I love Hanna and her family, the Fitals. They were my host family on EIE, then we lost contact for a few years and I just happened to run into Hanna again two summers ago when I was living in Jerusalem. Now she's my personal tourguide, her homes is my bed and breakfast, and she's one of the greatest people I've ever met. Needless to say, this past weekend at her house was wonderful. Emily came along and we went to "the coolest bar in Jerusalem" according to my guidebook, but once again I am not a party person so I just found it loud and sketchy. We had lunch on Shabbat with Ben Yehuda's grand-daughter, a professor at Bar Ilan University, so that was a bit of extreme Israeliness. We also spent a good deal of time window shopping, drinking at cafes, and in general relaxing.
Being in Arad, and at WUJS, is not so easy. I think this 3 week mark is the beginning of people not always getting along and frustrations starting to boil over. A big problem is that this program just isn't all that organized. It seems that the office workers are a weird mix of people fired for incompetency at other jobs who all ended up in Arad. Here's an excellent example: Part of my program is to get an internship with a peace/ social justice organization in Israel. So Jonathan, the coordinator, takes me aside and is so excited to tell me that he has found me the perfect internship, with Yad B'Yad. I had to tell him that I had already worked for them, two summers ago, and I didn't really like working for them since I mostly killed cockroaches around the office. He was shocked and I asked if he had read my resume. Weeeeeelll........ no.
Part of the program that's in Arad is that every Tuesday we go on a tiyul (remember, it means trip) to some part of the country. So, this past week we went to Tel Aviv. The best part was meeting up with Frederik Ferie, a German friend from Ben Gurion University. He was taller, blonder, and more German than ever. That night we ended up stopping in Beersheva for a concert, where all our plans fell apart and I'd rather skip giving any details except that I am less excited than ever with some of the people here. Mor eready than ever to get a good internship elsewhere....
I am meeting nice people. I think my closest group of friends are Emily (of course), Daniela (she literally loses everything, her wallet twice this week and a brand new pair of sketchers), Anna (Hungarian), Sandra (Mexican), Carolina (Argentinian), Susan (Michigan), Naomi (Amsterdam).... there's more but I just wanted to give you a taste of the diversity (though not in gender). My Hebrew is getting good and I am able to converse with the few Russians who make up Arad population pretty well. By the by, I have this crazy thing where random teenaged Russians come up to me and harrass me. I'll be in a group of ten people and they single me out and start spitting at me. Any ideas on how I can stop this? Swearing in Hebrew works sometimes but more often it just makes them laugh and they spit more. It's honestly got out of hand and when I go out with friends they have to circle around me. Does anyone have any ins with the Russian mafia?
Going to try to put pictures up this weekend....
posted by A Mus-Ed Blogger @ 3:48 PM
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