One week later.....

Hey Guys!

So much has happened since we began our 11 week journey and as the night ends we all realise that the countdown has begun and that by tomorrow we will be at the 10 week point.

 

To begin... On Friday the 26th we shlepped our bags that we would be taking to Ramat Hagolan (in the north for those whose Israeli Geography isn't that good) to the Kibbutz Shul where we dovened. This went on for around twenty minutes until we made our way down for a quick breakfast in the Cheder Ochel where we met up and chat with more former Scopus Collegians including former School Captain Ashlee Chapman, Ryan Saffer and Adi Cohney (and many more!). We had to be aware of the time because shortly afterwards we had to take our bus to an army base around half an hour to an hour's drive south of where we were staying that night in Keshet.

 

While we were there we met up with our old Scopus Hebrew teacher Ronit and also her daughter Ariel! She also gave us a bit of an education about some of the stuff that would've been happening at the base on a normal day.

 

In the base which was close to being deserted by the Shiriyonim (Artillery troops) we were led by our beloved Madrich, Peleg who in the previous week actually finished his three year army service with the Shiriyonim. He took us to the empty barracks, to see some Military Jeeps and the highlight of everyone's time in the base, to where they were keeping the tanks.

 

The tanks to describe in two words were 'enormous' and 'menacing' they were close to being three metres in height at its tallest point and lengthwise it was around six metres. We were all at first pretty hesitant to actually go on the tanks but when we did we had a lot of fun, and took even funnier photos. It was to our pleasure that Peleg went in the tank and showed us how he would've had to load the cannon and it was to our even further pleasure when we were allowed to actually get into the tank and see what it would've been like to be in a compact area for three days at a time! Knowing in full awareness of course that we would not be in those tanks for more than 5 minutes and that there was strictly no photo taking inside the tank.

 

After this whole affair we made our way to the Moshav in which we were staying and dressed ourselves for Shabbat, and during the late half of four o'clock did we bring in Shabbat. There wasn't much to mention on the first night, we ate, we sang, we talked, we played mind boggling games and we discussed.

 

The next morning we were all at Shul at nine and to our surprise all at lunch at 10:30 (Not breakfast but LUNCH). Later on we 'officially' met with some Youths doing a program called Mechinah; I say officially because the night before we 'unofficially' met them the night before and heard an interesting story involving a member in Beit Shemesh. The group doing Keshet were mostly from America, from Massachusetts, New York and Los Angeles, one more was from Canada and another was from Belgium.

The program essentially is a training program that these youths do before they enter the army, and in our meeting they informed us why they chose to leave everything behind and make Aliya as well. Later on we left with them to go see the bunker that was a few minutes out from the Mushav. The bunker was an amazing site, built for security and surrounded by active mines during the Six Day War, fair warning these mines are still active. From this bunker we were able to see a breathtaking view of the Golan and even see hints of Syria and its border.

 The Saturday finished with us packing our bags and leaving the place saying bye to our new American friends some while sitting down and others while trying to catch up to them on the run. It can be viewed as a good or a bad thing but thanks to our persistent hunger we managed to find a Kosher place to eat, called McDonalds! It wasn't according to a select amount of opinions, as bad as some other's tried to make it out.

Sunday was indeed a multi-purpose day, on the one hand we went on a farm where we planted some seeds and plants for some experiments going on, and on the other hand we went back to the Kinneret for an ANZAC memorial, involving a battle held in Israel specifically by the ANZAC's against the Germans and Turks during the First World War. On the way to this memorial we picked up Meir Lipshutz, brother of famed orthodontist Jeff Lipshutz an Australian who made Aliya at age 19 and also introduced us to the events that happened in this battle and other battles during the Great War. At the ceremony we met many Australians; some ANZAC's whose relatives were in the battle and former football player Brendan Gale!

 During the ceremony, there were some photos taken with the ANZAC's some songs sang including Waltzing Matilda and conversations held by the Australians who were all too interested as to why a group of 16 Australian children where in Israel for the event. It was to our honour that at the end of the ceremony we were instructed to guard the light-horsemen and their horses from the public so they could exit the vicinity in a proper fashion.

 

We made our way back home, back to watching the Chelsea - Manchester United game, back to our Kibbutz families, and back to bed as curfew came calling.

 

Signing out,

Elli Izrailov