November in Arad

This entry has been republished in the November OTZMA Newsletter

On November 2^nd the six members of OTZMA’s Israel Teacher Corps started the second phase of our program. While two of us – Sarah Adler (Baltimore) and Rachel Baum (Metro West) will be staying in Ashkelon for the duration of the year, Shauna Gamsey (Miami) and Lauren Hyman (Atlanta) as well as Jason Winkler (New York) and myself, Arielle Waite (Southern New Jersey) all packed up to move down to the Negev.

Shauna and Lauren will be spending the year in Yerucham, working in both a secular high school and a religious girls’ school. Jason and I are now living in Arad – a small working class town one hour outside of Be’er Sheva. Jason spends four days a week in the high school and one day at the Chalamish elementary school. I split my time between the Chalamish elementary school and the Ye’elim-Ofarim elementary school.

During our first week in town our Jewish Agency representative helped us to set up our home for the next 8 months. She took us on walking tours of the town so that we would be able to find our way around, showed us the best places to buy our groceries and produce, and even introduced us to a delegation of 11^th graders who will be heading to New Jersey at the beginning of December.

The next week began our placements in the schools. Jason is up in the high school working with the students so that they will be ready for their Oral Bagruit exam. The Bagruit is a national test a lot like the New York Regents. It is given to students at the end of their high school career, and since one of the sections is English, Jason has been enlisted full time to help the students get ready.

I found out that I will be working in Ye’elim-Ofarim 4 days a week with all of the 5^th and 6^th grade classes. While the teacher is working in the classroom with the students I take one or two out into the hallway to work on the lesson in a more personal manner. For some students this means speeding up the work so they will not be bored, for others it means teaching the material in a completely different way to accommodate different learning styles. I even have a few non-readers in my classes, so I break it down to the basics and help them learn how to read and write in English.

At Ye'elim-Ofarim the students who are advanced in English are lucky enough to have an extra period at the end of the day when they take an advanced course. The 6th graders in the advanced course are working on a computer presentation. This presentation is to be done completely in English, and when finished will be sent to their penpals in New Jersey. This has also become my special project because the English teacher does not feel comfortable with computers. Every Monday for an hour and a half after school I work with this class of 15 students, helping them do research, correct grammar mistakes, and fix small computer glitches.

On Thursdays I switch over to the Chalamish elementary school. Here I am working with students from the 3rd to 6th grades. While a lot of what I do is the same at Chalamish, such as starting off my day with a non-reader from the 4th grade class, there are some very big differences. Working with 3rd graders in their first year of English class is a very fun challenge. This is the only class of the week that I am in the classroom. The teacher is at the front of the class, teaching letters to the students, while I am in the back of the room working with the last 2 rows on the same lesson. Both of us weave through the rows helping the students write their letters and running activities to reinforce what we just taught them.

Chalamish does not have an afterschool option for the advanced students in their English classes. The students that are ahead of the class are given a more advanced book, and expected to work in it during the same class period that their peers are working in the regular book. The English teacher has turned the advanced students from both the 5th and 6th grade classes over to me. I take the group into a different classroom and teach them from their books, effectively running my own classroom of roughly 6-7 students during their normal English periods.

In the afternoons Jason and I have volunteering opportunities. Jason works with the Arad baseball team two times a week. He is a supplemental player and coach for the kids, and they love having him there! I spend 1 day a week at the Jewish Agency. For the month of November all of my time has been devoted to getting the 11^th grade delegation we met with the first day ready to go to the states. They are working on speeches and presentations that they will give at a few different high schools in New Jersey during their weeklong visit. In the coming weeks Jason and I will start volunteering at 3 more places around the town.

Right now we are in the middle of the last week before the Hannukah break. The kids are very excited for a week off, and keeping them focused in school is proving a little challenging. We have parties and sing-alongs, eat Hannukah treats and have a lot of fun. As much as the kids are looking forward to the break, so are Jason and I. The rest of the Israel Teaching Corps will be staying with us here in Arad for a training session during the break, and we will even be celebrating a birthday for one of our own! If this first month is anything to go by, the next 7 months in Arad will be both challenging and fun, and will go by entirely too quickly.

Rosh Hashana Sept 8-11

This week Jason and I went down to Arad to spend Rosh Hashana with our host families. We started out together on the bus from Ashkelon to Be'er Sheva, but when we made the transfer to the Be'er Sheva -Arad bus, the driver closed to door between Jason and I, causing us to take two different buses down. When I arrived I was picked up by my host mom Ofra and her three kids, Noam, Ayala and Amitai. Noam is 10.5, her sister Ayala is 8 and Amitai is a wonderful 3 year old little boy.

We immediately went shopping for some last minute things for the holiday dinner and to grab some cereal for my house. We then headed back to her house, which is across the street from the house I will be living in from November until June. Ofra gave me a tour of my house and left me to get my stuff settled in while she headed over to her own house.

The rest of the evening set the sequence of events for the whole holiday. I went over to the house and played with the kids for a few hours. This was everything from arts and crafts with the girls to a rousing game of “Afo Tomas?” (translated, “where is Thomas?”) with Amitai. “Afo Tomas” happens just about every 30 minutes when he comes over to you, asks where is Thomas and then we start the hunt for his favorite of the Thomas the Tank Engine characters. Every once in awhile though thegame becomes “Afo Percy” and we begin the search all over again. The main reason that these toys kept getting lost is they are the pull back style – you pull the car back to wind up the “engine” and let it go to skitter across the room. Eventually I convinced him that playing on the track would be just as good and we no longer had to look very far to find Thomas, Percy or even Emily. (And yes, I can name all the characters now – and sing the 'Roll Call' song.)

After spending time with the kids I helped Ofra with dinner a little bit (grating veggies for the salad) and attempted to pick up the hebrew words for the vegetables I was using. Then I headed back to my house to change for dinner, and the whole family walked down the road to Savta and Saba's house. (Grandma and Grandpa). The grandparents know a little bit of English (they started out telling me they knew none, but kept coming up with phrases when I got completely stuck with my very limited hebrew vocalubary) but mainly we talked through Ofra or her sister who would translate back and forth.

My first day in Arad (Wednesday) repeated again on Thursday and very closely followed on Friday as well. The only difference being that on Thursday night Jason and I met up with Abir to go out to the local pub and figure out the town a little better. Ofra knew Abir because she helped him interview for a position that is taking him to New Jersey for the next year to teach Hebrew (sound familiar?). Since he is leaving on Monday meeting up with him was wonderful, we told him what we could about the area he would be in while he introduced us to some of his friends and the town.

On one of the days the girls took me on a walk down to the overlook. (The same overlook that Otzma visited on our first week.) Noam packed up a bag for us with water, cups and the Hebrew/English dictionary, while I brought along a camera.

Ayala and Noam

Amitai

The whole trip to Arad was a lot of fun and I feel like I really get along with my host family. Saba even asked if I could move in with them and help out his wife around the house instead of living down the street! I am definitely looking forward to moving down to Arad now.

September 7th

Today we were invited by the Mercaz Klitah to a Rosh Hashana party being thrown by the kids. We all gathered downstairs in the patio area of building 1, and were immediately seized upon by the kids-just like always!

 Eventually though things calmed down a bit and we sat down for a bit of a Rosh Hashana explanation- first in Hebrew and then in English.

 We passed around apples, honey and honey cakes and sang together. Then they kids came around with Rosh Hashana cards that they had made for us. We also retreived some crayons and paper and created cards for the kids and had fun passing those out too.
No party is complete without dancing though, so we started up the music and spent about half an hour just dancing and playing with the kids.

Slichot Seminar September 6

We got information about our Slichot seminar a few days ago, and found out that we would be leaving Ashkelon at 1:30am to head out to Jerusalem. While most people thought about taking naps before we left, it didn't really happen for most of us. We all headed out to the bus in the dark and proceeded to sleep the whole way into the city. Once we got there we met up with our lecturer/guide Jared.
Jared led us into the city and we all sat down to read about Rosh Hashana from some parsha portions and writings. There were some really great discussions about why we do Slichot prayers, and the differences between how they are done by Ashkenazi and Sephardic jews.
For anyone that doesn't know what Slichot is, allow me to explain. Slichot is a time period in which you are supposed to pray for forgiveness from God and work on repenting for the bad things that you have done during the last year. In the states we tend to be taught that this is all done during the 10 day period between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, but in reality it is different depending on your sect. The Ashkenazi start the Slichot prayers on the Shabbat prior to Rosh Hashana, while the Sephardic actually perform slichot prayers for the entirety of the (Jewish) month prior to Rosh Hashana up until Yom Kippur - 40 days. The slichot prayers are supposed to be performed during the night, and usually as close to the start of the morning prayer as possible, this means that the prayers are started somewhere between 3:30-4:00am.

The reason that we were in the city at 3am was so we could sit on an overlook over the Kotel (Wall) and hear the Slichot prayers while we discussed the impact this holiday season has on us.
During our seminar we were asked to break into pairs and discuss our past year, and anything we may have regretted. I sat with Lauren and we talked about our last year and found that we had quite a bit in common.
After visiting the wall we regathered again and headed through the city, we climbed up to the top of the city and settled in to watch the sunrise. From where we were sitting we could watch as the sun came up from behind the hills and rose into the sky.

Sept 2nd

Sorry for the hiatus, I went on a trip to Egypt (and yes I will write about it!) and got out of the habit of updating.
This will be the last of the one per day posts, from now on updates will be about just the big events/holidays/fun things that happen.

Today was fairly uneventful, though we did have a meeting with a lady from Masa Israel. Masa is a program dedicated to helping bring people to Israel for long-term programs (5-10 months). Otzma is a Masa program, so the representative came to see how we were doing and see if we had any input on how our program is going so far.
After the meeting with our representative we headed over to the Ulpan building for testing. None of us knew what exactly this would entail, we were nervous since we did not want to get placed into the wrong Hebrew class! For my test I walked in and sat down with a woman in one of the classrooms. She asked me if I knew any Hebrew and I truthfully told her that I do not know very much, just what I learned through Rosetta stone. She then proceeded to ask me about my Alef Bet (which I do know) and then if I could spell out words if they are said to me. I told her that I could and she thanked me for my time.
After I walked out of the test I was told by my fellow Otzmanikim that they were having some trouble since they had so many more people in Kitah Alef than Bet (Alef is the 1st level, Bet is 2nd) and I started to worry that they were searching for a reason to place me in it. Gosh I hope not!

September 1st

Today we had a group volunteer day. So at 8am we all loaded up onto the bus with our packed lunches and headed out. We were going to a student village near באר שבע(Be'er Sheva) called Ayalim. This is one village in a series that had been started a few years back in order to relocate young and idealistic people into the Negev and Galilee. These two areas combined cover 80% of the country, but only have 8% of the population located within them. Israel has a feeling of use it or lose it when it comes to this problem, but does not seem to be able to get people to move into these areas very easily, despite trying to move factories and industry into the area.
As I said, this is a student village and all the inhabitant are students. These students live in the volunteer village (and in fact build them!) while being full time students on scholarships at the University located near their village. We spent some time watching a recruitment video on the program and having questions answered by one of the higher ups in the organization before (figuratively) rolling up our sleeves and getting to work.

We were split up into about 5 groups, the first was working on pruning flowering plants etc. on a walkway between some of the houses. The second group (the one I was in) was pulling out the plants that had grown out into to the paths around the building in the background of the above picture. The third group was working on laying out a gravel terrace area, while group 4 was transporting all the gravel from the gravel pit. Group 5 was our two lovely water girls who made sure we all stayed hydrated throughout the day.

I started out working with David, Shauna, Max and Tracy on pulling out plants and sweeping down the sidewalks when I came to a Rosemary bush that had grown out over half of the path. Unfortunately Rosemary grows from one central trunk, so you cannot just pull out the offending parts, you need to take a saw to the plant to prune it. For the next 2.5 hours I worked on this bush with an old hand saw, and eventually the path was clear.

The upper part of this path was blocked by a Rosymary bush. The black hose is an irrigation hose, it will be placed better in the future to allow plants to grow despite the desert conditions.

The upper gravel terrace - this area was just sand before the group laid out tarp, irrigation hoses and gravel.

On my way back from dumping some of the clippings from my Rosemary bush (it took 4 wheelbarrow loads to get it all moved!) I noticed a part of the entrance sign we could not see from the bus.

I thought it was a beautiful sign and a perfect sentiment for the type of work that is being done with this village.

At the end of the day we were all hot, sweaty and tired. But knew we had made a difference. As a group that came to Israel specifically to volunteer, we were all itching to get our hands dirty and do some actual work. Today was perfect.

August 31st

Today was a fairly slow day. We started out at 9am with a few presentations on different volunteer opportunities in Ashkelon. I really liked the sound of the after school daycare at the conservative temple. We also went to a boys and girls club style after school gym, and a organization that helps mentally disabled adults. At this point ITC had a mini meeting while the rest of the group went on to hear a few more opportunities. We found out that we already had our volunteer opportunity set up for us -we will be going to an after school program 2 times a week to tutor 5th grade girls and 9th grade boys on their English work. The way it is set up is that we will spend half the time with each group doing homework and the other half playing learning games. While I am really excited for this program with Emunah, I wish we had not heard about all the other wonderful opportunities when they are not actually options for us.
After the ITC meeting we met up with the bigger group again and were all dropped off for lunch at an outdoor bazaar style area with shops lining the street. And we broke off into small groups to grab a bite and look around before heading back to the bus. When we got to the bus we were joined by a local teen that pointed out some of the "main attractions" of Ashkelon on a 1/2 hour long ride around the town.

Pier at the marina .5 miles from the מרכז קליטה

Later that evening after dinner and such a large portion of our group gathered at the front gate of the מרכז קליטה for a walking tour to Afridar Center - the local shopping/dinning area. We all wondered around once we got there and finally all settled at a very long table at the local pub.

Photo op!

We all hung out for a while and talked - it seems that we are really getting to know each other now and it just feels natural to all be sitting around talking in this place across the world from home.

August 30th

Today we started out with a light breakfast (cakes... seriously, am I the only person who does not think chocolate should be included in breakfast?) and then went on a short tour of the מרכז קליטה (absorption center). Which consisted mostly of: this is a building, this is another building, and the computer room is over there... ok it was a lot more informative than that, but it was 7:15am and I don't have my bearings in the center yet.
After the whirlwind tour of the we מרכז קליטה got separated into our three groups of the day. We had 3 things to do, pack up boxes of food for the less fortunate for Rosh Hashana, go grocery shopping, and finish unpacking our rooms. I was put in charge of group 1 as the contact person - making sure we were all on the bus etc - totally unnecessary since our מדריך (kinda of like a guide/educator - it does not exactly translate) was with us for the majority of the time.
Anyhow, we got to the first place to pack up the boxes and found out they had already been packed and we would be going out to deliver them instead. I helped load up cars for the first hour or so, and worked on my numbers a little bit - I can confidently count up to 4 now! Finally I was placed in a car with 3 men... only one of whom spoke any English, and it was not very much. When we got to the first building the youngest man looked at me and started saying Lo, lo (no, no) when I tried to pick up a box. I finally convinced him that I could carry the box and he pointed to the building, said "arbah" (four) and handed me the small box of veggies. This apparently meant that we were going to the 4th floor. At the next apartment we repeated the same process again, only this time he said "shesh" (six) and we were on our way. When we got to the final building he pointed to the building and said something I did not understand (I was later told he probably said "shomonai" since I counted 8 floors) and then just started pointing to the roof which I took to mean the top floor - I was right. Now these things only matter since all of the buildings were walk-ups with little to no lighting in the stairways. Interesting to say the least.
Next we were off to the shopping center to do our grocery shopping. Along the way we saw some evidence of Israeli driving.

Remnants of an accident

Luckily all of my roommates were in my group, so 3 of the 4 of us were able to do some basic apartment shopping together - paper towels, toilet paper etc. Due to some odd mishaps and apparently being too efficient at the volunteering opportunity, the timing got a little messed up and group 1 ended up spending both our room setup and shopping time at the shopping center. 

Milk in a bag!

When we did finally get back to our apartment it was almost time to start cooking for the potluck dinner. We were making a pasta dish, but of course this is when we found out that our gas range is a little interesting to work with. Unless you hold the gas knob in the flame will go out, so finally we filled a pitcher with water and put in front of the knob to hold it in. 
Our pasta was loved by the group when we finally got downstairs, and we all enjoyed a nice meal together before retiring to our apartments for the evening.

August 29th

Today we got up and packed nice and early again to leave Har'el. (Anybody seeing a theme?) Afterwards we all met for a lecture on Israeli Politics entitled Middle East Overview with Neil Lazarus. Neil is an amazing person to have lectures with because you don't feel like you are in a lecture, but you still pick up some really interesting information along the way. The lecture did not last very long, but we did learn a few things, such as how to learn Hebrew in a country where they hear your accent and immediately switch to English, and all English speakers are automatically American. He also handed out really neat business cards that double as a "5-shekel" piece for the grocery carts. (Think Aldi style grocery carts in the States.)
After the lecture we got our rooming assignments for Ashkelon. Turns out my roommate will be Becca, whom I have shared hostel rooms with for this whole past week. Awesome! Since we already knew our assignments for where we would be living once we move onto Part 2 of the year (my federation town Arad!) we all made our way onto the bus without further ado. We stopped for lunch in a "forest", which is really a hand planted area that is now a park, to have a picnic with our Federation representatives from the towns will be in. Jason and I got to know our rep who told us a little more about Arad - a town of roughly 27,000 people, located on the edge of the Negev and home to a fairly large Russian population. She also let us know that we will be living in a 2-bedroom house, and that they have bikes for us. Yay!

View from the overlook in Arad

Finally we all said goodbye and once again got onto our bus - really a home away from home at this point! As usual I fell asleep, so it felt like no time at all before we were in Ashkelon, my home for the next 2 months. We moved our bags into our apartments and started to unpack before the welcome celebration down in the plaza area. We did not have any idea what to expect at the party, but what we did see was wonderful!

Kids! There is a very large Ethiopian group currently living here, and approximately 100 of them are children. There was a dance by 5 of the girls - all around the ages of 8-10, and then a lot of playing with balloons and stickers. All of our guys ended up with little boys riding on their shoulders throughout the afternoon as well. All in all a pretty awesome welcome to Ashkelon.

August 28th

Today was our first Shabbat in Israel. In observance of that fact we were able to sleep in and make our own morning schedule. Our first group activity was an 11am torah study. We broke off into pairs and dissected the text that we were given, finding meaning in the words and reasons for the repetitiveness of certain phrases.
After we finished up our torah study we were once again on our own to observe Shabbat as we saw fit. For most of the group this meant swimming in the Kibbutz pool - the rest of us sat in groups and talked for a few hours.
That evening we all had dinner together and then gathered outside for a Havdalah service. The Havdalah service is held when three stars are visable in the night sky, usually around 40 minutes after sunset. This is one of my favorite services. While it is a service that is often forgotten, it is a beautifully symbolic service that separates Shabbat from the rest of the week, and promises that Shabbat will come around again.
Now that Shabbat was over we all loaded back onto the bus to head into Jerusalem for some fun. The first place we visited was a birthday rally for Gilad Shalit. Today is Gilad's 24th birthday, and he has been held captive for the last 4 years by Hamas - that is 1/6th of his life! Gilad's parents have move from their home in northern Israel to a tent in Jerusalem, parked in front of the Prime Minister's house, in an attempt to pressure the government to get their son back. We were happy to be at the rally, but only stayed for about half an hour, lending our support, but unfortunately not our understanding of the speakers. (We all really wished we had started Ulpan classes!) Once we left the rally we walked around Jerusalem a little bit, found a bar to spend some time at, and eventually headed back to the bus to return to the Kibbutz for the night.

August 27th

Note:
These last two weeks have been non-stop and I have gotten a little behind real time with my posts. Since Israel in general has slowed down for the holiday I hope to catch up with the posts that I have been meaning to put up. For the orientation period I will have posts for each day since we did so much daily. I cannot guarantee that this will be in the case as things get into a rhythm in the future.


Enjoy!

This morning we woke up nice and early and packed up our bags and the bus before breakfast. In Israel when hiking there is no such thing as too early. The country has been in an almost constant heat warning and we need to be off the trails by 11am, so early mornings are just part of the itinerary. Today the hike was through Ein Gedi, a national park area that has wonderful views and a great ending to the hike. When we arrived at the park we started out with a nice yoga/stretching session to get ready to head out. Then we hit the trail.

As you can see it was a bright day on the trail and we were all reaching for water very quickly. The trail started to wind downward slightly and we were greeted with a wonderful sight, and fun hiking conditions:

A stream! As you may or may not know, Ein Gedi is an oasis in the Judean desert. Located near the Dead Sea this area has 4 springs in it that produce water year round. This area is actually used for bottling water and irrigation. For us though it was just a fun day out in nature. The trail continued through the water for a little way, and we found some interesting obstacles - such as a series of rocks that could be climbed fairly easily by the first 2 or 3 people before our wet shoes made the climb too slick. Team working definitely came into play on this hike, by the time I got to the first rock face there was more lifting than climbing going on. (picture borrowed from Whitney)

In the back of the picture you can see climbers being helped up the first part of this rise. Thank you Whitney for taking a picture that illustrates this!

But we all eventually made it up! The trail continued to rise and soon we were once again up on the hot cliff face. At times were were climbing stairways and hoping for a tree, and other times we could see the water down below us.

Finally though we did reach the end of the trail and our main goal of the day. The true oasis we had been working towards.

Of course we all went swimming in the pool at this point. But soon had to pack up and hike back out of the park.

After a morning of hiking the bus made a stop at a look out point, so that we could have a little information session on Israel with our guide, and a first hand view of the wall that is being built through worrisome areas of the country.

The white stripe through the photograph is where the wall is, flanked on both sides by dirt roads used almost exclusively by the military to patrol the wall.

We all got back onto the bus and headed out for the Kibbutz near Jerusalem we were staying at for Shabbat, Har'el. After a quick rest period and some unpacking we got changed into skirts (well, the females at least) and headed over to the community room where some of our fellow Otzmanikim ran a Friday night service for our first Shabbat in Israel. The perfect ending to a wonderful day.

August 26

Day 2: Our day started nice and early with a 6:00a breakfast of crackers and Bedouin tea before we loaded onto the bus and were off to our first hike of the week. There are some great upsides to waking early in a desert, and I caught most of them with my camera (they one thing you cannot see is the much lower temperatures).

The hike we took was through Nachat Tamar, and we encountered some interesting terrain along the way. While this hike does not cover a lot of distance, it does take a few hours to finish because of some unique obstacles.

Our tour guide standing next to car that fell into the canyon we climbed down into.

A three part ladder scaling the canyon wall.

This is where we stopped for a brunch meal to supplement the tea and crackers before continuing on with the hike. Of course there were some spectacular views like these:

After brunch the hike started up again.

Rope used to repel down wall.

Second series of ladders down wall face.

While my fear of heights did make this particular hike a bit of a challenge, it was definintely worth it in the end. This next photo shows the area we hiked out of from the end of the trail.

Once again we loaded up onto the bus, this time to head down to the Dead Sea. We arrived at a wonderful spa where we had a swimming pool, the sea and showers to choose from for our choice of cooling off methods after the hike. (I of course chose all three during the afternoon we spent there.)

What I did not choose to do was get locked in my shower room for 25 minutes. (Nope, no pictures of this one). After trying to get the attention of someone outside, preferably who spoke English (this was not the case), I then started the tedious process of waiting for help. Apparently they needed to find the maintenance guy and a chisel to get the door open, but at least I did pick up a few new Hebrew words.

Our last stop of the evening was at the Eastern lookout in Arad. This spot juts out along the dividing line of the Negev (top) and the Judean desters (bottom). This is also the town I will be living and teaching in for 8 months later this year.

We finally retired to the Arad Youth Hostel where we had a few "getting to know you activities" and spent time talking to each other. When I went to bed I knew I had another long day ahead of me, but if the experiences were going to be as wonderful as today's (well, maybe minus the shower), I knew it would be worth it.

August 24/25

Since I am only now getting the chance to go on the internet, I will be playing a bit of a catch up game for the next day or so as I put up the entries from the last week. I have now been in Israel for 6 full days, and as our madricha puts it -we are no longer tourists. That being said, last week was all about doing the tourist activities and getting in touch with the land of Israel.

Day 1 (24-25/8): This day started out like any other trip - last minute packing and getting out the door later than anticipated, but that only hightened the sense of excitement! At 11am I met up with the group and got onto the dauntingly long line for check-in at the El Al desk. If you have not gone through this before, it is quite the experience. The line winds around and around, and you can actually enter from both ends. About halfway through the line an El Al agent will come up to you with a music stand and paperwork and start asking questions that you would not expect. My favorite was "what is your Hebrew name?" followed up by "why?" After the questioning ends they place tags on all the bags you are checking- although I am not sure what purpose they serve since they do not have the flight number or my name on them- and waive you on to the rest of the line.
After getting out of the line the 16 of us that had assembled so far went through security, also tricky with such a big group, and into the boarding area. Once in the boarding area we picked up the remaining 3 people that would join us (out of the 22 that were supposed to be on the flight) and headed onto the plane. I won't bore you all with the details of a 10 hour flight that included delayed take off and an overtired 9 year old in the seat next to me, but I will put a few pictures of our flight path.
 

We finally arrived at Ben Gurion airport at 7:30a with 19 of the 36 Otzmanikim - having made up our delayed time in the air. We then waited around in baggage claim for a few hours while Elissa and Rachel searched for and finally filled out forms for their lost baggage. (As of today 30/8 one of the girls still has no luggage, but we are hopeful it will show up eventually.) From there it was off to the Jewish Agency campus and our first orientation meeting!

Fast forward through a few hours of paperwork and important information and the whole group loaded up our 1st week bags onto the bus and were off. Our first stop was Tayelet, a plaza with a beautiful view of Jerusalem.

We had an opening ceremony where we said the שהחינו‎ (Shehecheyanu) for the start of our new adventure in Israel, all the while looking at this view and then got back on the bus. From there we had a long ride that took us through Arad (my future home) and down to a Bedouin settlement where we rode camels,

had a traditional Bedouin meal, and were taught about historical and modern Bedouin culture.

 This was followed by a star gazing walk in the desert with a large bright moon and stars for miles. Finally, after being awake almost 35 hours, we all got into our sleeping bags in the large Bedouin tent and drifted off.