremendous misunderstanding, mistakes, accidents, catastrophes do to us. You're the only ones zany enough to agonize over time and distance without limit, over mysteries that will never die, over the fact that we are right now determining whether the space voyage for the next billion years or so is going to be Heaven or Hell."

-Kurt Vonnegut

Yesh Kipod B'cheder

(There is a hedgehog in the room)

It's been nearly a month since I've been at the kibbutz and oh, what an interesting nearly a month it's been.
For one, I've made some really good friends as well as more than a few really strange acquaintances.
For two, I no longer work in the hotel because although I was apparently perfect for the job, I also hated the living daylights out of the job.
So after a pretty succinct and terse conversation about my options with one of the most useless human beings I've ever met (not an exaggeration; I have references and am happy to expand upon that assertion if anyone wants to hear me whine), I was moved.

First it was to the kitchen with all of Latin America, which was an absolute ball.
I got to use my Spanish and listen to Israeli radio and watch all the Chileans and Argentinians dance whenever this one commercial for some alarm company came on.
Also I know where they keep the Nutella supplies now.

But alas, they needed another person in the noy instead ("noy" is Hebrew for beautiful or something; essentially it's landscaping work) and so to the noy I went.

Most of what I do is rake and prune and lift heavy things and eat like a 16 year old boy.
We've laid down sod for a new lawn; I'm excellent at pruning, weeding and sweeping dirt back into its designated pit; and I am also the new sprinkler and irrigation specialist.
Impressive, no?

In addition to being in charge* of all of the water, I'm also the only girl I work with.
My bosses and coworkers all comment daily on my incredible ability to amass large amounts of burekas and hummus on my plate and consume them like a lady, as well as how strong I am:

I can now lift almost 2 kilos of ice cream in one hand, while telling other people what else they can bring me.

And even though we wake up around 5:00am for work at 5:15am because it's already too hot to work after lunch, and even though it's only going to get hotter, and sometimes the rest of my coworkers just call me PMS when I whine about how heavy the tree trunks are that we have to pick up...I like the work.

I joke.
(I have always been able to lift that much ice cream in one hand, and they call me PMS no matter what I whine about)
I'm really enjoying the physical work and the guys I work with are awesome.
And attractive.
Also I'm tanner than I've ever been.

Win-win-win-win-win.

*I'm not in charge of anything, but I do know the computer code that sets off the sprinklers and have been having fun pissing off all the feral cats who sleep by our house by turning the water on sporadically.
Also, we're in the fucking desert and this place is so well developed that not only is there a sprinkler system set up to irrigate the plants and date trees (one of the kibbutz's main sources of income), they even have gardens with flowers and trees for aesthetic purposes! This blows my mind on the regular.

This whole experience has been really interesting, both socially and spiritually.
In a lot of ways, I'm at camp.
Almost everyone's Jewish, they have French toast for breakfast a lot, I share clothing with everyone I know, we have Shabbat as a community, the pool and the cheder ochel (dining room) are the central meeting places, and everyone uses golf carts to get around.
At the same time, there are no counselors and very little actual structure (except for meals which are the only real scheduled activities), so it's sort of a mix between camp and college.

And of course, whenever you put people together for an extended period of time, the middle schoolers in all of us come out to play.
I've never been that good at keeping up with the drama, but luckily there was a free beer night a few weeks ago which allowed me to participate in the general balagan (Hebrew for shit show) of the kibbutz.
Nothing too incredible happened, but I can now safely and confidently say that I am able to get free shots of liquor in every country I've visited on this trip.
Also I have been shot down not once but apparently four times in one night by the same guy.
Count it!

On that note, it's time to go to the pool; 43 degrees Celcius is almost warm enough to BBQ your spleen.