Thursday 17 - Friday Afternoon 18 February
I didn't think it would be that cold outside, so I really didn't bother to get dressed properly that morning. I had a long-sleeved shirt and my Netzer Chultzah on.
We had finished getting Ravkavs (Bus Tags) at the bus station and were about to set off on our first ever Grocery Shopping Experience. Now, you're probably thinking: "Oh, Grocery Shopping... it cant be that bad." But have you ever had to, take a bus to a place you're not sure even exists, walk a hundred miles to find this place, get lost, do grocery shopping for 14 people, take the bus back to the station catch a train and then walk home after an excruciating experience in the middle of winter. In the hail, and pouring rain. Not knowing how to speak the language.
Didn't think so.
So I'm allowed to complain because my feet were wet, I was cold, I hated life, and as far as we could see, there wasn't much of a bright side to look on.
When we got home, I went on a mission and made the Dojo into the most amazing room in the whole flat. It is literally a room dedicated to chilling. No laptops allowed, cause people just sit on facecrack ALL day. It has the best vibe in the whole place, people just sleep and spoon there all the time its wonderful. I found some incense and some cool sheets for the mattresses. We even have candles and a giant map of the world long ago, so we know where we come from and what we strive to do with our lives.
Chinese food was the chosen cuisine to commemorate the occasion.
The is a little ally way just off Yafo street. The walls are covered in graffiti and posters for parties. We walked in feeling slightly awkward and unsettled by the vast amount of hipsters and the loud contemporary jazz music. The place was sleek, with shine-y, white floors - record covers and CDs lining the walls. The small bathroom in the back held inspiring tags all up and down the slanting walls, the paint still wet. Oddly dressed men and women sat at the bar, the geometric shapes of their sweaters each clashing with the next. Plaid kilts spilled over the bar stools, as the mysterious bartender pulled the handle for the beer tap, cool golden liquid filling the glass rapidly. A thick head of foam forming atop the pint of Goldstar. Chilling wind rushes past as patrons open and close the glass door. It was raining again.
I zone out of the conversation between my two friends. Something about existentialism and why we exist in the way we choose.
I walked back with Rosa, hand in hand, crossing the busy streets of the Mamila intersection at 1am. We had left the rest of the group and gone for waffles with Becca, Lilys room mate. The man at the waffle bar had encouraged us to explore Israel and refused to only speak in Hebrew. I'm so proud to say that I ordered my waffles in Hebrew. It was cold outside and the waffle excursion had allowed me to hang out with some girls for a change.
The rest of the night was filled with existential crisis and internal turmoil about what is supposedly "the biggest secret on Shant" and all the problems and dilemmas that come with me knowing it. It really was an accident, and I don't really care. It's not a big deal in my life but I feel weird about it and had to take myself out for a walk this afternoon.
Shabbat dinner tonight and a skype date with my mom.
Friday, 17 February 2012
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
The Northerners.
Monday 13 - Tuesday 14 February 2012
A two day Etgar bonding hike: We played assassin and I nearly won. I killed Jefferey, Dan, Jake, Becca, and Liz. But Jeff traitored and helped Dan Ratan kill me. I was sad. I had never wanted anything more than to win assassin.
All of a sudden the Etgar flat was filled with people. The amount of different accents flying from room to room, floating on the gentle breeze from the air conditioner that heats up or apartment, was almost disconcerting. We would all have to pay a little more attention to try and understand eachother. The main basis of our time living as a community in Jerusalem, and in the Etgar flat.
Community.
When we (The Southerners from South Africa and Australia) first met the Northerners there was a nervous, excitment around the group. In every situation such as this, one can never quite shake that feeling, no matter how confident you pretend to be. We spent the first weekend, our Shabbat Beyachad (Together) learning a little more about eachother and exploring our respective choices of Etgar vs. Machon. As well as running interesting peulot to learn more about eachother, we also had challenging tasks and activities where we not only exersised our bodies, mostly walking to Downtown Jerusalem to get lunch. We were thrown into the deep end, right off the bat: How we deal with our ideology as Netzer when faced with the task of explaining it to people who might not understand, or agree that we are infact Jewish in the first place.
Then we were split up. For a few of us, the first time we had been without our friends, or people in the same sniff (branch), or even people from our home country. Again the slightly disconcerting, yet just as excited feeling set in.
Etgar had begun. We split up the rooms, boys and girls. As we are a community, and that is a big part of Etgar, we were provided with an adventure. A chnace to step out of our comfort zone, of the flat and Jerusalem into the great unknown of Absailing (Repelling) down a 30 meter rockface, and hike up and down the great mountain Masada.
Inbetween we had heated discussions and debates on weather or not to keep a kosher kitchen, complete with all the bells and whisltes of Vegetarian meals and all the obstacles that come with it. As a result we now have a million rosters about who cleans when and who makes dinner on what day. Not to mention all the new names for the days of the week including Sprite day. Yes, a whole day dedicated to Sprite.
As the anticipation of the coming months builds up, we hope it'll be filled with more fake celebrity adventures, hikes, murder games, theme nights, and arbeh (a lot) sprite. We will build our little Netzer Etgar comunity, each adding our own little piece of humour, extravegance, humility, inspiration and love to our environment. Hopefully we'll learn new things, try new things and have the compassion to understand what it really means to be a unit.
A two day Etgar bonding hike: We played assassin and I nearly won. I killed Jefferey, Dan, Jake, Becca, and Liz. But Jeff traitored and helped Dan Ratan kill me. I was sad. I had never wanted anything more than to win assassin.
All of a sudden the Etgar flat was filled with people. The amount of different accents flying from room to room, floating on the gentle breeze from the air conditioner that heats up or apartment, was almost disconcerting. We would all have to pay a little more attention to try and understand eachother. The main basis of our time living as a community in Jerusalem, and in the Etgar flat.
Community.
When we (The Southerners from South Africa and Australia) first met the Northerners there was a nervous, excitment around the group. In every situation such as this, one can never quite shake that feeling, no matter how confident you pretend to be. We spent the first weekend, our Shabbat Beyachad (Together) learning a little more about eachother and exploring our respective choices of Etgar vs. Machon. As well as running interesting peulot to learn more about eachother, we also had challenging tasks and activities where we not only exersised our bodies, mostly walking to Downtown Jerusalem to get lunch. We were thrown into the deep end, right off the bat: How we deal with our ideology as Netzer when faced with the task of explaining it to people who might not understand, or agree that we are infact Jewish in the first place.
Then we were split up. For a few of us, the first time we had been without our friends, or people in the same sniff (branch), or even people from our home country. Again the slightly disconcerting, yet just as excited feeling set in.
Etgar had begun. We split up the rooms, boys and girls. As we are a community, and that is a big part of Etgar, we were provided with an adventure. A chnace to step out of our comfort zone, of the flat and Jerusalem into the great unknown of Absailing (Repelling) down a 30 meter rockface, and hike up and down the great mountain Masada.
As the anticipation of the coming months builds up, we hope it'll be filled with more fake celebrity adventures, hikes, murder games, theme nights, and arbeh (a lot) sprite. We will build our little Netzer Etgar comunity, each adding our own little piece of humour, extravegance, humility, inspiration and love to our environment. Hopefully we'll learn new things, try new things and have the compassion to understand what it really means to be a unit.
Sandwich Spooning
Friday 10 February 2012
Rosa came to visit. It was so lovely, for Lily and myself to hear another South African accent. She brought nom-ful foods, and lovely vibes with her. She arrived on Thursday night, just in time to meet all the Northerners. We hung out in the living room of our flat and played silly games. It had been ages since we had had enough alone time to discuss our lives and generally hang out with out having to constantly explain our lives. It was great being able to have someone who we knew so well with us. We slept amazingly well because for the first time, after arriving in the Holy Land none of us had had the opportunity to spoon. We stayed up all night straitening our hair, having existential crisis and eating Sparkly Cow Chocolate.
The following evening, Friday night, we all headed off to shule. It was a beautiful service. I sat in the congregation, breathing and listening to the all too familiar tunes to prayers I had said thousands of times before, only this time it was different. We were in a whole new place. A whole new mind set. The chanting and harmonising increased as all the people in attendance sung, some on key, most off. I was breathing in the sound of the community.
Saturday night, Lily, Rosa and a few of our Israeli friends from South Africa met up for Soup and a couple of drinks. The soup was delicious but seeing familiar faces from far across the globe after saying goodbye two months ago back home was an oddly comforting feeling. We reminisced, caught up and joked as though it had only been yesterday that we were all madrichas on Camp back in Cape Town.
We sadly said our goodbyes, with promises for future plans and ran up the stairs to our warm apartment in the heart of Jerusalem.
Sunday would bring the start of Etgar and the beginning of our lives as separate shnatties, no longer in our South African comfort zones.
I miss Lily every day.
Rosa came to visit. It was so lovely, for Lily and myself to hear another South African accent. She brought nom-ful foods, and lovely vibes with her. She arrived on Thursday night, just in time to meet all the Northerners. We hung out in the living room of our flat and played silly games. It had been ages since we had had enough alone time to discuss our lives and generally hang out with out having to constantly explain our lives. It was great being able to have someone who we knew so well with us. We slept amazingly well because for the first time, after arriving in the Holy Land none of us had had the opportunity to spoon. We stayed up all night straitening our hair, having existential crisis and eating Sparkly Cow Chocolate.
The following evening, Friday night, we all headed off to shule. It was a beautiful service. I sat in the congregation, breathing and listening to the all too familiar tunes to prayers I had said thousands of times before, only this time it was different. We were in a whole new place. A whole new mind set. The chanting and harmonising increased as all the people in attendance sung, some on key, most off. I was breathing in the sound of the community.
Saturday night, Lily, Rosa and a few of our Israeli friends from South Africa met up for Soup and a couple of drinks. The soup was delicious but seeing familiar faces from far across the globe after saying goodbye two months ago back home was an oddly comforting feeling. We reminisced, caught up and joked as though it had only been yesterday that we were all madrichas on Camp back in Cape Town.
We sadly said our goodbyes, with promises for future plans and ran up the stairs to our warm apartment in the heart of Jerusalem.
Sunday would bring the start of Etgar and the beginning of our lives as separate shnatties, no longer in our South African comfort zones.
I miss Lily every day.
Sunday, 12 February 2012
Trees are friends, Not Food.
Tuesday 7 February: Night
After a day of adventuring in Jerusalem after our Morning walk, we had a Tu' Bishvat Seder with the Israeli branch of Netzer called Noar Telem. They were loud, and rowdy but interesting people non the less. We ate some pizza and I awkwardly took pictures of all of it.
Wednesday 8 February
Early on Wednesday morning, we all hoped on a bus off to the JNF Forest. We planted trees for the JNF (a non profit Jewish organisation aimed at bettering the environment in Israel by planting forests, and building Dams for water supply.), although they were weird, non israeli indigenous trees, and probably will drink all the water, we have to pretend that what we did was good for the environment and not feel to weird about it.
For lunch, we picnicked in a lovely little park and ate sandwiches and talked about scifi movies and fun videos to watch on the internet.
As a little group bonding activity and to explore/educate ourselves a little more about the geography of Israel on a modern side we went to a place called "Little Israel" and took loads of silly pictures of us doing silly things.
Guy, our Madrich took us to "One of his favourite places in the wholeo f Israel". It used to be a battle field so there were loads of treacherous, trenches and rock-y underground bunkers to explore, but we didn't have a lot of time and it was chilly on top of the small hill.
I have a funny feeling we did something else that involved food, but I cant remember what...
After a day of adventuring in Jerusalem after our Morning walk, we had a Tu' Bishvat Seder with the Israeli branch of Netzer called Noar Telem. They were loud, and rowdy but interesting people non the less. We ate some pizza and I awkwardly took pictures of all of it.
Early on Wednesday morning, we all hoped on a bus off to the JNF Forest. We planted trees for the JNF (a non profit Jewish organisation aimed at bettering the environment in Israel by planting forests, and building Dams for water supply.), although they were weird, non israeli indigenous trees, and probably will drink all the water, we have to pretend that what we did was good for the environment and not feel to weird about it.
For lunch, we picnicked in a lovely little park and ate sandwiches and talked about scifi movies and fun videos to watch on the internet.
As a little group bonding activity and to explore/educate ourselves a little more about the geography of Israel on a modern side we went to a place called "Little Israel" and took loads of silly pictures of us doing silly things.
Guy, our Madrich took us to "One of his favourite places in the wholeo f Israel". It used to be a battle field so there were loads of treacherous, trenches and rock-y underground bunkers to explore, but we didn't have a lot of time and it was chilly on top of the small hill.
I have a funny feeling we did something else that involved food, but I cant remember what...
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
5am Wake Up Call
It was cold and dark outside when the Shnatties of 2012 reluctantly rose from their beds. Some brave souls showered and dressed, pulling layer upon layer of thick jumpers over their heads. Foot steps echoed through the dark hall ways and whispers of speculation could be heard through the darkness. The bright lights of the lobby were oddly startling as we began the chilly walk to the Zion gate.
This was the start of our Sunrise Tour through the Old City.
The slippery cobbled stone streets were quiet and empty in the early hours. Slippery not because of rain or sleet, but from hundreds, even thousands of years of people inhabiting its stone walls. Chatter filled the air and annoyed neighbours could be heard scolding the early risers as they made their way through the small allies toward their surprise destination.
Meal steps.
Bang, Clunk, Bang.
Eight pairs of eager feet made their way up the small staircase.
The sight that greeted the group was nothing that could be imagined. The sky, dim and grey from rain looked as though it was being sucked up into the heavens. The wind at full tilt high above the spectators of our little planet. The sun shone through the clouds, gently illuminating a new day. A new adventure.
The church bells chimed as the light hit the Dome of the Rock, its bronze encasing glinting slightly, in just the right light.
The bells chimed in miss-matched unison, forming an odd choir of ancient melodies. The still, silent air becoming alive with noise.
The city had awoken.
Distant bells finished their chimes, yet the group sat still in the aftermath of entwined holy faiths, only able to imagine the full impact of Religious aspiration that filled the people each morning.
One, by one, they left.
The birds chirped their approval, and glided high in the wind.
The Sunrise Tour: Thoughts. 7 February
This excursion was followed by a lovely picnic just outside the old city, a shopping trip to Yafo street, Hot Shmale...smole...some sort of milk pudding, and a nap.
This was the start of our Sunrise Tour through the Old City.
The slippery cobbled stone streets were quiet and empty in the early hours. Slippery not because of rain or sleet, but from hundreds, even thousands of years of people inhabiting its stone walls. Chatter filled the air and annoyed neighbours could be heard scolding the early risers as they made their way through the small allies toward their surprise destination.
Meal steps.
Bang, Clunk, Bang.
Eight pairs of eager feet made their way up the small staircase.
The sight that greeted the group was nothing that could be imagined. The sky, dim and grey from rain looked as though it was being sucked up into the heavens. The wind at full tilt high above the spectators of our little planet. The sun shone through the clouds, gently illuminating a new day. A new adventure.
The church bells chimed as the light hit the Dome of the Rock, its bronze encasing glinting slightly, in just the right light.
The bells chimed in miss-matched unison, forming an odd choir of ancient melodies. The still, silent air becoming alive with noise.
The city had awoken.
Distant bells finished their chimes, yet the group sat still in the aftermath of entwined holy faiths, only able to imagine the full impact of Religious aspiration that filled the people each morning.
One, by one, they left.
The birds chirped their approval, and glided high in the wind.
The Sunrise Tour: Thoughts. 7 February
This excursion was followed by a lovely picnic just outside the old city, a shopping trip to Yafo street, Hot Shmale...smole...some sort of milk pudding, and a nap.
The Happiest Song on Earth.
Our first official full Shnat Day.
Monday 6 February:
We started with an alternative prayer service, by an American Rabbi. He told us amazing stories of his life and Jewish experience, Played songs and melodies, and lead an amazing service.
Te story that I really connected with was the one he told about his Grand Father who collected Rocks from all over Israel. He put them in little boxes, all marked and labled. It reminded me of what I do, when I collect sand from every place I go to. I started to think about why I do that, and I've figured out that its because, although some places more than others, I feel a connection to the earth and all the other human beings that live here. It's like we are a part of the earth we inhabit, and I want to have it as close to me as possible.
He also told us a story about his friend David, who doesn't particularly believe in God, but is a Jew, lives in Israel on a kibbutz and goes to the small Kabalat Shabbat services held on the kibbutz. He says its because: "There is no other place on earth where you're guaranteed a hug from every person in attendance" Wich is so beautiful and wonderful and pretty much sums up my whole existence.
This is one of the songs we sang, amung others and of course prayers to all new tunes:
We ate Pizza for dinner and bonded on the balcanny, huddled around a smoking "Nagila" wich is actually just a hub, in the freezing cold.
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