12 September 2006

The morning felt like I was working for birthright israel again – a quick wakeup/shower/breakfast/caffeine intake/boarding the bus before fully waking up. A half of the group didn't get to their connecting flight in time (and turns out their luggage didn't arrive), so it was only a handful of us this morning. Off we went in a sherut to a moshav (a cooperative village where residents keep their personal earnings).
We got split up for tasks. Mine? Baggin' bananas. Each task consisted of the following: Setting up a 7-foot metal ladder with an attached leg, covering the fruited stalk with a bright blue piece of plastic (or nylon as they call it here), and tying the top off around a leaf. I'm definitely not complaining, and not just because the job was in the shade – I actually enjoy manual labor. Perhaps some of you who know me reading this are laughing, but I don't care. There's definitely something to be said about Jews working the land (any land, for that matter), seeing Jewish women working the land, getting one's hands dirty in the land here, and helping bring food to fellow neighbors' tables.
After work we took another Terror Tour, this one planned and following where katyushas fell in the last month. We traveled to a cow shed that was struck, a kibbutz where an American was struck dead while riding his bicycle, and the seaside Israel-Lebanon border at Rosh Hanikra, composed of white limestone cliffs with a sweeping view of Israel's Mediterranean coast and the unknown lurking behind the IDF tanks and UN vehicles (pictures to come soon).
The other half of the group finally came, we ate, and I snuck back to my room to watch what some would call a guilty pleasure and others total trash: soap operas. Israel is transfixed with the Latin American-style soap operas called "telenovelas," which only last for several months. The latest Israeli series, called "Ha-Alufa" ("The Championship"), concerns a fictional Jerusalem soccer team and has dialogue in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, and English. The plot and subplots are so exaggerated and intertwined, I would be foolish (and more of a nerd than necessary here) to go through it. I'm finally up to date with the episodes, which is great considering that Oscar is alive!