The Laundry Stalker
Trip Start
Nov 13, 2006
1
71
80
Trip End
Oct 21, 2008
Eilat,
Israel
Saturday, June 28, 2008
It was about midnight and we were sat on the grass outside the pub for the leaving party of the Garin (one of the kibbutz groups). The pub is at the far southern end of the kibbutz just near the cow shed so that noise doesn't disturb families in the residential areas. The great thing about this spot is that there is even less light pollution giving an incredible view of the stars.
Louisa works in laundry and she was recalling our laundry numbers. These are the numbers we write on our clothes before we put them through the laundry, and they are supposed to be anonymous. 'I know everyone's number' she said 'its just a talent I have'.
Freaky as it sounded, it wasn't all that surprising
briefs
. Everyone knows everything on the kibbutz before you've even done it, including it seems my choice in underwear! Thankfully I had got a couple of sexy numbers from the market on Nachlat Binyamin before I came. If it is true that small minded people talk about other people then this kibbutz does not need much space for minds. What's more it goes beyond knowing each others business - much of it is bitching pure and simple.
Whilst gossip is inevitable in any small community, I had expected that hand in hand with that would go a kind of friendliness. In fact my experience so far is that it's positively cliquey. It's the kind of place where knowing the right people somehow makes you more important and may give you the right to hang out with people higher in the hierarchy (probably depending on who your contact is, how close you are, and where they stand in the hierarchy!) Being a volunteer you are definitely low down, which though in some ways in understandable, is also dissapointing considering that we do core jobs such as kitchen and laundry that need doing, and do them virtually for free. Presumably the kibbutz chooses to have volunteers for a reason and so respect and treatment should go accordingly.
Luckily for me I have a contact - my cousin Dan, who lives with his girlfriend Mya who grew up here, and their young son Atan. I have spent a few evenings sat out in his Zula and guys from his neighborhood will drop by for a beer as they pass by.
I start work this week at the Arava Power Company - a solar power start up based on the kibbutz (but not part of it). The project is apparently on the verge of becoming something big. I came to Israel wanting to get involved in environmentally friendly business and this may be the chance I've been waiting for.
