30 Days Left of Fun

Ooh man! We have some big news coming around! Today marks 30 days until my draft day, and lots has happened since my last post (per usual).

A few weeks ago, I went down to the South with some friends to see some beautiful flowers. We also stopped by an ostrich farm/restaurant thinking it was a restaurant where we could try some ostrich. Strangely, it wasn't even a restaurant at all (and certainly no tasting of the birds). But it ended up being a really fun weekend road trip!

About a week later, I went to Jerusalem for a brit milah (circumcision) during the week! It was really awesome to experience such an important celebration with friends that I haven't seen in a while. I hadn't seen or even met some of the family since I have been in Israel, so it was really nice to catch up. While I was there, we had discovered that their downstairs neighbor knew my dad when he was in Young Judea in San Antonio, so I got to meet and talk to her for a while. After the brit, some of us took the kids around the city on the bus and train until they all needed a nap and I needed to head home.

My friend Jimmy preferred the puppy to the flowers.

Shlomo HaMelech!

Ron, Shlomo's brother, fast asleep, on the bus

I celebrated my SECOND holiday ever in Israel, Purim. It was definitely strange, though, because the kibbutz celebrates it on the Friday after. In the gan we celebrated the Friday before (oznei haman and mini clowns included), and Sunday evening all the kids had a party. Then, at the end of the week, the adults had their party. Every single person was wearing a costume, and they were pretty clever. It was a huge success!

Dressed-up ulpanistim

Captain Maya and "Hayden Panettiere" /country music singer

In more exciting news, I was invited to a day of testing at Beit HaTzanchan in Ramat Gan last week. I tried to ask around beforehand to find out what it was about and what it was for, but I got basically no information. I traveled almost three hours from Yagur to Ramat Gan, and walked into Beit HaTzanchan 15 minutes early. At exactly ten AM, they called us some thirty girls into an auditorium. We sat down at desks and were told to start with little explanation outside of which packet to start with. I and three other girls asked for and received all our tests in English. The tests included a personal information packet, a personality test where we had to rank hundreds of statements based on how they applied to us, hundreds more true/false personality statements, over 50 statements that we had to complete in 20 minutes, and an interview in between! When I was called for my interview, my interviewer explained to me that these tests were to help the army decide what kind of job I would best be suited for. Basically, they think that each of us would be suitable for a specialty job, which means that those tests could potentially help me get into the paramedic's course! Four hours later, I headed back to Yagur (but not without stopping for some well-deserved ice cream).

My first peek at the Ba'hai Gardens was a bit obstructed by Yaniv

I finally met my new kibbutz family! They are so sweet and have three adorable kids. I've seen them a few times and they really are treating me like family. It's an amazing feeling, to finally have an official adoptive family here in Israel.

Last weekend, some friends and I went to Nahalal, a moshav about half an hour from Yagur. There was a swap/flea market on one of the properties, and we also got a tour of some of the farmland and then a tour of a dairy on another property. It was so cool to see how some of the volunteer huts were built and how things run on the moshav.

One side of the communal building

The walls are built with mud and straw, but incredibly well-insulated

The inside of a volunteer's hut that they built

The outside, plus Tamara

This week, I am going to Tel Aviv on Wednesday for a Lone Soldier army prep day. Then, we have an ulpan trip to Jerusalem, Pesach (Passover), and then a week later I get drafted! It's gonna be one hell of a month, so stay tuned!

Here are my little leitzanim (clowns):

Welcome Back to All

It's strange living in a world without my dad. Fortunately, that is why Jews mourn in the way we do. Those who have never lived in a world without that person (namely, their children) have a longer mourning period than even the mother or father of that person. The next eleven months will be spent learning what it is like to have birthdays, celebrate holidays, accomplish goals, lament failures, and so on without my dad. Today, I take another step in my process by updating this blog. And it's for the best because I have oh so much to tell all of you!

Candid at Nimrod Fortress.
Photo Credit: Maya S.

The day after I arrived in Nashville, the day of my dad's funeral, I woke up around 3 AM with a WhatsApp message from the ulpan office informing me that my tzav rishon (first notice) had arrived. It was such a strange feeling, that life was still going on. That my life would continue at an extraordinarily rapid pace. And, as you will see in this post, it continued to do so with an incontrovertible sense of irony. And, as my dad would have wanted, I have faced it all so far with my best sense of humor.

I was so proud I was tall enough to enter the hot springs at Hamat Gader!

Speaking of humor, I had quite the adventure back to Israel. The day I left Nashville, my mom, sister, and I, made a Costco run on the way to the airport. I very desperately wanted to bring back a nice stash of macaroni and cheese with me. We wound up buying two cases (30 boxes, 12 pounds) of macaroni and cheese for me to carry on the plane. There was a whole mess with the weather and flight delays, so I was relieved when we finally were called to board the plane. While we were boarding, a woman needed to put her bag in the overhead bin but there was no space. The flight attendant came over and asked, "Now, whose macaroni and cheese is this?!?" I raised my hand sheepishly and said it was mine. While she moved it to the opposite bin, she asked if there was no mac and cheese where I live in Philadelphia I said, "No ma'am, and I'm not from Philly." The guy behind me said, "You need to move!" And then they started asking where I live and I told them Israel. That started about three conversations with people in my area of the plane. We were stuck on the Tarmac in Nashville for an extra half hour, so the flight attendant threatened to eat my macaroni! I told her she was welcome to it if she had a way to cook it. The whole flight she and I went back and forth on the topic, which made everyone laugh and the whole mess a bit easier. I had an especially good conversation with the guy next to me about Israel. We ended up talking almost nonstop the whole time we were on the plane. He was the first stranger I told that my dad died and that that was the reason for my visit to the States. He told me about his daughter and how they have a close relationship and it made me sad but when we got off the plane I told him to give an extra big hug to her when he gets home for me.

A quick trip to the Carmel with the kiddos.

So, back in Israel, less than a week after I returned to the country, I reported to Lishkat Giyus (Draft Office) in Haifa. I live-tweeted my experience, as it took about four hours. I was alone and waiting in line for the majority of it. I didn't get any of my scores/ratings except for my medical profile, which was an 82 (good enough to do combat!). I was sure I didn't pass my Hebrew test, but the whole thing was an interesting experience. I was told to expect a draft letter in the next few months with a six month notice. The hardest part was talking to the social worker and explaining my situation as a Lone Soldier, but then also having to talk in detail about my dad's death. Since he wasn't Israeli and didn't die here, I had to write up an outline of his illness and how he died in lieu of a death certificate. Other than that, my tzav rishon experience was pretty average for an immigrant: waiting for hours on end, answering a lot of the same questions, and asking if there is someone who can speak English.

Fooling around on a class break.

Only four days later, I got another letter from the army with my draft date! I was so completely thrown off and excited. The letter said I am to report on April 30th (two and a half months away). Since then, they realized I was extremely close to 20 when I made aliyah, so they gave me three options: keep the April 30 date, draft on December 10 (to keep the year of grace I'm allowed as a new immigrant), or not draft at all. I, of course, decided to keep the April date. So I will be leaving the ulpan a month early, but, not to fear, to draft into the learning base to do a 3 month Hebrew course. Here's a breakdown of how my service is going to look from what I currently know:
April 30th I will go to be processed, get my army ID, uniform, and travel to Mechve Alon (the learning base). There I will spend three months doing the most basic of basic training and learning in another Hebrew class. During that time I will have only two or three weekends I will have to close, so I'll have most weekends off. When I graduate from that, I will be reprocessed as a normal soldier and assigned to a proper unit. Hopefully I will be assigned to the paramedic's course! I've already situated a room for myself in the lone soldier's house at Yagur, so on weekends I'm off I can come here or travel to see friends wherever I like. Right now, the big thing I am doing is trying to find a kibbutz family to adopt me! I've put feelers out with some friends and even talked to one of the parents in my classroom in the hopes they can find me a good connection.

Look how big little Waya is!! Just about as big as Usdi!

All in all, I want to thank everyone for helping me through this time in my life. I'm really looking forward to what lies ahead of me, and I want all of you to be a part of it. Here's to a new chapter.