Crazy Part One

Okay, I'm about a day behind with blogging, but I think I can catch up! This post is about our adventures on Tuesday 8/20.

Monday's schedule flowed really nicely - as I said in my last post, everything we did was connected. In contrast, Tuesday's schedule was crazy and completely disjointed. It's also worth noting that from early Tuesday morning until Wednesday evening, I did not have access to wifi or a shower. The lack of wifi is why I'm a day behind here. As I tell you about what we did during that time, you'll understand why the lack of showers was noteworthy. Also, I am really exhausted right now, so I apologize in advance for any incoherence.

Tuesday started with a lovely morning trip to the beach in Netanya. The waves were huge and crazy, the weather was beautiful, and we had such a wonderfully relaxing time. After too short a time (I could have stayed at the beach all day), we drove into Tel Aviv. We took a brief tour at Independence Hall and learned about the founding of the State of Israel. We actually sat in the room where the declaration took place and listened to an audio recording of the declaration while our overly enthusiastic tour guide ran around acting out all the different parts.

Next we went to lunch in the Carmel Market. Sadly, I wasn't able to explore the market, but not too sad, because instead, I split off from the group and had lunch with my cousin Lisa! It was great to spend some time with her, even though it was way too short. We ate at a wonderful little Italian place, and we caught each other up on family happenings, talked about the trip, and even talked some Israeli politics. Ever since I was young, I remember hearing, "When you go on a Taglit trip, you'll spend some time with Lisa," so I was really happy to be able to do that!

After lunch, we drove to a kibbutz to learn about a program taking place there. UJA, one of the sponsors of our trip, runs a program called Tech Career, which focuses on training young Ethiopian Jews to go into high tech, one of the biggest career fields in Israel. We learned about the history of the Ethiopian Jews. I remember being fascinated when I learned about this in Hebrew school, and it was just as fascinating to hear a second time. I'm not going to go into it here, but please look it up or ask me if you want details! Anyway, we met a bunch of the students in the program and had the opportunity to talk with them. Unfortunately, it was way too structured, so the interaction felt really forced. There was also a big language barrier, as their English was just about as good as our Hebrew (not very). Overall, not a highlight of the trip.

After this, the day only got weirder, as we drove down to the Negev desert and prepared to spend the night in a Bedouin tent. This was a fabulous, totally out of this world experince that I can't even begin to capture in writing. We got to the campsite and set up in our tents - all the women in one big tent, and all the men in another. We took some time to walk around the enclosure. There were a couple of other groups there too. Then we sat down to dinner. I had been told that this meal would be very meat-heavy, so I brought granola bars just in case, but to my surprise and delight, they served soy schnitzel for the vegetarians! To my further surprise and delight, it was delicious! Probably my favorite meal on the trip. There were also Israeli salads, pita, and yummy tea and cookies for dessert.

After dinner, we met with an older Bedouin man who spoke with us about the Bedouins, their history, and their traditions of hospitality. He was great, he painted a beautiful picture of life in the desert, including advice on how to avoid being attacked by hyenas, wolves, and scorpions! He also played music for us on a cool tribal instrument similar to a guitar, but with Middle Eastern tuning instead of Western. At Scripps, I had heard many recordings of Eastern music with different scales and tuning, but it was a totally different experience to see it played live in front of me.

At this point, it was dark out, so we walked out of the campsite further into the desert to do some group stargazing. There was a gorgeous full moon, and you could see millions of stars. The desert at night was quiet and peaceful, and they gave us some muchneeded time to meditate. I was completely blown away by the hugeness of it all.
Here I am sitting in the middle of the night, halfway around the world from home, in the desert written about in the Bible where Jews wandered for 40 years trying to find Israel - heady stuff! After some guided meditation, we walked back to the camp to find a bonfire waiting for us! We sat around the bonfire for a bit, but I was exhausted and headed to the tent to get some sleep.

What a crazy day, but the crazy was just getting started... more tomorrow!