Mom, Stop Worrying

Everything's fine, I just hardly have a chance to use a real computer.
Quick update: people are all much happier, I still clean hotel rooms, my skin is the color of rich mahogany.
More to come.

2 Days In and I'm Already Constipated

Shalom from the Arava Valley, more specifically Kibbutz Ketura.
For those of you, like me, who still don't know where I am, I suggest looking at a map of the middle east.
First, find Israel.
Then find Jordan.
Then find the border between the two, and I'm essentially RIGHT THERE.
When I had my introduction walk-around-the-kibbutz, the volunteer coordinator told me I could jog to the border if I wanted, but only before sunset, as the army uses heat and motion sensors at the border which would be DANGEROUS.
(And thus I'm never going jogging)

I got here on Sunday, which was Erev Yom HaShoa (Holocaust rememberance day).
Additionally, Sunday was also the day that most of the garin* who were staying and volunteering here got kicked off because of suspected drug abuse.
The garin was apparently dating or BFF with half the non-garin volunteers, which means everyone I've met is either sad, leaving, or threatening to leave.
(*Garin = first year soldiers who go through a bonding experience like working on a kibbutz before boot camp, I think. Most are 18 or so and generally goofy and proud; Israeli)

So, as seems to be the trend during much of these past several months, I picked a bad moment to arrive.
I got here around 4pm and had to sit through a meeting about drugs at 5.
Then there was the Shoa event, which was entirely in Hebrew except for all the graphic Auschwitz and Treblinka photographs.
Needless to say, it's been heavy around here.

Everyone I've met is nice, though PISSED OFF.
That's not all true, but it's not that far from it.
Almost all of my new friends are from South America and came here through a program called Noam which sounds sort of like NFTY but in Spanish.
Most of the kids are 18-20 at most, with a few 21 year-olds for good measure.
There are also a few other people from NY/NJ and other places, though they're also mostly younger than me.
So mostly I've been speaking terrible Spanish and trying not to offend people with my horrendous Hebrew.
I've taught the group what a badonkadonk is; they've taught me that I don't really speak Spanish anymore.

This kibbutz wears a few different hats, if you will, so there are many different jobs to do.
I work in the hotel, cleaning rooms.
I would much rather not be cleaning rooms, just because I kind of already did that in Byron Bay, but whatever.
As I mentioned before, it's a very weird and high-stress time so I'm going to try and stir the pot as little as possible.

And now it's time for dinner.

...more to come.

Going Back Back, To Eilat Eilat

Guess who got her kibbutz placement?

http://ketura.org.il/index.html

(yes this is the kibbutz that Sarah Silverman's sister lives on; no I will not become famous for spending 3 months milking cows at 4am, I've already asked)

I'm going on Sunday and I'll be there until July, as it turns out.

EXCITED EXCITED EXCITED!

Unrelatedly, I worked as a translator for a nice Ecuadorian girl today at the kibbutz placement office.
(When I say "worked" I mean I spent 2 hours interpreting her and getting paid in butter cookies)
I just hope my experience isn't as traumatic as hers was, and from what I gather, hers was, indeed.

"El piso...el piso fue cubierto en la mierda! Y yo no podría encontrar un tenedor dondequiera."

Sesame Street Soul

http://www.waxpoetics.com/features/articles/sesame-street-soul/2

Prayers That Don't Eat Up All Your Time

"There was a Jesuit priest I knew once and somebody asked him, ‘What’s the shortest prayer in the world?’
And he said, ‘Fuck it’. That’s great, isn’t it?" -Anthony Hopkins