Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Ramat Hashofet
We live on Kibbutz Ramat Hashofet in the North of Israel. Its basically just kibbutzim where we live, a different kind of the middle of nowhere, but less nowhere than Holit. Its really awesome here, we have a much bigger house than in Nahariya and the area here is absolutely gorgeous. Plants and trees and rolling green hills everywhere, plus its really getting to be summer weather. Even going on a car ride to work or something is amazing just because everything everywhere is so beautiful. I'll have to take some pictures.
We have a reletively full schedule here, which is really awesome after being in Nahariya, where our major downfall came from inproductivety, laziness, boredom, etc. We have Hebrew class on Sundays and Thursdays, kibbutz work on Mondays and half of Tuesdays, teaching in an Arab village half of Tuesdays and on Wednesdays, and some kvutza time in the afternoon on Wednesdays.
We have only one Hebrew teacher and many, many different levels of Hebrew, so our teacher is starting from the very beginning, and those in the class who know Hebrew well, can speak well, but want to improve, don't feel the class is relevant. There are also those who are really fluent in Hebrew and don't want to take a class, so they work on an ecological farm, with plants and animals, on a nearby kibbutz, and they will be starting Arabic lessons. For me the class is definitely not my level, but I enjoyed helping and explaining to my friends. I didn't learn anything so far, but I had fun. It looks like we are going to have another teacher come, but I wonder how it will be. The others who know Hebrew know from speaking with their families, they have very good vocabulary, but they don't know very well how to read, write, spell or conjugate, things like that, which are basically the only things I know really well in Hebrew. We'll see though.
In the beginning, I worked in a catering place at a nearby kibbutz. Really fun characters there, and there are lots of different tasks to do in a day so its really fun and the time passes very well. For this month or so, though, I will be working in the garden, and I'm not exactly sure what it will entail so far. Yesterday in gardening we painted a playground all day. It was pretty boring. Time went by really slowly. Today we moved tree, bush and vine clippings on to a tractor. It was a lot more active and I got to practice Hebrew with the people we work with, we did more things, moved around more, saw more of the kibbutz, it was much more fun. I'm excited about this job. Later on I really plan to work in the kitchen, though.
The school we work in is a middle school in an Arab village called Barta'a. The story is that half the village is on the Israeli side of the green line and the other half in the Palestinian side. The village is almost all of the same family, so thats a pretty crazy thing to be real. For a few decades there was no mobility between the two halves, the Israeli side prospered much more, has better infrastructure, more money & support, and the halves developed different identities. Now, the green line is no real border, you can just look at the dried riverbed that it is defined by, but those who live on the Arab side need all these papers and permits to live and work, and there are identity checks to make sure no one of the Palestinian side is in the Israeli side without permission, arrests and such, its crazy. So the school is in the West side, the Israeli side, and the students there all either live in the Israeli side or have mothers born on the Israeli side and therefore some kind of relevant Israeli identity. Its all really really confusing and crazy and so silly when you just look at this riverbed. I'll take pictures. Its also incredibly, incredibly beautiful there. The houses are amazing, all on hills, the rocks and the pine trees... its unreal.
In the school, we teach English classes, run a drama program, and run discussions/activities for the older students who are interested in it, things where we can really bring in our own things and think critically with these kids. The kids are really awesome, they're so excited and enthusiastic, really, really friendly and happy and cute. Its really going to be a wonderful time there.
Mmm thats about it for now. I'm trying to put the pictures I've taken so far on facebook but its not going so well... dunno. Cool. Peace.
We have a reletively full schedule here, which is really awesome after being in Nahariya, where our major downfall came from inproductivety, laziness, boredom, etc. We have Hebrew class on Sundays and Thursdays, kibbutz work on Mondays and half of Tuesdays, teaching in an Arab village half of Tuesdays and on Wednesdays, and some kvutza time in the afternoon on Wednesdays.
We have only one Hebrew teacher and many, many different levels of Hebrew, so our teacher is starting from the very beginning, and those in the class who know Hebrew well, can speak well, but want to improve, don't feel the class is relevant. There are also those who are really fluent in Hebrew and don't want to take a class, so they work on an ecological farm, with plants and animals, on a nearby kibbutz, and they will be starting Arabic lessons. For me the class is definitely not my level, but I enjoyed helping and explaining to my friends. I didn't learn anything so far, but I had fun. It looks like we are going to have another teacher come, but I wonder how it will be. The others who know Hebrew know from speaking with their families, they have very good vocabulary, but they don't know very well how to read, write, spell or conjugate, things like that, which are basically the only things I know really well in Hebrew. We'll see though.
In the beginning, I worked in a catering place at a nearby kibbutz. Really fun characters there, and there are lots of different tasks to do in a day so its really fun and the time passes very well. For this month or so, though, I will be working in the garden, and I'm not exactly sure what it will entail so far. Yesterday in gardening we painted a playground all day. It was pretty boring. Time went by really slowly. Today we moved tree, bush and vine clippings on to a tractor. It was a lot more active and I got to practice Hebrew with the people we work with, we did more things, moved around more, saw more of the kibbutz, it was much more fun. I'm excited about this job. Later on I really plan to work in the kitchen, though.
The school we work in is a middle school in an Arab village called Barta'a. The story is that half the village is on the Israeli side of the green line and the other half in the Palestinian side. The village is almost all of the same family, so thats a pretty crazy thing to be real. For a few decades there was no mobility between the two halves, the Israeli side prospered much more, has better infrastructure, more money & support, and the halves developed different identities. Now, the green line is no real border, you can just look at the dried riverbed that it is defined by, but those who live on the Arab side need all these papers and permits to live and work, and there are identity checks to make sure no one of the Palestinian side is in the Israeli side without permission, arrests and such, its crazy. So the school is in the West side, the Israeli side, and the students there all either live in the Israeli side or have mothers born on the Israeli side and therefore some kind of relevant Israeli identity. Its all really really confusing and crazy and so silly when you just look at this riverbed. I'll take pictures. Its also incredibly, incredibly beautiful there. The houses are amazing, all on hills, the rocks and the pine trees... its unreal.
In the school, we teach English classes, run a drama program, and run discussions/activities for the older students who are interested in it, things where we can really bring in our own things and think critically with these kids. The kids are really awesome, they're so excited and enthusiastic, really, really friendly and happy and cute. Its really going to be a wonderful time there.
Mmm thats about it for now. I'm trying to put the pictures I've taken so far on facebook but its not going so well... dunno. Cool. Peace.
# posted by Anna Schuman @ 11:38 AM 
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