Kibbutz Lotan Wrap Up & Fish for Dinner, yikes!

Oh, the civilized Middle Eastern world. How nice and HOT it is, well I guess it’s cooler then the desert, but the humidity is about 75% +.

Friday, I made the 8-hour journey from Kibbutz Lotan to Qiryat Shemona in the north, only a few miles from the Lebanon border. Along the way, actually about 10 minutes into my trip, I was fortunate enough to once again experience the weak stomachs of the Israeli people when it comes to riding in a bus. I had just settled into my seat when a passenger came to the front looking of the bus looking for plastic bags. I immediately knew, from my past experience, that someone had already or was about the blow.

I was sitting against the window on the right side of the bus and I turned around to take a look down the crack between the window and the seats. Instantly the disaster zone was spotted. In the second row of seats behind me, a gentleman was hunkered over, leaning on the glass and spewing all over the sidewall and floor. The window was covered with vomit and it was barreling down the windowsill towards my right elbow. There were no towels near by, no napkins, nothing to set up a barrier between me and flood of liquid bile. Then, at the list minute I saw a crumbled up napkin on the floor under my seat. It was probably someone’s snot-rag, but at this point I had to put that thought behind me and try to pick it up with the least amount of contact. At the last second I stuck the old dirty snot-rag to the windowsill and managed to stop the bile in it’s path, or at least divert it down the wall of the seat behind me.

For the next hour I couldn’t help to continue checking on the strength of my barrier until the rising, hot, sun, dried and crusted the bile to the windowsill.

About 30 minutes later, round two for this poor guy started as we wound our way up the desert canyon. Fortunately, this time he had plenty of plastic bags to contain his fluids, it was the sound affects that were hard to stomach.

Daniel picked me up from the bus station and we were off to his aunts’ house, just in time for Shabbat Dinner. After waiting for the men and boys to return from the synagogue, we took our seats around the table. They began with a few prayer songs, blessed the wine, we washed our hands, and then served the bread. Dinner was then served.

I need to take a minute to go off on a little tangent here to explain the next part of this story. When I travel, I always try very hard to show the most respect. One the hardest parts when it comes to showing respect can be around the dinner table. I always forced down anything that is put in front of me. Whether I know what it is or not, I do my best to eat it. It simply becomes a mind of matter situation, often times I don’t even chew and I just swallow it whole, trying to control the amount of flavor that is released. With that said, on the menu for Shabbat Dinner Friday night, Fish. Most of you probably are thinking, what’s so bad about fish? Well, I don’t eat a whole lot of seafood. I have an incredibly sensitive gag reflex when it comes to the smell and taste of anything slightly fishy. I when I say slightly, I mean that I will find the fishy flavor even in the freshest fish that is prepared by a five start restaurant.

Back to the story. So Daniel looks at me and says, with a smirk on his face, “you like fish, is that ok?” He know’s I don’t. I immediately become anxious about how this is going to taste, what kind of fish is it, and I’m hoping I don’t throw up like the guy on the bus. Fortunately the portion was small and a managed, with the help of some spicy peppers, chickpeas, and eggplant all mixed together, to respectfully polish off the plate. I even had seconds, but no fish.

I think when I return home I need to practice eating more fish so I am prepared for the future. I just don’t know how this is going to work because I really haven’t enjoyed it for the past 25 years.

We are going to spend a few days in the north babysitting Daniels two younger siblings while the parents are vacationing in Ireland. I’m sure there will be a few more meals of unknown dishes at his aunts’ house. I haven’t let down my mental preparation yet. I’ll just keep eating everything she places in front of me. This could become very interesting.

Let me wrap up the Kibbutz Lotan experience as well.

Beyond the regular every day life of milking goats, labeling yogurt bottles, mixing yogurt flavors, and cleaning up dead goats, life was pretty normal. I took a one night trip down to Eilat with Dion and Johikim. I could have gone without the trip, but whatever, it was an experience to add to the record book. I quickly realized Dion is not the kind of person to travel with and Johikim is an inexperienced and somewhat naïve 19 year old proper kid from England who questions EVERYTHING. I jumped on the first bus Saturday morning while Dion and Johikim slept in. I was ready to return to the kibbutz.

On Monday of last week, Dion was asked to leave the kibbutz. Dion had a very poor attitude, not many people liked him, and he always seemed very angry. After our trip to Eilat I learned a little bit more about Dion which explains his behavior. He is a street hooligan from Holland that grew up in a very rough atmosphere. He’s had to fight, physically and mentally, to survive and he was sent to live on a kibbutz by his parents to try and shape up. He has a very tough personality and a lot of people didn’t understand him because they didn’t take the time to get to know him. Granted this took a few whiskey cola’s to get him to open up. After showing up late again to work, and after a few confrontations in the kitchen with his coworkers, he was asked to leave by Tuesday afternoon.

I had decided on Tuesday afternoon that I was also on my way out. I phoned the coordinator and it went very smoothly. They are used to volunteers coming and going all the time so it was no surprise to anyone. The news spread like wildfire. I had only mentioned I was leaving the kibbutz to Penny the coordinator, and within 2 hours people were approaching me, “oh man, you’re leaving already? When? Why?”

Everyone was very understanding and very sincere with their well wishes and safe travels home.

I received a few emails from friends after they found out I was coming home so soon and they were apologetic and concerned my trip fell short of my expectations. I do appreciate their concern, but I want to reassure everyone that this trip has been exactly what I needed and nothing less. I made the decision to come home because I am ready. Before I left I wasn’t able to give any an exact return date because I did not set any expectations. I was going with a completely open mind and open-ended trip.

In the 6 weeks I have been in Israel I have seen a majority of the country, I have met people from around the world, I have dealt with a variety of adverse situations, and I have had a great deal of time to self reflect. The trip has been a success in every aspect, well except financially, ha. My spirits are much higher and my priorities are clearer. I have a new sense of myself and I have begun to realize what it will take to accomplish the goals I have set.

For the next 2 weeks I am excited to spend more time with Daniel, which has been the best part of this trip. The support he is provider, the conversations we have had, and bond we have strengthen have been the major highlights of my trip. I have a few small day trips planned to make sure I see the Dead Sea, Masada, Haifa, and anything else along the way. Then, I will be ready to make the trip back home, and very excited too.

So, please do not think the trip was a bust. It has been another amazing experience that I will cherish for the rest of my life. I wish more then anything I could have shared this experience traveling with someone else, but in some cases I probably learned more having traveled solo. Either way, this will not be my last trip abroad. My trips in the future will be more leisure based because my priorities have shifted and it’s time to start a “career path”, but traveling will always provide meaningful experiences in my life.

Checkout Time: 8:00 a.m.

I have to keep this short and sweet because I have a lot to do this evening.

Well, I've decided to check out of Kibbutz Lotan after about only 3 weeks. Don't think it was a bad experience, it just didn't end up being a good match for me. The people are mostly great, the lifestyle is relaxing, and the pool is wonderful. However, I just couldn't fall in love with milking goats or making yogurts and cheese. Volunteering on a kibbutz would be a great experience during the summer while I was in college, which seems to be the common theme among the current volunteers.

Each day that passed a tried to give kibbutz life another chance or find something about the kibbutz that attracted me enough to stay, but I just couldn't find anything and I am perfectly o.k. with that. I have learned to trust my instinct a lot more and I try not to force any experience's to work. Why would I force myself to continue doing something that I don't enjoy. For the past two and a half years I worked at a job that crushed me emotionally and psychologically. Although it was a great learning experience, it took a major toll on me and I don't ever want to be in a situation like that again. If I have the opportunity to move on, I will, and so I have decided not to stay here at Kibbutz Lotan.

I have met some really amazing people from all over the world. In our group of volunteers we have travelers from England, US, Mexico, Nepal, Brazil, France, Holland, Poland, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Canada. I have loved all the memories we have made as a group; sitting around in mud huts, swimming, playing soccer, milking goats, trips to Eilat, and plenty of other great times. It fascinates me that I have sat around eating lunch with 5 complete strangers, from 5 different countries, and we have all come to Israel for the same reason and are now friends. Although the length of my time here was short I have become very good friends with a handful of the volunteers and I hope I have the opportunity to see them again one day.

I am headed back to Tel Aviv tomorrow morning and then off to the North. I will be traveling from the southern tip of Israel all the way to the very northern tip (which isn't really that far, about 8 hours by bus). Then after a few days in the north with Daniel, back to Tel Aviv and then home. I will be home the last week of July. My trip is going to be much shorter then I imagined, but I am ready to come home. This trip has allowed me to learn some very important realizations that were a bit fuzzy in my mind before I came.

I will wrap this up with a bit more detail when I settle back in after my trip to the north. I added some more pictures so please take a look if you are interested. I have also added a link the Multiple Sclerosis Bike Tour for this coming October. I sent out an email to some of you about the charity ride and I was blown away that I did not receive a single response. I highly recommend the event. I had a blast riding in it last year and I have registered to ride again this year. I heard registration was being offered at no cost right now (its usually $60), so I would like to suggest, again, that you take a look if you are interested. The link is on right side of this page.

Ok, off to dinner then packing. Talk to you soon.

Moldy Cheese and Homicide Investigations

Although passing the time on the kibbutz can be slow, there seems to always be some kind of excitement or a new responsibility with work. One thing I have learned about the culture in Israel, there is not much consistency. Whether it is work related or personally, you never really know what you are going to get until it happens, and more often then not, it’s a lot different from what you may have slightly been expecting.

I suppose, in an environment that can easily become very monotonous, inconsistency and surprise will keep you on your feet. I’m never quite sure what might be waiting for me at work in the morning. I thought in the first few days of work I would have covered most of the unexpected, but I clearly that was not the case. With the start of a new week, came new job responsibilities, of course.

Moldy Cheese:

Wow! I wish I could have taken a picture because words could never describe the disgust I encountered when I showed up to work Monday. I had always seen the many blocks of moldy cheese in the fridge, but I just figured they forgot about them and just didn’t care to bother because at this point, they just needed to be thrown out. However, everything can always serve a purpose in a land where resources and financial support or scarce.

I showed up to the cheese house after the morning milking. There wasn’t much to work on because we were waiting for purchase orders so I started to become very excited because my workday might be ending early this morning, that’s great! But then, my boss just had to ask Josh if he needed any help, and although he didn’t really, he thought it would be funny to trap me in with him. The task for the rest of the day, scrub the mold off each block of cheese until it looks potentially edible. Let’s just say I have stopped eating any cheese served in the cafeteria because the kitchen is exactly where these non-sellable pieces of cheese were headed once we finished. So we sat and scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed, for close to five hours. Block after block of cheese, deep breath of rotten moldy cheese after deep breath. We managed to wear through about 5 or 6 wire sponges. When a wire sponge looses a battle to cheese, I think that is a clear sign no one should even come near these blocks of cheese. Moldy cheese water was spraying everywhere. On my arms, my face, and my clothes. I was absolutely repulsed. I’ll have to try and take a camera next time I’m lucky enough to scrub moldy cheese.

But the fun didn’t stop Monday. When I showed to Tuesday after the morning milking, I saw Ryu was the lucky victim today. In the beginning I managed to keep busy making yogurts and pouring new bottles, but as they say, all good things must come to an end. I didn’t work slow enough to pass the time in the cheese house and now I was headed into the second day of the battle with the moldy cheese. This time they gave us a cheese slicer that made it a bit easier and Ryu offered to keep scrubbing if I’d do the slicing. By the end of the morning I had filled two buckets with mold cheese. I have now seen mold in each color of the rainbow; hard mold, fuzzy mold, chunks of mold, and moldy roots half an inch each deep. Had I been at home, these blocks of cheese would have gone straight to the trash, no questions asked.

Fortunately, after 2 days of cleaning moldy cheese we managed to empty all the refrigerators, at least for a while. Every time I pass them, I see the more recently made blocks, slowly beginning to mold and on their way to becoming another future battle for me. Hopefully I will have checked out by then.

The Goats:

My official report as a Goat Homicide Detective:

Early Wednesday morning, approximately 3:00 a.m., an innocent goat in the northern pen was brutally attacked and murdered. The suspect is believed to be a Wolf. The suspect managed to flee the scene, leaving behind a trail of evidence. There were pieces of goat found hanging from the top of the fence, providing enough evidence to determine the entry and escape path of the wolf. The only witnesses available for questioning are a bunch of dumb goats that probably already forgot what happened, even if we could communicate with them.

The coroner (now also apart of my job description) arrived on scene approximately 6:00 a.m. to scoop up the remains so they could be buried in the desert. This part was disgusting. I had one of two choices. One, grab the legs and pick them up like a rotisserie, or two, scoop up the intestines with a shovel while the other person picks up the body. For some reason I decided to go with option number one. On three, grab the front and back legs and lift. I grabbed a hold of the legs that had a very creepy and cold feeling. I was shocked how cold the goat felt. I have never touched anything that was dead and it was a very eerie. We wheeled the goat to a bin so it could be picked up later by the tractor scoop and taken to the middle of the desert to be buried.

This was the third attack this week. Fortunately I did not milk the morning there were 2 attacks. Apparently one goat had been tossed around and scattered throughout the pen. I’m glad I didn’t have to clean that up.

These are the two highlights of the week thus far. There is one more half day of work left, and then the 1-day weekend.

While I have been typing this, I have been listening to two of my friends, Dion from Holland and Johikim from London, bitching and laughing about their jobs and coworkers. It’s been pretty funny listening to their thick accents imitate some of the volunteers and attempt to talk in their respective accents. Guess you have to be here.

Well, I’m off to the evening milking, then dinner. The weather has been a bit cooler, but still very hot and the breeze feels like a high-powered heater. I tend to spend most the day in my little room resting in the A/C.

Have a fun and safe 4^th of July weekend! Happy Birthday America!!!