From Louis Graham and Aleks David (Netzer Germany)
Despite our full week off for Chofesh, we all seemed to fall back into Karmiel life fairly easily. With most people now having all of their volunteering sorted, it seems that Karmiel is finally falling into place for us…shame it took a month for that to happen.
As channukah festivities came to an end, it was time for one last hurrah with our lovely chaverim from B’nei Akiva, visiting the holocaust museum in Akko. An intriguing experience for many of us, the galleries provided many new perspectives and facts on what took place in Europe in the early 1940s, especially in the Warsaw Ghetto. For myself, it was an incredibly eye-opening experience hearing about the big role youth groups and their leaders took in organization and survival in the ghetto. What made the experience even more unique was that we went on Christmas day, which, for most of us was a completely new experience, solidifying a major difference between Israeli and other Western societies.
However, in true Shnat Liv Luv fashion, we took it upon ourselves to whip up a feast for Christmas, showing our Shnat Sherut (shinshin) neighbours what a true Christmas meal is all about, featuring three roast chickens, crowns for everyone, and “family friendly” jokes courtesy of Mr. Glyn-Davies. For their first Christmas dinner, I’d say we did a pretty good job for the shinshinim.
Overall, the post chofesh week has been fairly easy and chilled out for us, and Karmiel is back up and running thanks to our presence once again. Myself and some of the other Karmielniks went to sing at an old folks home to sing some songs – five crying senior citizens is a success in my book!
Happy New Year everyone, see you in 2015!!!!
Weekly report by Aleks D (Lotan)
My dear beloved parents and friends,
This week on Kibbutz Lotan was really exciting and fun. On Thursday we had a really nice christmas potluck dinner with chips and eggs. Afterwards we made a lovely bonfire and sang songs together and had alot of kef(fun).
On Friday we worked as usual and had a really nice evening service. Afterwards we went to Lotan pub. Alot of new people from different Kibbutzim came and we had a great night making new friends.
On Saturday we had dinner with our hostfamilys. After Dinner we made a bonfire again from 10:30 till 1:30. Afterwards Johnny, Rachel and Josh came with me to the Refet(dairy) to join me for abit of my morning shift at 2am to experience the refet life and to milk the damn cute cows.
On Sunday we had a regular working day followed by wine’o clock.
On Monday we celebrated Beths birthday with a really special game show followed by a big party.
Tuesday is our yom chinuch. We started our educational day with a maamad followed by a sharing circle. Afterwards we went on a really exciting hike with our friend Michael Livny. After the hike and lunch Johnny and Rachel organized a kef peula.Afterwards we finally had our cleanup day and made our messed up balagan house pretty again.
On wednesday before the new years eve Pub we had a nice prepubkef session with our kvutzah but also with some KoolKibbutzKids. We went then to pub bring in the new year with the rest of the kibbutz.
All in all it was a good week, but i have to say even though we enjoy our work we cant wait for our free saturday, because work is really hard and exhausting.
Lots of Love your Lotanikks