The Week in Review

Hello my friends,

Sorry it’s been a while. It has been quite the week settling in, adjusting to the new schedule, adapting to the heat, and breaking the ice with the other volunteers.

General notes about life on the Kibbutz:

Beyond work, life is very relaxing. There is not the regular feeling that I have a lingering ‘To Do’ list. There isn’t anything to do. I wake up early, milk goats or make yogurt, and then relax. We spend a reasonable amount of time lying in bed, in our cool A/C rooms relaxing and napping. I try to swim every day and it surprises me that the pool area is often very empty. Why wouldn’t you spend the afternoon in the pool or in the shade? Crazy people. Beyond lying around, in the evenings we sit around and talk. Being that the average age is about 20, most of the volunteers sit around and drink cheap vodka and smoke hookah all night. I’m not big fan of either, so I just hang out and enjoy the conversation.

It’s a pretty slow lifestyle. In some cases it’s nice to feel like I have been on a long relaxing vacation, but sometimes it can be a bit slow. You have to learn how to improvise. Find games to play, activities to try, or just sit and drink vodka. The nights typically end early, at least for me, by about 10:00pm. I actually become a little anxious if I know I’m not going to make it in bed by 10:00pm. It’s pretty sad, but all this waking up at 5:00am business is quite the adjustment. I have been shocked every night when some of the volunteers are up drinking until 1-2am and then have work at 5 or 6 am the next morning. Crazy youngsters.

All-in-all, I have enjoyed relaxing, collecting my thoughts, meeting new people, and recharging my battery. Life has been pretty good.

Work:

Of course last week I was handed all the newbie jobs. The shitty job’s that the more experienced volunteers all grimes at when you mention what you had to do, “Oh yah, I did that once, it sucks huh?” And yah, they really do suck.

Each day last week I was handed one of these newbie jobs. The first, I already mentioned about pouring out all of the old curdled yogurt. The next day it was time to trim to goat’s hooves. Wow, something I NEVER want to do that again. Salomon hands me a pair of hedge trimmers, grabs a pair for himself and we’re off the pen #1. After we grab hold of one goat, we pin them down. Salomon spins down their upper body and has me pin down their rear. Mind you, the goats rear portion of the body, including their legs is the strongest area of their body, Salomon is a solid, big guy and he offers to hold their freaking neck. Thanks dude, now I’m fighting with 2 kicking legs and a sharp pair of trimmers. I knew I was in for a treat.

Salomon gives me a brief example of how to trim. “If you cut to low you can hurt them very bad and their hoof will bleed. You will gain confidence as you guy, but start slow with small pieces. Try to keep the line even with the angle of their hoof.” That was it. We captured our first victim and started trimming. Hoof clippings were flying everywhere. The worst is when the fly at your face and hit your lips. It makes me want to gag thinking about it again. I usually took 5-10 minutes longer on each leg because I was nervous as hell. I managed to fight through the disgusting experience, but I did cut one hoof really bad and I still think about it. Blood just started pouring out, all over the clippers, on my fingers, on my pants, but we continued on, crusted blood on my fingers and all, and trimmed about 12 goats. I hope I never have to do that again. I still lay in bed at night thinking about the poor goats hooves. Oh, not to mention, Salomon accidentally cut one of her front hooves really short and it bled as well.

The next day Salomon had me clean out the goat’s water troughs. There are 8 troughs scattered throughout the 7 pens. I don’t think they had been cleaned in weeks, if not months. The water was solid green, Filled with algae, goat poop, dirt, saliva, bugs, and who knows what else. It’s amazing what you’ll dive right into with the protection of small plastic gloves. The job wasn’t that bad, but the goats were very curious. They like to nibble on your clothes so I had this ongoing battle with the goats while I doing them a favor. They were about to have the freshest, cleanest, most pure water and they still wanted to harass me the whole time.

I had a few more troughs remaining when Salomon walked over and said, “I have to head down to the office, you can head over to the cheese house (also yogurt dairy) when you are done. Oh, and don’t forget to clean the trough in the males pen.” Ok, the males are pretty big and some of them have a decent set of testosterone filled horns on their head I thought to myself, so I asked Salomon, “Ok, but I’ve never really worked with goats so I am not familiar with them. Are the males very aggressive, might they try to head-butt me?” Salomon replies with the least reassuring answer, “Uh, they are usually ok.” Sorry buddy, but “usually” doesn’t fly with me. I had one trough left and it was in the males. It was actually my second trip to their pen while I was cleaning. The first one didn’t go so well so I thought I’d let them lay back down and I would try to sneak up again later. Sure enough this failed as well. Probably the biggest male greeted me at the gate and wasn’t budging. I opened the gate a smidge, he didn’t move. So I said f-this, you’re not gonna get any clean water. You look mean dude and I’m not going to risk a head-butting contest with you over clean water. I’ll be the bigger man here and walk away. So I did, pretty easily and pain free.

It was now Friday and our short weekend was about to start. On Friday’s most work days are cut a little short for Shabbat. The cafeteria serves Shabbat dinner at 7:30pm and everyone on the kibbutz attends. They set all the tables very nicely and it is quite different then the rest of our meals. Dinner starts with everyone standing, arms linked across shoulders and we all sway back and forth while they sing prayers. We break bread and dinner is served. It was a pleasant dinner.

Friday nights the small pub on the kibbutz is open. About 20 people headed down to the kibbutz. There was a mixture of volunteers and a few residents. Shortly after a van pulled up with about 10-15 kibbutzniks from another local kibbutz. It was nice to see new faces and meet new people. We listened to a lot of remixed clubbing songs, some club jams in Hebrew, and watched lots of people dance in the strobe light. They loooove storbin’ here.

Saturday rolled around and everything is closed. The kibbutz is a ghost town and your land locked because no one works and there are no busses. Saturday is strictly a day of rest, and that we did. Most people slept all day, woke up for a quick meal, and then back to bed. But you have to remember to take food at lunch in a tupperware because the cafeteria is not open for dinner on Saturday nights. Every Saturday at 6pm residents from our kibbutz, any volunteers interested, and other local kibbutzniks start showing up for a friendly soccer match. We played for just under two hours and it was a lot of fun.

The rest of night, surprisingly enough, is pretty quiet. Everyone is lounging around or sleeping early and preparing for the start of the week Sunday morning.

Monday, I made my first trip to the city of Eilat. Its at the southern tip of Israel along the coast of the Red Sea, between Jordan and Egypt. It’s a 40-minute bus ride and only about $5. I went with Ryu (from Japan), Jonathan (from Mexico City), and Ariella (from Brazil). It always excites me when I think of experiences like this one. There are four kids, each from different countries, and we have instantly connected and take day trips to the beach. Sitting in the sand along the coast of the Red Sea, drinking fruit slushies, and swimming with these people that were complete strangers from 3 different countries only a few days prior. It’s the little things in life I suppose, but never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined a trip to Eilat with Ryu, Jonathan, and Ariella. Unfortunately, our time at the beach was cut a bit short because Ryu was stung by a jellyfish and was in a considerable amount of pain. I know, I know, I should have offered to pee on him, but I just couldn’t make the offer to this little quite Japanese friend of mine. I’m pretty sure he would have rejected anyways. I mean after all, we’ve only known each other for a few days and I know it would take a lot for me to allow even my family or best friends the chance to pour a bottle of their pee on me. He managed through the pain with a few vodka and fruit slushies. Eilat is a small beach town and I hope to make it back as often as possible.

After my first week, I will say it has been an incredible experience adjusting to the lifestyle and the schedule. I have enjoyed the time to relax, reflect on my experience, and compare lifestyles through conversation with the other foreign volunteers. Over the weekend I managed to break the ice a bit more and squeeze my way into the existing groups of friends among the volunteers.

I know it’s only been a weak and I’m not usually one to jump the gun with my opinions or interpretations, but I do think I have come to realize life on the kibbutz may not last as long as I was anticipating. Milking goats and making yogurt doesn’t really set me up for much when I return home. If I were still in college, as most of the volunteers are, I would have no worries because I’d be on my way home soon and back off to fall semester. However, when I make my way home, I have to find a job and a place to live. The experience here has been exactly what I was looking for mentally and physically, but realistically I have priorities at home that I feel are more important. But we’ll see how things go. I haven’t set a final date and I won’t until I feel I am ready. I take each new day as it comes because each day is always different.

I am pleased to hear that people are reading my stories. I hope they have even just a bit of value beyond the randomness. I am sharing these stories because I want to share this experience of a lifetime with you. I want you to understand what I have learned about Israel and myself. I know I can go on these inspirational tangents, and it all began during my trip to Kenya a few years back, but I do enjoy inspiring people, if it’s only just one. I see a lot of people stuck in the same route I was before I left and I know it is the pits. It may be a bit cliché, but I have to pay a major respect to Michael Jackson. Beyond his past 10 years or so, he wrote some of the most amazing and inspirational music that I have lived by since I can remember jamming out on a tennis rack to his songs. I was honestly very saddened to hear the tragic news of his death. I know it’s easy to highlight the negatives, but I hope you will always remember he was an incredible musician and inspiration in my life. His song, ’Man in the Mirror’, is a song that can inspire anyone looking to make a change. You have to take it upon yourself to make the change. Like M.J. says, “if you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then a make the change....sure mon....chaaaange.” I would have given anything to see him live one day.

Well, I know it’s long, but it’s been a while and lot goes down here on Kibbutz Lotan. Well not a lot I guess, but enough to keep my busy. I try to update more frequently. Take care. Peace.