The land of milk and honey (Israel - Part 1)
Trip Start
Sep 18, 2009
1
13
15
Trip End
Apr 13, 2010
Yavne, HaMerkaz, Israel
Sunday, November 1, 2009
As the main landing gears contacted the runway of David Ben Gurion Airport, it begun to sink in that I would not be visiting this country, but living here for two and a half months. I can think of no other foreign land where the religious traditions and language reminds me of celebrating holidays with my family. Oh, and it helped that the woman I fell for this summer in Chicago had recently moved to Israel for the year.
I could have easily slid a piece of scrap paper in my passport and had the Israeli
customs agent stamp it , precluding me from inevitable trouble at the Malaysian border later in the year, however I did not want to deny that I visited this ancient land
Coasting in from the Med. - Tel Aviv Beach!
. My first order of business was to retrieve my Israeli cell phone that I had ordered on line a few nights ago. It was in a town named Lod, which is only understood by the locals if you pronounce it correctly. I attempted to walk to the office from the train station, which turned out to be a very poor idea. I gave up and hopped in a cab which drove me partially there as he could not find the exact address. Three wrong buildings later, I finally found my destination. Once inside, grabbing my phone was a breeze, a young lady from the suburbs of Chicago set me up. It's funny how I can feel so far away from home one minute and the next, be making fun of Midwestern winters with a fellow Chicagoan. I was slightly disappointed to be reachable again via my new mobile phone. The next portion of the journey flew by and before I knew it I was in Ashkelon. Once off the train, I was about one mile away from someone I had been waiting to see for two long months. There was a big hug followed by a very relaxing few days catching one another up on the last few months. I did have an absolutely epic lunch of freshly made falafel and an orange soda. The party of flavors that took place in my mouth was indescribable. I felt as though I had the best of both worlds. No, not a falafel and orange soda, but good thinking. I was going to be living in another country and I had my Chicago girl back.
After some hard work weeding, looks good!
Play time was over, it was time to get to work. I had arranged to volunteer on an organic farm in the small town of Yavne. The farm was actually on a Moshav (farming community). This program was arranged through the WWOOF, Israel website. The acronym stands for willing workers on organic farms. Once you decide on a location and arrive on the farm, you receive room and board in return for your labor. I arrived at the house and met Danny, the owner of the farm. He was a very animated guy with a pretty good sense of humor. Then Bob Marley walked in and I said shalom (hello) to him as well. Actually, his name was Ayal and he looked as if Bob Marley and an Israeli woman had a baby (Very possible if the legends are true). He's as Israeli as it gets, with a biblical looking weathered face and overgrown beard. He had long dreadlocks and greeted me by saying "Shalom, mon!" Ayal will herein be referred to as Bob Marley, simply for my own entertainment. I made conversation with them for a while, because the longer I did, the less work I had to do before the sun set.
Ironically, there was a huge poster of lower Manhattan hanging in Danny's living room. I learned that he had spent three years as a horseman driving the buggy around Central Park and Midtown Manhattan. He knew my city better than I did and even talked like a New Yorker, using a variety colorful four letter words
Tough to catch this guy working, but I did!
. I also learned that Ayal is a pretty well known Reggae DJ in Israel in addition to an accomplished farmer. When he learned I was from Long Island, NY he smiled and told me that his grandmother lived in Queens. It is no wonder Israel's national airline, El Al, has four flights daily between Tel Aviv and New York's J.F.K. airport.First job, collect 10 kilos of lettuce and bag them. Other jobs that day included pruning okra plants and gathering bundles of thyme, sage and mint. Every few minutes I would be treated to a pair of F-15's flying back to the nearby army base at a low altitude. The workday would have been okay except for the intermittent showers, the over-sized poncho I was wearing and the three pounds of mud my boots had collected.
Our first meal consisted of numerous fresh vegetables we had picked that day simmered in a sauce and put into pasta. It was very good, mostly because I had worked up a serious appetite during my tough three hour work day. Most meals were organic, kosher and vegetarian, something that took adjustment from my carnivorous habits. My second day was spent working with Yoel, a 25 year old such as myself, except he spoke no English. Assembling a shelter of bamboo posts with black netting and lashing them together with rope is far more complicated when you cannot communicate. He would speak in Hebrew and I would stare blankly at him
Lunchtime!
. Then he would repeat it and sometimes I would understand if he gestured. Usually, we were reduced to cavemen speak, just grunting pointing. The job was eventually completed and it was lunch time. Bob Marley had whipped up quite the Israeli feast. I had never had hummus served to me warm, right out of the pan it was cooked in. I asked Bob Marley if I should grab some plates and silverware but he just laughed then plunged his hand into the large bowl of salad and fed himself, still laughing as lettuce hung from his lip. "We eat natural here, mon, you see?" Just as I suspected, it was the best hummus I ever had. The rest of lunch consisted of him speaking Hebrew to Yoel while I thought to myself how you couldn't buy a meal like this if you tried. After lunch we drank fresh mint tea, called nana. The rest of the day involved me using a tool
never thought I would hold, a pitchfork. I shoveled hay into piles for the remainder of the day under the warm Israeli sun and realized what it feels like to put in a hard days work on a farm. It should come as no surprise that rolling into work at noon and piloting a 22 million dollar jet over the Rocky Mountains bound for the California coast is not exactly "hard work."
The second day we were shown numerous rows of cabbage and broccoli plants that were being overtaken by weeds and we quickly got to work
Me, Danny and Bob Marley (Ayal) - The Jew Crew
. Despite the hard work, it was still gratifying to stand up and see a long, neat row of cabbage that was previously covered with five months worth of weeds. A lot of the work we did was getting the farm back in shape, as it had fallen into disrepair. Bob Marley had been working there only two weeks but after my short time there, there was a noticeable improvement.It was Thursday, the start of the Israeli weekend and I had plans to spend it with the girl. I took the train southward with the weekend rush. The majority of passengers on the train were members of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), better know as the "Army." Every Israeli is required to serve for two to three years once they turn 18. They were young guys and girls who wore olive drab uniforms and carried Uzi submachine guns. No doubt a 20 year Israeli has seen and done things an average American couldn't even dream of. It matures them early but causes some to have what I call a hard outer shell. The world over, the Israeli's are known as “sabra,” meaning cactus. A thorny outside protecting a soft, sweet interior.
Friday afternoon, Shalva (a.k.a. the "girl") and I woke on the later side and decided to head out quickly before the supermarket closed. From sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday is the weekly Jewish holiday known as Shabbat. It is a time for family and friends to slow down and spend time together
Danny's place
. This means everything is closed and you will starve if you don't plan in advance. We didn't plan in advance and the supermarket was closed at 2:30 pm. We managed to buy enough from small shops to bake a quiche in her toaster oven, rather crafty of her I thought. We lit the candles, said the prayers and enjoyed some fresh challah as Shabbat begun. The next day we walked to the beach and watched the sun sink slowly to the horizon, eventually meeting its fate below the Mediterranean Sea. The beach was located in a national park which closes at sunset, meaning we were locked in. We walked down an access road for a while and luckily ran into an park employee who released us.
After arriving to the farm in the morning, it was clear what I would be doing for the entirety of my remaining time. Bob Marley walked me up and down numerous furrows of cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, radishes and green onion that were all being taken over by different types of weeds. When weeding for hours on end in an uncomfortable kneeling position, being pricked by thorny stems and having a fantastic variety of bugs crawl on you, it is best to recount the positive things that are happening. Such as being outside in the fresh air and warm sun. It was just Yoel and myself for lunch one day and he cooked an amazing meal in the tiny kosher kitchen they had built He made shakshuka, (sauteed tomatoes and onions with an egg on top) babaganoush and (eggplant and garlic spread) salad with some some pita. Most of the ingredients we picked from the garden before cooking. We ate on the outside picnic table in silence. It was far from an uncomfortable silence, but it did made me wish I spoke the ancient language.
Later that the evening I had a good scare. I was reading an old classic when I heard what sounded like an explosion. I had not yet mentioned that my location was approximately 25 miles north of the Gaza Strip, one of the most politically unstable regions in the world. Just a few years ago there were rockets (called qassams) flying into this part of Israel, launched by Hammas in Gaza. I usually put this out of my mind because the action has died down, but I leaped up and ran outside. I looked in all directions, but saw no sign of explosions or destruction. When Danny got home I asked him about the thud I heard and he seemed to know what I was talking about. We were only a few miles from the sea, a practice area for the fighter jets. The sound I heard was a sonic boom (the sound made when air is compressed by an object moving faster than the speed of sound).
On my last day Bob Marley acquiesced to my repeated requests for his hummus recipe. He showed me how he had been making hummus his whole life. It was remarkably easy and came out well, I even got the thumbs up from Yoel. Unfortunately he did not know the exact quantities of ingredients he was using, nor did he know the English name for the spices so it’s possible his secret recipe will stay that way. The volunteering on Moshav Kfar-Anigid's organic farm was over but the experience made a lasting impression on me. I took a few pictures, said my goodbye's and high tailed it to the Yavne train station. I was looking forward to my first cold beer with a good buddy from Chicago that was staying by the beach just a train ride away.
