Take the fact that I haven’t posted in over two weeks as a sign that life goes by fast when you’re having fun. Today is Saturday, so things are pretty low key, and I’m giving myself sometime to catch up on work and on thinking. Its a sad day for me here at Lotan – the shorter Green Apprenticeship that was in conjunction with my program has just ended and everyone is heading out – leaving only five of us to continue on for the next 9 weeks. We ended the program yesterday morning with a closing circle that was very special. Everyone contributed a poem or quote that was read aloud, or a song, and we went around the circle reflecting on what we’ve learned and how we hope to apply it. Yes, I have many projects I hope to start when I am at home next fall, but I think the biggest thing we all took away is that this is just the beginning of much more learning to be done.
The last few weeks have been nice because we’ve had four major holidays breaking up the time. We’ve had less classes, but doing less has made it easier to absorb all the information. We started with our big Permaculture Design Projects – we had to come up with ideas for a space in the Kibbutz that could be reinvented using the guidelines of permaculture – earth care, people care, and fair shares/limits to consumption. I designed a new education building that had a classroom, a museum, and an office for the Center for Creative Ecology. It was a lot of work drawing up the plans and organizing the write ups but it went well, and they even said they might use some ideas from my project as they are starting to consider investing in a new education building for the program.
On Yom Kippur I went to services and fasted, and then after breaking the fast at the big feast in the dining hall several of the families on the Kibbutz had little open houses. A few friends and I went around to them all, and it was really fun to get to know even more of the community, which I’m now starting to feel more a part of. On Sukkot the whole Kibbutz ate under a giant sukkah (for every meal for the entire 8 days) which was very exciting. I took my day off from classes on Sukkot to go to the Dead Sea with two of my friends – we got up at 5:00 in the morning and made it to Ein Gedi, a nature reserve at the Dead Sea, at about 8:00 and went for a 3 hour hike over the mountain, stopping at a few natural springs and pools along the way. We then went and sat by the Dead Sea for a while, hot and sweaty, and decided not to go in because we were all pretty cut up. We went to Masada but since we were too tired to walk across the parking lot we decided not to waste our time heading up the mountain – I’ll go there again when I have enough energy to enjoy it. It took us a lot longer than expected but eventually we made it home and crashed for the night.
I’ve done so much over the last few weeks that I won’t even try to write it all but a few highlights – I lead services with my friend last night on the guitar camp style and the Kibbutz members really liked it, we made home-made felafel in the bustan for a potluck and even though it took 2 hours to grind all the chickpeas (we didn’t have a food processor) it was amazing! I want to make it all the time (as long as I can find a grinder). I am so excited for Jerusalem – we leave Tuesday morning and will be there for 3 weeks volunteering for several different social justice nonprofits. After that we’ll be spending a week living with a Beduoin tribe near Beer Sheva!
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