Post-Honeymoon Stage

A very wise Doctor once spoke of a dark and dreary room known only as The Waiting Place, “… for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.” At this point, that’s exactly what it feels like on the kibbutz, waiting for the army. This blog post is titled “Post-Honeymoon Stage” because now that I’ve been here for a little over a month and a half, I’m finally realizing what people were talking about when they said things were going to be hard. Honestly, Dr. Seuss may as well have written, “Waiting for their draft dates to come or their nose rings to go, or their medical test results to come or their sense of freedom to go, or the bureaucracy to end or waiting around for a fax to send or waiting to get Sal Klita money to spend. Everyone is just waiting.” (The Sal Klita is one of the benefits that people get for making Aliyah, and it includes a monthly stipend. That is, when the government remembers to give it to us on time.) We’re all just waiting with bated breath for the next step of our enlistment process. Once in a while, a member of my Garin will get an update that moves him/her ahead in the process and the rest of us, while congratulating the lucky kid, will silently be asking ourselves why we didn’t get the same update. My most recent update is that I received my date of enlistment! Of course, it’s only a technicality. I won’t get my real enlistment date until I know what position I’m going to hold. But for right now, December 17^th is the closest thing I have to any sort of official date, so I’m excitedly telling everyone about it until I hear otherwise.

The next thing I have to look forward to (it’s virtually impossible to convey via text the heavy sarcasm that is plaguing my voice in my head right now, but please note that this was, in fact, sarcastic) is something called Yom HaMe’ah. This is a day for all the girls who are enlisting to go and show off their skills to the army. Some of the girls in my Garin have already done it, but since my medical results got held up, I couldn’t go when they did. From what I’ve been told, you’re with a group of vicious Israeli girls and you go from station to station, each station designed to test a different skill. In order to succeed, you have to stand out from all the other girls by showing off in a way that is all too reminiscent of The Hunger Games. Following Yom HaMe’ah, you receive something in the mail called a “manila,” brilliantly named after the manila envelope it comes in, which contains the list of jobs that the army believes you could do well. After that, I’m not sure, but I’ll keep you updated.

Aside from the army stuff, the only other especially interesting thing that’s happened here was Lila Lavan, or White Night, which is basically just an all-nighter. Pictures of that (and other things, including the cats I’ve taken to feeding) are attached. At 11 PM sharp, the girls suited up into long-sleeved black shirts and pants and stood outside our apartment. The next 4ish hours were a grueling combination of running, push-ups, teamwork “games,” mud fights, carrying two cinderblocks in our backpacks for no obvious reason, and crawling on our stomachs through thick, mushy mud (which, oddly enough, was a product of the first rain of the season, which consisted of maybe 15 raindrops). As a Lila Lavan survivor, I think it’s safe for me to say that if that’s how the army is really going to be, I’m quitting.

But in all seriousness, Lila Lavan was actually really fun. I truly believe that you’re never closer to a person than when you’re covered in mud, with streaks down the sides of your face from the sweat, and a little bit of blood running down your legs, with dirt in your hair and up your nose, with any trace of your normal scent hidden behind the grime of this distinctly putrid mud-sweat-blood paste, and that person still wants to be your friend. It allowed us girls to bond in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before. These girls are like my sisters. (But I still love Sarah a little more. No offense.) It only sucks that we had to do things that – 5 days later – still have me sore. Oh well.

However, despite the soreness, despite the bureaucracy, despite the waiting, despite the ants that I’ve learned to treat as 8^th and 9^th and 10^th and 11^th and 12-trillionth roommates, despite the no-shorts-on-kibbutz rule, despite the overwhelming heat, and despite the tarantula that I swear I saw on a run a few days ago, the most frustrating thing that I’ve faced thus far is still the fact that Israelis approach me, and without me even saying a single word, they automatically talk to me in English. Is there something about me that is so obviously American that everyone just assumes I don’t speak Hebrew? It feels like I’m living in Where’s Waldo, where I am Waldo, and instead of being disguised in a crowd of red- and white-striped shirts, I’m in like a mime convention or something, where the only other colors are black and white. It’s the easiest game of Where’s Waldo ever. I’ve affectionately renamed it Spot the Tourist, and the Israelis are winning. It definitely doesn’t help that, most of the time, I am the only blonde in a 20-kilometer radius. (Note my usage of the metric system. I’m really working on that.) But how am I ever supposed to learn to comfortably speak Hebrew if everyone is talking to me in English? I’ve decided that what I’m going to do is tell people that I’m Swedish. The Swedish boy in my Garin told me that I could easily be a member of the Swedish mafia (which has to be one of the sweetest – albeit, weirdest – compliments I’ve ever gotten), so I’m just going to go with it. When people speak to me in English, I’ll give them my most European look and say “Ja, ja, hej,” until they realize that if we’re going to communicate, it needs to be in Hebrew. All I need to do is drink cider and wear brightly colored, traditional Swedish garb, or whatever they do in Sweden. I wonder if they sell that on eBay?

Happy Sukkot!

P.S. Feel free to post your comments! It makes me feel like I wasn’t wasting time when I wrote this novel of a blog post because someone is actually reading it. 

My Garin

A free street concert in Haifa

Scary Bug #1

Scary Bug #2

Oreo and Pikachu <3