May 8

Brace yourselves, this will be along one, and the space bar ishalf broken. A couple of weekends ago I took my first adventure by myself up North to visit Naomi, a family friend. I first had to take a 10minute taxi ride. Then I took a 30 bus to Tel Aviv. From Tel Aviv I took another bus to Hadera.From Hadera I took yet another bus that led me right into th4e Kibbutz Barkei, my final destination. I left Naan at around 12:30,and arrived at 4:30, but suprisingly I didn't get lost, and only missed one bus.


I was greeted by Naomi, and we had milkshake and cookies. We went for a small walk to see the Kibbutz. The Kibbutz is a lot smaller,and different than Naan. From Barkei you can see highways,and nearby villages. Around Naomi's house she said they had knocked down a lot of trees to build more houses,to let in new members. For dinner we went to the cafeteria, which was only a quarter(at themost) of the size of Naan's, basically the same menu, but a better system. Instead of paying for each dish, like I do here, you just pay for the whole meal. After dinner there was coffee seved, also like there is Friday nights at Naan.


When we went back to her place, we looked at a map of Israel and I was thinking about where I'd like to travel. We then watched some news in Hebrew, which I partially understood, and then we watched the first half of a movie that wason TV.It was about Jewish immigrants coming to Israel after WWII, but there was no plot, little dialouge, bad actors and altogether not the best movie, so we stopped watching.


The next day we went to a second hand shop on the kibbutz where I bought a wrap around skirt, and almost bought a blender, but realized I wouldn't want to take it on my journey back. I was then shown the dairy farm.I saw cows being milked by the milking machines- they were thebiggest cows I've ever seen, and many of their udders were huge, almost touching the floor. We then went and picked some fruit, Ithink in English they're called lowquats(spelling?).Before Israel I had never seen them. They look like apricots, but they don't taste anythinglike them. They also grow at myKibbutz, and they're delicious. It was a pleasure staying with Naomi, and we talked a lot, and I ate a lot of homemade cookies, and had a safe and easy journey back. My taxi driver on part of mytrip back,didn't evengive me a chance to speak Hebrew.As soon as I said I was going to Naan,he could tell I was from the Ulpan,and we talked about football(soccer).He said he used to play professionally for Manchester, and then an Israeli team, and hedidn't charge me extra,like most taxi drivers do on Saturdays.


The next morning was my last day working at my kitchen/toilet cleaning job- and what a last day. It was the messiest I've ever seen then kitchen. Before I started cleaning, I saw a mouse run across the kitchen behind the fridge, I sceamed and according to my friend Chris, I "flew" out of the kitchen onto a raised platform. Luckily thisday I was working with my friend Amy, and she checkedbehind the fridge and toldme the mouse was gone. We had smelled something burning comingfrom the fridge though, and sadly we think the burning was the mouse. When we wentto clean up our building we then had todeal with the pigeon issue. Pigeons have decided that it is in their best interests to try to build nests on the girls floor. First I had infatrated their nest on top of the fridge. Then they were trying on top of the cupboards in the halls, in acupboard in the hall,andon someones douvet that was hanging over the edge- these have been at different points over the past 2 to 3 weeks, and everytime, I sweep away their sticks, and chase them away. They're way to persistent, and I hope they realize it's useless to keep on trying. But they're pigeons, so they're not that smart.

A couple days later there was rememberance day which comemerates all of the Israeli soldiers who have fallen since 1949. At night we went to a ceremony,which talked of the Naan soldierswho have died. There were also interprative dances, and a choir that sang beautifully. There was another ceremony the following morning that took place in Naans graveyard,which was actually a very pretty graveyard copnsidering.

The morning of ceremony was also myfirst day with my new job in the petting zoo. We have to be there at 7 to feed the animlas,then have a breakfast break. At 2 we have to feed them again. Feedingwe do every day we have work, but what we do the rest of the work day changes a bit each time. There are cows,horses, donkeys, goats (1 area with black, another with white, and mountain goat that roams around), parrots, peacocks, ducks, bunnys, ferrets, and other such birds. That day we raked and tried to capture kittens from under the shed that weren't supposed to be there.We weren't successful. A couple days later, our job was to shovel the horse poo, and hay, and take it to the dumpster. I'm still confused why they throw out the poo, when it could probably be used for other purposes. I also don't understand why there is only 1 wheelborrow and 1 pitch fork,when there are always 2 people,and the dumpster is located 100-200 meters away from the zoo. There is a lot of walking back and forth. At one point we were throwing the dry poo at eachother, all in good fun. The job maynotsound like everyones taste, but I actually chose to work their as an alternative to the kitchen (where I'd have to pluck feathers off chickens, and wash dishes, and do the same thing everyday- at least 3 Ulpanists have quit their kitchen jobs)and the garden (the day starts at 5:30 am). I enjoy being outside and not having to worry constantly about myfriends being messy slobs who I have to pick up after.

The next day we didn't have any class or work becuase it was Israeli independance day. Apparently on this day it is custom to have a BBQ,so thats what we did with the whole Ulpan. We had pleanty of sausage, chicken, burgers, pita, hummus, and lemonade provided for us. It was a really hot day, so at the endof the day I was exhausted from both the sun,and all of the food. The celebrating started the night before with a huge meal in the cafeteria- there was more selection, better food, and just in general, a lot more food, andpeople. There were tables set up outside as well. A bit later there were fireworks, not any different than any others I've seen, but fireworks are still always fun.
Last weekend me and my boyfriend David went to Tel Aviv. We arrived at the central bus station,which lived up to it's reputation of being in a sketchy area,where you see people who look like they do a lot of drugs. Don't worry though, it was safe because we got off our bus, then got another one right away. We went to visit my aunt Marla, uncle David,and Marla's friend Judy all there seperately (but we were all together). We walked on the beach, ate sushi, ate icecream, and just hungout. Mom sent uncle David with more clothes for me, and sent gum and oatmeal up with Marla. I missed oatmeal. Marla also gave me somechocolate and wine, and I took somefruit from the fruit bowl in the hall at her hotel. Being in a nice hotel felt strange. It felt like I hadn'tseen civilization in a long time, and it made me realize how Kibbutz life is so incredibly different than city life. It was important for me that David got to meet some of my family.He said he noticed how happy my family makes me, and how I'm always happier after I've spoken to family, or in this case, visited with them.

Last Sunday morning I continued mywork at the zoo, except now I'm working with one of my best friends, Herky. We had to rake basically the whole surface of the zoo. Raking for 3 hours, bending to pick up leaves, and carrying the wheelborrow back and forth is suprisiongly tiring work, which I like better than the lazy life style I'd been living until now.

On tuesday we had another Ulpan excursion, this time to Tel Aviv. Unfortunately thetrip we did was basically the same tripI did with Varda and Shlomo amonth ago. Again,I toured old city of Jaffa, and heard the same stories. It is very beautiful,soI can't complain. We also went to Iztchak Rabin square, where he was shot, Independance hall,where they announced Israels independance(I wasn't caffinated though, so I kind of slept through a lot of it), and then the market,where there was food, clothes, meats, dollarstore type goods, and since it was a Tuesday there was a special market with more artsy type of things.
A couple days ago, Wednesday I believe, they were having children in the zoo so I was told to help out even though I didn't have work that day. It was aninteresting experience. I'm not quite sure what the occasion was but they always seem to have groups of kids and their parents come to the zoo,I guess for parties,orsomething? I'm pretty sure they were all from the Kibbutz. Anyways, atfirst I was at the fire pit. Earlier,dough had been prepared into balls, to be made into a pita like bread. The kids and parents had to roll out the dough, and then put it to bake on thismetaldome thing on top of the fire. I was there to help the kids put iton,and take it off when it was ready, but of course there werepushy parents who were trying to takeover- although Ididn't reallymind since I didn't actually know what to do. Then I went to supervise the bunny cage- again, I didn't really know what responsibilities supervising included,I was just told to go, so Ijust went with the flow. What I learned from this experience is that the bunny cage is not a place for children. They were reaching into their houses topull them out, lifting up the houses to try to lure them out, grabbing them by one ear,or leg, stroking themway to hard, messing up the cage,and really I thought byb the end therewould be at least one dead bunny. Not to long ago at one of these events, a hamster or two were killed. Myjob was trying to tell thekids to be morecareful/stop doing things they shouldn't,and keeping the bunnies from escaping. I also decided Iwould try to catch bunniestogive to the children to pet. Unfortunately, parents saw me trying to get the bunnies, and thought I knew what I was doing, and kept askingme to catch bunnies for their kids. I wasn't very successful: petrified bunnies do not wantto be caught, and I didn't want to scare them anymore.
Today I worked in the morning again. I started feeding the animals by myself because Herky was late.When I was feeding the white goats, 2 of the big ones managed to escape. I didn't know what to do, and I was chasing them around for a bit trying to catch them. It didn't work, I am not yet a professional goat wrangler. However,I know that David had caughtgoats before,so I went to go get him. On the way, Herky arrived, and he said the lookon my face was halarious: a mix between confusion, nerves,and fear. We went back, andnoticed that the goats lookedlike they wanted togo back in-after all, I had just served their breakfast,and they hadn't eaten any. What we did was I stood in the cage with thedoorclosed, and right asHerky herded them to the door,I opened it tolet them in, and closed itright away. Sucess! Ten minutes later,Herky let a bunny outof it's cage, and chased it around, andused the same technique we used with the goats to get it back home.
I'mstill having a great time here, and the change of job was good for me. I miss everyone, andI hope all is well!