28 days later

Trip Start Nov 13, 2006

Trip End Oct 21, 2008

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Where I stayed

Neot Smadar

(Tel Aviv hotels)

Flag of Israel Eilot, Israel
Tuesday, September 9, 2008

I was faced with a dilemma; I was at the end of my table and the hummus on the adjacent table was an easy arm's reach away. Should I grab it? It would save the embarrassing trouble of disturbing the 'wa' of the silent meal by asking people on my table to pass the hummus. But I had never seen anyone do it before. Perhaps it would be frowned upon? Perhaps it was an unspoken rule to only use food from your own table? I looked around at the blank faces, each one in his/her own little world of eating, some munching slowly, some looking into space, some chopping away. It was now or never, my heart was racing - I reached over and seized the hummus!

I've been on Neot Smadar for 4 weeks now and I can't work out if its heaven or hell. I am surrounded by beautiful scenery, and there is a steady stream of pretty girls coming to volunteer. But I find myself living to work. We get up at 5am and work till 1pm, and then after catching up on sleep though the afternoon, we work another 4 hours from 8-midnight

working with the goats

. I've been working in the date plantation where we are harvesting the dates. The other day I slept there to get extra sleep. I can no longer eat a date. I tried yesterday but had to throw it away.

Being here I've developed; I've pushed through my limits and my Hebrew has improved, but its time to leave soon. The question is what to do next? I'm not the only one. I keep speaking with people who don't know what they want to do. Without distractions there is lots of time to think here. I've started analyzing all the voices in my head to try and make a plan. Are any of them my own? Perhaps the main thing which differentiates humans and animals is our propensity to transmit ideas. Perhaps all those voices are just ideas transmitted from society. Perhaps that is why it's so hard to plan. Perhaps planning is unnatural. None of the voices is really mine ..But if none of the voices is me then what am I???

Yep I've been here too long.