Digging, Kayaking, Meeting, Running, Hiking, Drama-Resolving...what a week! :-D

Well, the time has come. I am awaiting my family (whose flight is delayed a few hours), and my time in Israel is over. I am still quite behind with my blog, but I’ll give you a few highlights to catch up. The week after the hike to Kibbutz Yagur was quite full. It began with renting a car and driving out to the Galil, meeting up with a friend on the Kibbutz where she was volunteering and joining them on an archeological dig at Ginosar for the morning. It was an incredible (albeit very short) experience, digging in three-hundred year old dirt with picks and brushes, finding lots of pottery, a bead, and even some popsicles. I learned about the process of identifying the levels where we were digging, sifting through the dirt for finer finds, and their daily routine. Before the hottest part of the day (though it got quite hot as early as nine or ten – I’d met them at 5am), we packed up our tools and buckets, dusted off a bit, had breakfast, and head out.

I was lucky enough to join them on a day they were having an outing, and an hour later we all piled in pairs into kayaks and rowed our way down the Jordan river to our awaiting bus. We returned to the kibbutz for lunch and then I hopped in my rental and cruised back to Haifa, dropped it off, and caught a bus up to the lab for the lab meeting I was to lead. I had selected the first to articles in a series that is in progress, explaining the transcription process that one of my professors and colleague have designed. The meeting went well, we had some great discussion and laughter, and I think each left with more to digest along the way.

That was Monday. Tuesday I ran in my first 10K race ever – gosh, first one ever and I chose the one that went up and back down a mountain! But it went extremely well, and I was thrilled with my time (just over an hour and five minutes), and…got a T-Shirt for it! I am truly an American in that respect. (My friends here, from Israel, Russia, France, Holland, etc. all inform me that Americans are always wanting T-Shirts from everything they do. I enthusiastically agreed, “T-Shirts are cool!” :-p)

Wednesday…oh dear, I’ve forgotten. I know it was a very full week, with activities every day and every evening, but this one has escaped my mind.

Thursday I met a friend down at Mifratz early in the morning and we caught a bus back out to Kibbutz Yagur to continue on the trail. We conquered the climb to Isfyia so quickly we couldn’t believe we were already to the top (the beauty of the hike and the good company made the couple hours fly by), and then we trekked the additional four miles over to Daliet El Karmel for some breakfast and souvenir scouting (I wanted to have a good idea of the prices, so as to advise my family when we’re in Jerusalem before coming up north). Then we caught a bus and head back down the hill, her to go help our friend pack to leave from the year, and me to Shema.

Shema that day was…dramatic. We had a big balegan, with tears and revenge attempts, which led the head madrich (counselor) to lead the students in a discussion about the pros and cons of revenge (it turned out to be quite deep and I hope memorable for the kids). Partway through it, I had a golden teaching opportunity, and was able to have a great discussion with the instigator of the drama, just she and me discussing it in rapid and emotional ISL and Hebrew – and on my part, gesture and some English thrown in, and we returned to the group with new perspective, arm in arm, smiling. I felt like truly part of the madrichim. And was thrilled. But sad it would be one of my final weeks there for quite some time.

Friday and Saturday mornings I head out again with my neighbor for bike rides down to the beach and back up. She took me on a new route on Saturday, over past Hof HaCarmel, and then up to Horev, before turning back toward home. Quite a feeling of accomplishment, and beautiful views as we panted our way along. :) The following week would bring Shavuot. :)