Arrival

Flights to Israel are always interesting. From the Orthodox Jews praying in the aisle next to you to the group of obnoxious middle schoolers singing, it is hard to not let others’ excitement wear off on you –– not that I could take on any more anticipation, having been waiting for an entire year for this day to arrive. I didn’t sleep a wink on the plane. Ten and a half hours in the air, the flight from Philadelphia to Tel Aviv went by fairly quickly (except for during the times I sat watching our plane move like a snail across the GPS screen). Stepping off the plane I felt the heat of the 91 degree Israeli afternoon with the biggest smile of anyone in the airport. I made it through customs, baggage claim and getting my passport stamped in about 30 minutes and searched the crowd for the group with the Kibbutz Lotan sign.

We then packed all of our stuff, and the six of us, into a van and started driving South. From the shotgun seat I watched the green turn to brown as we got further and further in to the desert. It was beautiful watching the sunset over the empty Negev as we made our way (about 100 kph) down the dangerously windy freeway. We stopped after about three hours, which we had mostly spent asleep, and had a picnic dinner at Mitspe Ramon – the “Israeli Grand Canyon”. I recognized the street from when I was in Israel two years ago; when I was in Israel then we had practically the same first day: arrive in Tel Aviv and drive for 5 hours straight South into the desert. After dinner, an assortment of fresh fruits and cheeses made at Lotan, we drove for about another hour and got to our Kibbutz at about 10:00 pm.

We took a quick tour of our bustan eco-village neighborhood, but it was dark so we are getting the real tour tomorrow. We unpacked in our mud-huts which are called “dome-atories”, had a quick lesson on how to use the compost toilets (more details to come) and saw where to get water in our outdoor kitchen (which was being used by a hedgehog when we first stepped in). After we finished unpacking, the five of us in the Living Routes 4-month program explored the rest of the Kibbutz with a few of the Green Apprentices (who are on a shorter 2-month program that also started today). We went to “the pub” where all of the people our age were hanging out and had an impromptu, but huge, bonfire until about 1:30 in the morning. Due to our 7:00 wake up tomorrow, we decided to call it a night. I can’t wait for our first two classes tomorrow morning: “seeds” and “mud”. I will definitely post some pictures soon!

Dome 3 (my mud hut)

Our outdoor bread and pizza cookers

eco-village community kitchen (outside)

The "Moa-dome" (our hang-out space)

inside the eco-kitchen