Let the Journey Begin

I arrived at the program center this morning at 10:00am. I met one of the two people going with me. Yohkhim (like, yo-kim). He is a 20 year old student from London. Very cool guy, so far. We waited for the the 3rd member of our group, but after an hour the program center told us to just leave. Oh, can't forget that part of the story..So, I'm sitting waiting for our ride. Once the lady tells us to just leave without the 3rd person, she say's, "come here I will show you how to get there." Wait, what? I thought we were being picked up. Apparently not. She tells us how to find the central bus station in Tel Aviv, and then tells us what Bus to look for. It was pretty easy in the end. We hired a taxi, got to the bus station, and just in time for 1 of the very few departing busses down to Eilat, which we were told depart every 30 minutes. Not the case.

We happened to run into the 3rd member of our group. A 22 year old female, Lena, from Germany. We all shared similar stories about the cranky secretaries in the program center office, but were able to have a laugh about it at this point. We hopped on the bus and start the 5 hour trip down to Lotan. Of course, even a bus ride can not end without excitement. The girl two seats in front me did not quite enjoy the windy road down the massive canyon and puked on the floor and finally in a plastic bag. A few minutes later I noticed this lovely liquid running under the seat in front of me. I grabbed my bag quickly, just in time, and held it in my lap for the remaining 2 hours as liquid puke poured threw the bus. It was lovely.

We were told to ask the bus driver to drop us off at Kibbutz Lotan. About 5 hours later, he pulled off to the side of the rode, we grabbed our bags and waited for our ride from the Kibbutz coordinator. We were standing along side a two lane highway, in the middle of the desert with all our bags. I'm sure we stood out like a soar thumb to the few cars that passed. Only a few minutes passed before Penny arrive. Native to London England, but relocated to Israel for the last 14 years, and kibbutzik for at least the last 4 years. She gave us a brief tour of the place, showed us to our rooms, and said see you around 6 for dinner.

I must say I am a bit overwhelmed. I'm not sure if it is quite what I was expecting, but we'll see how life unfolds over the next few days as a kibbutnik. I tried to think of how I could explain the piece that I now call home, but I just couldn't. You will have to have a look at the pictures I posted because I couldn't come up with words. I live with 3 others guy. The london kid I came with, a guy from Miami, and a guy from Nepal. Should be interesting.

Dinner was short and sweet. A salad and a white bread and cottage cheese sandwich. Quite interesting. I also found out that I was selected to work in the goat barn. It was kitchen crew or goat farm and I didn't get to pick. Penny picked for me.

The other volunteers, about 10-12 total, come from Germany, Mexico, London, Nepal, and that's all I know so far. I'm not sure what we are going to do the rest of the night, but I'm just going to unpack and settle in.

At this point, I'm not sure how this experience will unfold, obviously, I've only been here a couple of hours. I will update you when I can. This should be very interesting....