My trip was amazing. I’ll have to give a short summary in bullets and then maybe explain more in detail…
Monday
- Left Jerusalem later than intended
- Went to Ein Gedi Kibbutz to see botanical gardens
- Didn’t see botanical gardens - met Adam and Abdulla who both fled from Darfur last year/earlier this year and were put in prison and released a few months ago (also fled from Haifa kibbutz to the desert)
- Checked into this crazy hotel with lots of Sephardi Jews and frummy Muslim families
- Floated in the Dead Sea and then played in the pool
- Got an hour-long massage
- Stayed in the spa and jacuzzi during the frummy Muslim women hour (they closed the spa for men so the frum Jewish and Muslim women could play in the water, but there were no frum Jewish women there)
- Found a random hookah place with couches and all
- Met two Israeli guys by the hookah place
Tuesday
- Left hotel to revisit Ein Gedi
- Actually saw the botanical gardens, then went to the Ein Gedi spa to slather on some mud and float in the Dead Sea some more
- Ran into Adam again
- Headed deeper into the desert to an amazing guest house in an almost entirely self-sufficient community (no plumbing, solar-powered light). Had dinner there with all of the other guests sitting around one table speaking Hebrew
Wednesday
- Saw a Bedouin shepherd and his flock near our huts in the morning
- Picked up random person to take back to Jerusalem
- Random drama with dropping people off all over Jerusalem and getting the car back in time
- Showing up at home only to be stressed out at real life coming back to me
- Had a terrible pre-fast meal
- Missed every opportunity to listen to Aicha (for Tisha B’Av)
And here we are. I fasted today … because I didn’t get a good meal before the fast, I almost didn’t make it through. I went to a few classes - one about the reason for fasting, one about causeless hatred (which supposedly caused the distruction of the Second Temple), and one about midieval Jewish poetry in our liturgy. So all of those were very interesting, but I was shaking near the end of the day so we had to just chill for 4 hours and wait for the sun to go down. I had a lot of interesting conversations with Jason today.
The rest of the pictures from the trip can be found in the directory: spiffywafer.com/robin/2006/israel06 .. the pictures are organized in their file name by Year-Month-Day-Picture# .. the dates of these photos was July 31 - August 2.
Somehow I volunteered myself to host Shabbat dinner tomorrow night. So far we have 8 definites with three maybes. My apartment is so small… and I’m not 100% sure that my roommates are okay with it. They just suffered an immense personal tragedy that I won’t get into, but I am hoping that they will find a peaceful place to go to for Shabbat or else I hope that they don’t mind too much me having a big dinner here.
It kind of sucks that I can’t take pictures on Shabbat, because so many great things happen on Shabbat. So many fun times with good people and I have no way to commemorate it except for in my memory. And I can’t write it down for like 24 hours.
Too much sadness going around right now. I’m hoping Shabbat can clear some of it up.