Sukkot!

For those of you who aren't familiar with the holiday of Sukkot, I shall attempt to explain it a bit. For those of you who are familiar with the holiday, I'm guessing some of you still don't know all that much about it because it is confusing and repetitive and even after having experienced it in Israel, I myself am still unclear about a few things. Basically Sukkot is a week long celebration of the harvest in which people sleep and eat outside for the duration of the week in a hut/fort structure called a sukkah (sort of like when the Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years). I have enjoyed seeing the sukkahs crop up everywhere around Netanya--on street corners, front yards, roofs, and most commonly on apartment balconies. I don't know if people actually sleep in them, but I do know that they usually decorate them with (tacky) fake plastic fruit and paper chains, and that at a minimum the first meal welcoming the holiday is eaten in the sukkah.  To me, Sukkot does not have that much of a religious significance and I don't understand why it warrants the entire country taking off work for a week. While not everything was closed like during Yom Kippur, many things were. The school where I work, for instance, has a two week break for the holiday. Tragically, so does the 9 shekel felafel place down the street. Many of my fellow fellows (Sorry, I had to!) took this time to travel abroad, but I wanted to stay put and enjoy being in Israel exploring the country and Netanya a bit more.

For the first night of Sukkot, I went with Casey to another host family in Netanya. They lived in a beautiful, spacious, three story apartment with stunning beach views (I feel as if I am writing a real estate advertisement for their home, but really it was as amazing as it sounds). Their sukkah was on the roof of their apartment building, and since they are the only ones with access to the roof, eating outside overlooking the sea was an amazing experience. While the view was easily one of the best parts, they had no tacky sukkot decorations, and there was electricity and proper lighting throughout the whole meal (despite some rain), so that was all good as well. The family was extremely nice and the food was delicious. It was a Persian family (so the food was extra delicious), and the mom was American. She and her children are all native English speakers so it was nice to have Israelis who could communicate well with us. The extended family that showed up did not speak English so well, but were happy to meet us and talk to us a bit nonetheless.

During the rest of the break, I mostly lounged around and hung out with the people from my group who stayed in Netanya. I was able to catch up on my tv shows (finally) and unpack some more, so that was nice. Also, I loved going to sleep around 4am and waking up in the early afternoon, as this is the closest I will ever get to being nocturnal (which I totally would be if it were socially acceptable). While this probably sounds like profound levels of laziness to some of you at home, I actually did spend the holiday doing cool things. I spent one of the days in Tel Aviv where I went to Nachlat Binyamin, the open-air market where local artists come and sell their work (everything is hand made). It was exactly as I remember it from two years ago, and I saw much of the same artwork. I still enjoyed it very much, and was happy to be there. I also visited the Tel Aviv shuk, and it made me very thankful that the one in Netanya is much calmer. The vendors at the Tel Aviv shuk are so pushy and try to sell souvenirs a lot, as it is a pretty common tourist destination. The Netanya shuk, on the other hand, exists mainly to provide cheap fruit, veggies, meat, and nuts to the locals.

All in all, I enjoyed Sukkot, but thought it was much too long. By the time it was over I couldn't wait to start working and get into a routine.  My first day back was great and I loved that I was finally able to begin getting to know all my students!

Melanie

I have no pictures of Sukkot, please enjoy this picture of me feeding some goats instead.

I killed a mosquito with a squeegie.

It deserved it. I woke up yesterday morning with four mosquito bites on my arm. Unfortunately, mosquito bites here aren't like normal mosquito bites. They look like big ugly purple golf ball welts and they take a while to go away. Having four on the same arm makes me look diseased. So when I saw the mosquito buzzing around the bathroom that morning I knew I had to get my revenge. It landed on the ceiling so I grabbed the squeegie and acted fast. I guess its a good thing that the showers here are weird and flood the bathroom requiring one to squeegie the entire bathroom floor after each shower. If it weren't for the squeegie, who knows, I could still be falling victim to the vicious bug.

In all seriousness though, I actually have a lot of exciting real news for this blog post! The ceiling next door finally got fixed so on Monday I said adieu to my temporary roommates and welcomed Leah who I will be living with for the remaining nine months (I can't believe I've been here for a whole month already!). It is very exciting to finally have space to put things, but since I have already lived in the room for a while I am finding it hard to motivate myself to unpack everything. I have the next two weeks off for Sukkot though, so I will have plenty of time to do so soon.

Last week I got my school assignment. I will be working at the Rimalt school in Poleg, the wealthy southern part of Netanya. I was confused at first as to why I wasn't placed in a low-income school, but after working at Rimalt for a few days I realized that everyone needs help. Just because students go to a better school doesn't necessarily mean they are motivated and excited to learn English, and it doesn't mean that I won't make a difference at Rimalt. My teaching partner, Casey, and I will be working there with two of the English teachers and will be working with students in grades 4-6. Ester, the English teacher I will be working with has Tuesdays off so I will only have a four day work week (Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday). We got really lucky with our placement, as the school is really nice and the people who work there all seem friendly.

The first day at the school we were welcomed with a small but nonetheless exciting concert. We walked into a classroom with a welcome sign all the students had autographed. The chairs had been placed in a circle around the room and we were told to sit in the middle. It was actually a bit nerve-racking to sit there with a bunch of Israeli children staring at you, but luckily the presentation was entertaining and I laughed through most of it. First the students sang a 10 minute rendition of Bob Marley's "Don't worry." Next, a few students read a speech in English welcoming us to the school. The final part of the show was my favorite. They had choreographed a hip hop routine just for us. It was to modern American hip-hop songs, and the students went all out for it. We have it on video but I'm having trouble uploading things at the moment. When I get everything sorted out with my camera I will post pictures and the video. After the big presentation, we were fed chocolatey goodies the parents had baked for us. Then we were taken on a tour of the school.

The second day at the school we observed in the classrooms. It was so great to finally be able to help out the students a bit and start getting to know them. We were told that for the first few months we will only be given the advanced students who are bored in class because their English is already pretty good for their age. During the observation, I was able to help a few students out during the lesson. I thought it was really cute that a few of them tried really hard to impress me with their English skills. I met a student who was born in America and speaks English with her parents at home. She is super advanced and I can't wait to work with her more, even though one of the other students felt the need to warn me that she was crazy.

Even with the students that speak English really well, there are also students on the opposite end of the spectrum who have no English skills whatsoever. In one of the classes I observed, there was a little boy who knows literally one word in English. What is that word? "Igloo," of course. I don't know where or why or how he learned that word, or why it is the only one he remembers, but he uses it to describe everything. If he wants to get my attention? "Igloo." If he wants to tell me to use Hebrew instead of English? "Igloo." To be quite honest, I'm not even sure he knows what it means, but the first time I heard him use it a bunch of students laughed so I thought it had another meaning in Hebrew and made sure not to repeat it until I checked with the teacher. Apparently it means the same thing here as it does in America, so I am still clueless as to the significance of "Igloo."

That's all for now, although it is important to note that this post was started about a week and a half ago so ignore the time frame I provided in the beginning. Also, I should say that I now have nine new mosquito bites on my legs from a different but equally evil mosquito who I expect to find and squeegie attack as soon as possible. I will post soon about my Sukkot holiday break.

Bye! Igloo!
Melanie

School interior. My classroom is upstairs to the right.

Partial view of my classroom before getting spruced up a bit.

Shana Tova!!

Happy new year everyone! May the year 5773 be filled with happiness, sweetness, and may it be like the head not the tail. (The head not the tail is a very common expression here, but to be honest I don't quite understand exactly what it means. All I know is that it has something to do with fish and that it means something good.)

For Rosh Hashana I had the wonderful opportunity to go to a host family for dinner with my friend Casey (another teaching fellow/one of my temporary roommates). The daughter of the family was in her early twenties and was high school friends with our madricha (counselor/guide). She came and picked us up from our apartment and walked us to her grandmother's house. We were welcomed with warm hugs, but only after an awkward elevator incident. We didn't realize the elevator would stop on every floor because of Shabbat and got yelled at by an orthodox man for pressing a button (oops!). After pressing the button we all stood in the cramped elevator for a few minutes only to realize that the elevator was not going to move at all, so we gave in and climbed the five flights of stairs. This is actually one of the things that puzzles me. Shabbat is all about being the day of rest and not doing any work, but in the end everyone goes out of their way to avoid work and ends up working more. I don't get it.

Anyway, the Rosh Hashana dinner was wonderful. It was different from the Rosh Hashana dinner I am used to though, as they bless each and every vegetable, meat, etc. present on the table. Each individual person (13 including Casey and myself) said each blessing which took a while. Thankfully I was just able to say "Amen" because it would have taken at least another hour if I had to say each blessing myself. After everything was blessed I was served chicken hearts without knowing what they were. A few people told me that they were delicious, but one of the cousins sitting across from me refused when her mom tried to give her one, so I was a bit scared. I decided to try it anyway, as I have been very "seize the moment" these days. It wasn't that bad, but it also wasn't that good. It was just really tough and chewy but the flavor was okay. I only had one though and do not plan on having them again any time soon.

The majority of my dinner was actually just meat, couscous, and veggies. For dessert we had cookies with pomegranate and cactus. The cactus was surprisingly pretty good, but it had lots of seeds which were annoying to spit out. After dessert they brought out a variety of different nuts for snacking on. I found this to be very interesting because it seemed like some of them were eating more nuts than actual food. After talking to the others from my program, it seems that this habit of snacking on nuts after dinner was something unique to my host family.

My favorite part of the dinner was talking to everyone at the table. There was a twelve year old girl and a thirteen year old girl who were absolutely obsessed with us by the end of the night and were bummed when we declined their invitation to have a sleepover party. At the beginning of the night they barely spoke to us because they were shy, but once we mentioned something about Justin Bieber they started talking more. Their English wasn't perfect and they had to ask their cousin a few times to translate certain words. They were amazed that I knew the colors in Hebrew and loved asking questions about our lives. They have invited us back for Passover and I can't wait!

Happy New Year!
Melanie

September Seminar: Lake Kinneret

Two weekends ago Israel Pathways took us on a trip up north to Lake Kinneret (The Sea of Galilee) for our opening seminar. We were there with the Israel Teaching Fellows group from Be'er Sheva, the Zoom Israel group (a 5 month photography/graphic design program in Tel Aviv), and Israel Corps (a 5 month volunteer program in Kiriyat Shmona). We left straight from training in Holon on Thursday, but the drive up North ended up taking about four and a half hours because of traffic (lo tov). We ate dinner at the hotel and afterwards there was an Israel Pathways Opening Ceremony.

The next morning we woke up early for a short but scenic hike up Mount Arbel where we learned about the geography of Israel. After endless posing for pictures, we learned about the important role Lake Kinneret plays in politics, as it is the major source of fresh water for Israel. Basically if anything happens to Israel's control over Lake Kinneret they would be willing to go to war to get it back. After Mount Arbel, we went on a water hike through a river. While Jews are usually known for wandering through deserts, it was hilarious to see about 75 of us hiking through a river with water up past our knees. This was perhaps one of the highlights of my weekend, I felt so adventurous!

Following the water hike and lunch, we did the most natural thing possible...we went on a cruise! Well it wasn't so much a cruise as a daytime party boat on Lake Kinneret. Picture a bunch of 20-somethings dancing around ridiculously to a mix of upbeat Israeli and American music. It was a blast, and I had to pause for a moment as it took me by surprise how close I felt to all the people around me having known them for only two weeks. I honestly feel I have known some of them for years already, and I am so glad I chose to come to Israel.

After the hike, we made our way back to the hotel to clean up and prepare for Shabbat. We had a nice outdoor Shabbat service followed by dinner and staying up late with friends. The next day we were able to sleep in (Yay for the day of rest! Booo for my strange roommate who woke me up at 8:30!). In the afternoon we walked to a nearby kibbutz, called Degania. Degania is actually the first kibbutz ever in Israel and it was very interesting to hear about it's history from the grand-daughter of the founders. The purpose of going to the kibbutz, however, was to meet some Americans who moved to Israel to join the army. They are part of a program where young Americans come to Israel and live on the kibbutz so that they have a support system and family during their army service. We broke up into smaller groups to ask them questions about their decision to join the IDF. I enjoyed hearing their reasons for coming to Israel, what their roles were in the army, and how their family and friends from back home reacted. The ones I talked to said they have rough days here and there (one said his mom calls him once a week crying), but that they do not regret their decisions and love their lives in Israel in the army.

That evening after dinner we had a Havdalah service back at the hotel and made our way back to Netanya. It was a fun weekend but it felt nice to be back home. It is strange to think of my apartment here as home, especially considering the ceiling next door still hasn't been fixed, and I am still living out of a suitcase in a room with too many people. Basically the source of the water that caused the ceiling to fall is still unknown. With the holidays coming up it is impossible to say exactly when it will be fixed and habitable again. For now I am living in what is going to be my apartment my entire time in Israel, but I am living in it with the two girls who are supposed to live next door. My real roommate is temporarily living upstairs. It is strange to think we are roommates when we haven't even started living together. Oh well! My room has been dubbed the orphanage because the only way we fit is to have our three beds basically next to each other in a row. I love my temporary roommates but hope their room is done sometime soon.

I will try and post pictures of everything soon!
Yalla Bye,
Melanie

P.S. If you have any suggestions for a real title for my blog, feel free to comment on this post. I am leaning towards Melanya in Netanya, WTF ITF, or something to do with my chai (life) in Israel.

A terrifying moment in a beautiful place.

Hiking through the river, or in my case, walking on top of it.

View of the Kinneret from our hotel.

Training

Training started at Talpiot college in Holon (just south of Tel Aviv) last Sunday. It is a religious college so we have to dress conservatively on training days, which is a pain considering the heat. Also I am much too fidgety to wear a skirt on a bus ride for an hour and a half twice a day but I just keep telling myself that if the orthodox men who wear suits every day are able to survive that I should not be complaining. At training we started learning formal grammar (yay!) so that we aren't embarrassed when Israeli children know what the past progressive tense is and we don't. We also learned about different types of games and even created our own board games to help students with English. Mostly the lectures have either been about grammar none of us have ever learned (even as a linguistics major I am often clueless as to what they are talking about), or about making songs, games, chants, and other engaging activities for our students.

One of our training days involved a school observation. We went in groups of five or six to various schools in Netanya where we were all met with warm Israeli hospitality. The school I visited even had a sign welcoming us to their family, and the principal's daughter gave us a tour of the school! This was definitely my favorite day of training so far, as I learned more in a half hour there than at all of the other training days combined. It was very interesting to see the differences between the Israeli and American school systems. Besides the small differences (the students raise their pointer finger instead of raising their hand), there were some differences that were quite noticeable. In a fourth grade classroom two students broke out into a kicking fight in the middle of the lesson. In America both students would have been sent to the principal and their parents certainly would have been called. Instead the teacher simply moved one of them to her desk and went on with the lesson as if nothing had happened. I know that it is the Israeli way to just go on with life whenever things get tough, but it still took me by surprise.

Some highlights of the day came from talking to the Israeli children during their recess. The children were so happy to have us at the school and found us fascinating simply because we are Americans. They wanted to know everything about us--where we are from, what music we listen to, and how long is it going to take us to be able to speak to them in Hebrew. I can't wait to get my school assignment and meet the students I will be working with all year! None of the ones I met during observation could even come close to pronouncing my name though, so once I get my school assignment I might just say my name is Mel.

I have been a bit behind on my blog, and for that I apologize. Hopefully I will have time later today to write another post about my weekend seminar trip to the Sea of Galilee and update about everything else that has been going on here, but for now that's all!

What's up? Not our ceiling...

Yup, you read that title correctly, parts of my ceiling are no longer what's up. This means of course that they have fallen. Luckily we weren't in the room when it happened, and luckily it looks like it isn't going to happen again. For now we are sleeping in a new room while everything gets fixed up for us, but because of Shabbat we won't be able to move back until Sunday. While I was upset about it for a bit, I know it's all part of the adventure and one day I will be telling funny stories to my children about that time in Israel when my ceiling fell down.

Other than that, I have been doing more exploring. Today we went to the shuk and I got some delicious plums, pita, and avocados. I also spent about half an hour in the grocery store trying to locate turkey (everything that looked like turkey was labeled as Mexican Pastrami for some reason), and so we ended up making friends with the English speaking deli guy who insisted on feeding us goose. It tasted pretty good, but I'm thinking it is going to be a one time only thing.

Speaking of making friends, this is the other main thing I have been doing here. I have already made friends with the pizza guy across the street (who once lived in America for a little bit and says the thing he misses most is the Cheesecake Factory), the felafel guy down the street (who told someone in my group they could just pay him the next day since she didn't have any shekels yet), the lady who cashiers at the grocery store, and the 29 other wonderful people who will be teaching with me here in Netanya. My friends here are all very funny and I have cried from laughter multiple times today.

I am very jet lagged and have been waiting not so patiently for my circadian rhythm to adjust. Right now it is 3AM (an improvement over last night's bed time), so I am going to go to sleep. Goodnight from Israel!

Melanie

Fallen ceiling.

Whole in ceiling before it got worse.

Netanya shuk!

At the shuk :)

Ani Po! (I'm here!)

I made it here without too much of a hassle, thanks to a lucky penny Mom found at the grocery store that morning. Unfortunately the TSA body scanner also found the penny in my back pocket and I had to have my butt patted down to make sure I wasn't carrying anything suspicious. The flight was pretty good, the UCSD birthright trip actually ended up being on my flight to Israel, so I was in good company and was able to spend some time with them in the airport. After arriving in Netanya I found out that my apartment isn't ready yet, so I am temporarily living in another apartment for the next week or two. My least favorite part of the trip so far is that I will be living out of my suitcases for a while, which is difficult because I don't remember where everything was packed. Luckily I am still having a great time and enjoying the company of my temporary roommates.

So far, I have mainly been exploring Netanya, and getting to know the other teaching fellows. Our madricha took us on a tour of the area and showed us where the important things are. Within a few blocks from my apartment there is a shuk (outdoor market), shopping mall, drug store/pharmacy, supermarket (right next door to my building), a sushi restaurant, and too many felafel/shwarma places to even count. Not to mention the beach is less than a 10 minute walk away. Looks like it is time for me to become more of a beach person, you know, as if I haven't lived close to a beach my whole life or anything.

I will start my pedagogical training in Holon on Sunday, and at the end of next week we have our first weekend seminar. We will be going to the Sea of Galilee, and I am excited to start seeing more of Israel. Anyway, that's all for now, I will try to update this blog as often as I can, but no promises on when the next post will be. Hope all is well with everyone at home!

Melanie

View from my building.

Beautiful beach in Netanya.