30th October 2014

From Bethany Castle and Rachel Vogler

Shalom from the beautiful Kibbutz Lotan! We’ve been very busy this week, we’ll take you through day by day…enjoy!

Wednesday:

We came down to Lotan and settled in our very homely Bustan neighbourhood. We started our time here with an opening circle led by Mark and Debby where we set out aims and expectations.

Thursday:

We started the day with morning celebration led by Mark. Then, we split up into domes in order to clean the Bustan, tasks include helping out with the biogas, watering the plants and the less glamorous job of cleaning the compost toilets.

Then, we split up into groups to get stuck into some work on Lotan, half the group headed to the eco-kef to help out with the compost and the other half started to dismantle the succah. It was hot and sweaty, but worthwhile! Thursday saw our first chinuch session with Mark titled ‘Shabbat as an Ecological Model’, he took us through the luni-solar calendar used in Judaism, and we had some sourced-based discussion of ways in which we can ‘walk slowly’ on Shabbat.

We also had our first potluck dinner, a time for our whole group to spend some time together cooking a meal, the outcome was some yummy paella!

Thursday night was tea-house night, some of us sampled the giant the pieces of chocolate cheesecake and herbal tea, yet another thing to love about to Lotan.

Friday:

We started the day with hebrew setting placements

Lotan/Karmiel talks

Kabbalat Shabbat

Gangahlat Kef

Crazy games

Our first Pub night with lots of dancing!

Saturday:

We had a wonderful lie-in

We had our first shacharit  in the date fields with the Aussies

Fun scavenger hunt

Lots of chill time

Havdalah

We all cooked dinner together with the Aussies

Sunday:

Woke up and hour later (bliss!)

Morning celebration

Bustan clean-up

Group dynamic games with Mark and Debby

Bonfire night with chilling and singing

Monday:

Meditation with Debby in the morning

Practical work on Kibbutz

An interesting with Mark on Non VIolent Communication and the function of safe space

Hebrew lesson with the shinshinim using song and tea

Our first Asepha! (Follow us on @asephfollowus, banter promised)

Chill time

Tuesday:

Morning madness meditation with Bash

Clean the bustan hella yesssss, we’re beginning to work independently (ish)

Practical work on Kibbutz

The magic of compost lesson “waste isn’t waste until it’s wasted”

Hebrew lessons with Hamorah Leah happened

DIN DINS

bant

Wednesday:

Morning madness mundane objects with joe-glynn

introduction to kibbutz movement video (amazing)

Ori solar ovens lesson, made cookies (Beth ate them all)

Peer lead peullah, kinnesset games and wrestling

GOOD WEEK HAD BY ALL

shoutout to 1canadian8months the blog follow babes.

love ya

Bethany Castle and Rachel Vogler (dream team)