The time is going by so fast it is getting hard to keep up with myself blogging. Apparently it’s already a new year! Rosh Hashanah was really nice here on the kibbutz. Classes ended Thursday around noon, and we had our regular weekly potluck in the bustan. It was very small though because a lot of people from the neighborhood went home for the holiday – four of us stayed. Friday was a normal Shabbat... nice meal in the evening, no classes during the day. Sunday I slept in a bit and then headed over to the cheese house to help out for a little while and see what goes on there. It smelled bad, and I wrapped some goat cheese with nuts for about a half hour – nothing too exciting. The real Rosh Hashanah festivities began Sunday night. The four of us left in the bustan dressed up and went to services together. They were nice, nothing like high holiday services in the states. About 40 people were there, and we sat in a small circle singing songs and prayers in Hebrew for about an hour. Dinner was a huge festive meal (the kitchen staff cooked for 11 hours) with lots of salads, beef, chicken, couscous, pomegranate and deserts. I slept most of the day on Monday and then we had another equally festive dinner that night. We also got to have a yoga class from a teacher on a nearby Kibbutz, which felt really great. Tuesday I helped out in the kitchen for three hours, serving lunch (more cleaning up afterwards). It was nice to feel helpful on the kibbutz – a lot of the time in my program I feel as though I am receiving a lot from this place but don’t have opportunities for giving much in return.
I had dinner this evening with my host family. My host dad is the head chef on the kibbutz, so I love going over to there house to eat. They are so nice and generous, and their kids (8 and 11) are funny. They are learning English while I learn Hebrew, so I brought my flashcards over and we read “Frog and Toad” in Hebrew. At Kibbutz Lotan there is no dinner in the dining room on Saturday night, so that is when host families normally have people over, but my family has been especially inviting to me – I’ve gone over for dinner a few times now, and they even brought me to Eilat with them on Friday for some time at the beach. Me and the boys swam in the Red Sea looking at the tropical fish, and even though there is a huge language barrier between us kids (the adults are very good at English) we had a lot of fun – and speaking with them in Hebrew, even just little things, is helping me feel more confident in the language. Tonight I made about 100 flashcards of different foods, so we’ll see how much I remember tomorrow.
A few of us in the bustan made Rosh Hashanah Resolutions and I think this year is going to be really wonderful. I want to take more time for myself, and practice being my own good company. At the same time, I want to take every opportunity I can to learn something new. I want to explore, and even though I know it is important to plan for the future, I want to really live in the moment and be present – last year, amidst finishing high school and applying for college, I spent all of my time thinking about the future and I think that made me miss out on a lot of what was happening right in front of me.
Other stuff that I forgot to mention: I went to some random horse-therapy class at a nearby Kibbutz where we danced with feathers on the back of horses (I couldn’t stop laughing, so I don’t think I really got it... but it was fun), I baked granola with plum, apple and marula in the solar oven and it was amazing, I’m making really good friends with some volunteers from all over the world – South Africa, Germany, and Holland to name a few, and I’m exhausted but I don’t care because I’m having such an amazing experience.
Shana Tova! שנה טובה
(Happy New Year)
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