Week Two: Learning and Re-learning Israel

After my second week here, I’ve learned some very important things about Israel, the culture, my program rules, and have continued adjusting to life in the desert.

I would like to share with you three things from my week:

1. “Lines” in Israel are equivalent to an American first grade class lining up after recess; every single person is pushing to be first in line.  Now that I've re-experienced it, it's something that I remember from last time I lived here as well. I have a vivid memory of going to the grocery store in Netanya and being full fledged elbowed to the side by an eighty-something year old woman who ended up in front of me to pay.  

Read an article today that introduced Israeli culture, and this was in there! 

2. At my Fulbright orientation this week (where we met the American Ambassador) the U.S. Department of State Regional Security Office presented to us about safety. The officer advised us not to go to the Old City in Jerusalem on Shabbat. Ha. I hope everyone does go because it’s one of the most magical experiences to have as a Jew in Israel.

3. After spending some time in Tel Aviv this week, I was thankful to be living in Sede Boqer: it is ridiculous how cheap my rent is in comparison, I don’t have to gag a few times per block because of looking at watery dog poop that no one cleans up, and I am finally starting to penetrate the close-knit community that exists here.

I finally got an Israeli cell phone plan for my iPhone (thanks to our close friend Yoni) so now I have internet and all my apps, etc. This means that all of you should download an app called What’s App – which allows us to text for free! Yaaahoooooo!

Classes start on Sunday – I am taking two classes about how people can live sustainably with little resources (aka in the desert), a sustainable urban planning class, a hydrology course, and Hebrew! I’m definitely looking forward to learning again, we will just see how I fare with the assigned reading and writing assignments. Homework. Oy vey.  

Date Trees and Judean Desert, near Ein Gedi

Dead sea and Jordanian mountains in the background

Apartment and Lifestyle

Apartment and Lifestyle:

Ok so here are some more details about my life here:

(my apartment when I first arrived)

I live in a single apartment (the only multi-rooms here are for families/couples). I moved into a room with a bed, dresser, couch, bathroom, desk, and kitchen. But the kitchen was completely empty, there are no accessories to the apartment. However, I am a lucky girl because I got here two weeks before the new school year starts, which means all the students who just finished are only leaving now. SO after three days, I have a toaster, kum-kum, broom, silverware, plates, and cups! I am so happy to be so lucky! An empty kitchen is no fun!

I ventured to Beer Sheva (45 min bus ride) yesterday and bought sponges, dish soap, pasta, soups, tea, and veggies. OMG I got three tomatoes, three cucumbers, one avocado, and one carrot for TWO SHEKEL! WHAAAA?! That’s like 50 cents! Daaaaang. Gotta love that open market. Also gotta love that American accent when I speak Hebrew – it’s really hit or miss. In my experience, some Israeli’s love foreigners that speak Hebrew, and others (this happens just as much, if not more) get fed up with you in about 2 seconds and wont speak to you. So anyway, I made friends with that guy so that next time I can get a good deal again.

After the shopping trip yesterday I decided to clean my apartment and move my furniture (with help from an Ethiopian, Chinese guy, and the Zambia guy). Now I feel so much better about living here. It wont be as hot, because I moved my bed to be near my back door so I can open it and get ventilation at night. Tomorrow I want to put up my decorations and organize where to put all my things, now that my furniture is in its right place.

The ambiance here is very academic. Everyone is associated with a professor – either for Masters of Ph.D. And Masters here is not like in America, it’s more like an American Ph.D. A Master degree is very intense here – a big accomplishment. This intimidates me a lot, considering I am entering the masters program with little experience in my supposed thesis topic, haha. Oh well, maybe I can get my masters in something like social sustainability, while doing my Fulbright research separate.

But I have to say, it’s truly inspiring to be around such intelligent people. This school specializes in environmental subjects like ecology, agriculture, and hydrology,  therefore I am constantly surrounded by people who speak the same language as me academically. It’s nuts! We can speak about complicated (or semi-complicated) environmental problems, or design solutions, etc, and everyone is on the same page – everyone is already past square one on environmental comprehension. Very cool. There is compost here! I bring my compost to the garden just down the road and there is some dude who’s job it is to take care of the garden.

Anyway, next week is my Fulbright Orientation. I am excited to go to Tel Aviv, and I am more excited to meet up with the other Fulbrighters. I know I haven’t written anything about Fulbright yet, but I am waiting until I have more info – about my research timeline, etc and then I will write!
 

Arrival to the Holyland!

Friday October 12, 2012

Goodbye America and Shalom Israel!

I arrived on Tuesday October 9 to Israel. Ben Gurion Univeristy sent a taxi driver to come get me – he held a sign with my name on it! It was very exciting! We drove two hours straight to the Sede Boqer campus in the middle of the desert. Literally the middle of nowhere - check it out by clicking here. Quite a different Israel than the one I knew on my gap year. There is one store,  three restaurants, and a post office.

As you might imagine, this is quite a contrast from Los Angeles. It’s been almost four days, and I’ve gone through many feelings already.

Why I find it hard to be here:

What do I do all day? Nothing. Wow. Nothing though, really. Classes haven’t started yet,  nor have I started my research, so I literally have nothing to do all day. I walk around looking for people, but it's often pretty quiet out. 

Also, it is very hot here. I wake up at like 5:30am everyday because it’s so hot. I’m looking to buy a second fan for my room. I hate being hot. poop.

Why I love it here:

Although the day times are very still and hot, the night times have been fun for me. Considering I'm in the middle of no where, there is a surprising amount of things going on at night time. I played Frisbee on Wednesday night at the kibbutz that is 10 minutes from here - there is an email group here in Sede Boqer and people post when they are doing things so that everyone can come, so I caught a ride from someone going. It was awesome! Not only did I get to meet new people, but I totally held my own on the field! Afterwards, there was a going away party for a girl who just finished her studies. I hardly knew anyone, but it was nice to see so many people there. It showed me that they really have a close-knit community here – everyone knows each other and loves each other. Thursday night, I watched the Giant's win the 5th game of the playoffs on a TV in a new friend's apartment. And tonight I am going to a concert and art show in the desert called “desART”. I am hoping that it is something like spending a night at burning man, but I can’t get my hopes up.

A second thing I've truly enjoyed is the international aspect of the school. This is an international campus so there are people from all over the world. I met folks from Mexico, Ethiopia, Jordan, Armenia, Ghana, Italy, Kazakhstan, Zambia, Brazil, and Canada. It is truly amazing. I am learning SO MUCH worldy knowledge. To those of you who only know of Kazakhstan from Borat, well think again. I learned that they speak Russian there. Also, the Kazak girl here, she is Asian looking! Totes didn't know that. The only downside of the international campus is that everyone speaks English. All. The. Time. I’ve spoken Hebrew a little bit and I will tell the Israeli’s here to speak with me. But it’s amazing – my friend from Zambia, he’s been here 6 months and only knows how to say "how are you" in Hebrew. I think that is no good. The students here are experiencing a very different Israel from the one I think of.

Something else I LOVE is that no one locks their bikes. This place is small and so community oriented. No one steals, etc. So you know which bike is yours and you don’t take someone else’s bike. I don’t have a bike yet, but I can’t wait to get one and NOT lock it and it still be there when I come back. Oh bliss.

I also feel very lucky to have the scenery that we have here. I feel like I have the Israeli Grand Canyon here on campus. It’s pretty ridiculous. This canyon is a three minute walk from my apartment:

Wow! And there are always Ibex there. I learned that it’s mating season for the Ibex, so the male does this thing where he stops in front of a woman, and kind of bows his body and sticks his tongue out for the female to look at. He stands there, still like a statue in this silly formation until she either gives him permission to mount her or shakes him away. How funny!

Fulbright here I come!

In March 2012 I was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study water quality in Israel this coming year. I will be based at Ben Gurion university in Be'er Sheva from October 2012 - June 2013. I am very excited! Here is a little blurb that USC wrote about all the students that were granted Fulbrights this year: http://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/1177/thats-right-you-earned-a-fulbright/

Climbing in Rio!

I finally made this climbing video – it was the most adventurous and fun night in Rio!
I was in the hostel and I saw a guy with a harness and climbing shoes, the rest is history as he invited me to a guy’s house that he transformed into a climbing gym. In the middle of Rio. Awesome.

IPOEMA – Sunday June 12 – Monday June 13

IPOEMA – Sunday June 12 – Monday June 13

On the way to IPOEMA we stopped for dinner at a fast pizza place – it was the first meal for me in a while that was not picked from the nearest garden or farm…and it was GOOD!!! Haha. But I could definitely feel the difference; I didn’t feel as fresh and light afterwards, but instead I felt weighted down and greasy.

In the car ride I learned a lot about IPOEMA. IPOEMA is actually not an ecovillage, but instead it is much like IPEC and acts as a training center. They are an NGO and apply to governmental funds to pay for the courses and to put elementary schools through their environmental education program. They have three locations, all just outside of Brasilia. At these locations they teach PDC (permaculture design courses), agroforestry, bio-construction and hold their environmental education program. IPOEMA was started by a family that has four sons – all of which are now grown and run the organization.

IPOEMA is relatively new – they started to organize in the 1990s, but became an NGO in 2005. They are most definitely still in the building stages. The vision of the future for IPOEMA is to build a small ecovillage for the sons on one of the three locations. They also plan on building a guest house to hold all of the course participants during the ten day courses.

Here at IPOEMA I got to ask Luiza a ton of questions about how all the processes work. I learned how the compost toilets actually turn poop into soil and I learned which plant species are good for water filtration. Luiza and I hung out on the roof of the building I slept in – a green roof which is perfect for sunbathing, insulation, and rainwater collection! Luiza was SOO sweet with me and answered all my questions and took me and Jair on a tour of the site we were at. While walking around I got to see how creative they were with reusing plastic bottles – they used them for art/decoration, sprinklers, water proofing, and light blub covers. I just loved seeing all those uses for a recycled material!

From there, Leandro, one of Claudio’s brothers, drove me to the airport so I could catch a flight to Rio and he gave me a bunch of Brasiliero musica!

I had the most positive experience EVER at IPOEMA. Jair, Luiza, Claudio, and Leandro were all so accommodating and caring. They didn’t even know me, but they took time out of their Sunday/Monday just to teach me about what they were doing there. I was just overwhelmed with happiness to be spending time with such amazingly sweet Brazilians. I was sad that I couldn’t express in Portuguese how thankful I really was – only Luiza spoke English. I was sad to leave such wonderful company, but I pretty much saw all that I could at IPOEMA in one day and got all of my questions answered.

Off to Rio!!

Cool ways that IPOEMA reuses plastic bottles:

For Sprinklers -




Art flowers -



To water proof the light in the shower room -



To grow plants in -

Cowboy Festival! June 11-12

It’s time to fill in a few of the missing holes → I’m going to back track and tell you about the places I didn’t write about.

Saturday-Sunday June 11-12

Last weekend I was still at IPEC, but I spent most of Saturday and Sunday in Pirenopolis, the closest town. The walk into town is about a 45 minute walk through pastures and farms. Pirenopolis is not a “happenin” city and there isn’t really any reason for Brasilians to visit it. However, this weekend was the one weekend out of the whole entire year that Pirenopolis has a huge festival called Festas de Cavalhadas. This festival reenacts a battle fought between the Moors and the Christians a very long time ago. Each year, men from Pirenopolis get onto horses and dress themselves and their horses up in elaborate decorations. Then there is a jousting competition in a huge arena.

I went with the American university students at IPEC into town and on Saturday we just explored and did a little shopping. On Sunday we saw all the horsemen and attempted to watch the jousting, but the stadium was crowded and it was hot out. Then in the afternoon I said goodbye to the Americans and to beautiful IPEC and boarded a bus to Brasilia to head on to the next ecovila (called IPOEMA).

On Sunday night I arrived at the Brasilia bus station, which is even larger than the Tel Aviv bus station. Upon my arrival I called Luiza, a very nice woman who I made arrangements to meet up with. Luiza had graciously offered me a ride from the bus station to IPOEMA because she said public transportation is hard to get, especially at night time. She was also picking up an incoming work volunteer named Jair, and it was my job to meet up with Jair because he had a cell phone that Luiza could reach us on.

I did not see him at my entry area (where I was told he would be waiting) so I went and bought a local phone card and gave him a call. Turns out he didn’t speak any English, haha, so I communicated to him as best I could that I was American (de los esatod unidos), wearing a large backpacking backpack (mochila grande) and I would wait for him at the “desembarcar” area. I proceeded to the disembark sign and walked around looking for someone who might be looking for me. I received no welcoming stares, not even from the person who I hesitatingly asked “Jair?”… So I took out my ipod and plopped down and sat on the ground right smack in front of the desembarcar sign. A few moments later a man came and knelt down next to me and asked, “Nina?” Haha, yay! He found me! I was so happy! Jair and I communicated pretty dang well with a mix of Spanish and Portuguese. There were definitely parts of the conversation where I repeated, ‘no en-ten-gee’ (I don’t understand) but Jair was nice and accommodating with my comprehension level.

By a few waves of a hand and a description of our location and appearance, Luiza found us in the middle of the bus station. We headed outside and got into the car with Claudio (one of the founders of IPOEMA). I was so happy to have found my group and I was excited to see what IPOEMA was all about.