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Ilana’s Israel trip continuing to be incredible adventure
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Written by Ilana Diamant, The Eagle Senior Writer
So where to begin? Since my last article, I have been to an underwater aquarium, learned about mysticism in the ancient city of Tzfat, and joined the Israeli army! That’s right! I spent a week living in a tent, standing in attention, yelling “Ken ha Mefakedet!” (Yes Commander!) and eating some of the worst food imaginable.
So I’ll start out at the beginning. Exactly a month after we arrived in Israel, we packed our rooms up (one of the most stressful things ever, and very sad having my last night with my awesome roommates) and departed for the Dead Sea! Even though I’d been there before, it was so much fun floating, covering ourselves with nourishing mud, and seeing the beautiful views.
We had such a relaxing weekend at a place called Ein Gedi, an oasis at the foot of the mountain Masada which we’d climbed at 5 in the morning the week before. The view from our youth hostel was absolutely gorgeous, and we were able to sleep, something we never get to do anymore. On Sunday morning we woke up, took our suitcases and loaded the bus for Be’er Sheva, the biggest city in the Negev (desert in the south of Israel.) We had a few hours in the mall to load up on snacks and enjoy our last few hours of freedom, then we got back on the bus for a 20 minute bus ride to the Air Force base.
The second we stepped off the bus we were getting yelled at. We immediately got split into groups, two groups of girls and two groups of boys. For the rest of the week boys and girls would only see each other during the hour before bed or while moving around the base, and were never allowed to touch each other! Then we got yelled at to get our suitcases. Then to follow the commander. Then to stand in a chet. That ‘ch’ is the unpronounceable letter that you Americans make fun of, the kind found in names like “Achmed.” It’s in the shape of a square missing one side, so the commander could address all of us at once. Our first meal was lunch, and it was so bad I don’t even want to describe it to you. We were told by every Israeli that the Air Force had the best food, which meant that even the best was absolutely awful.
We slept in disgusting sleeping bags on creaky cots and filthy mattresses. The desert is freezing cold at night, so we were so bundled up we couldn’t even see. The next morning was our day in the “shetach” or field. We learned the techniques of army crawling, shooting position, what to do when you get a grenade thrown at you, and how to camouflage yourself in the desert with no shelter. Our sandwiches were literally two pieces of bread with a slice of cucumber in the middle. Not very nutritious.
The next few days were some of the most miserable of my life. It STORMED. In the desert. Rain, sand, and wind. All of them. We’d walk out of the cafeteria and the whole blue sky had turned brown from the dust. Our tent ended up almost blowing way, and all the Israeli school groups that were there left because it was determined by their supervisors that it was not safe. We did not have a place to stay that night or a bus driver, so were ended up being the only ones in the plugat (base unit). It wasn’t safe to sleep in the tents that had kept us up all the night before because we all had nightmares about the poles collapsing on us. We slept on the floor of the dusty gymnasium.
All week we had speculated about the personality of our mefakedet (commander). She was one of the cutest things we’d ever seen, only around 5 feet tall. She seemed nice, except when we were getting punished for moving in the columns we walked in. The first thing my friend Elianna had said to her was “What’s your name?” Her answer was “It’s irrelevant.” Of course Elianna, being Elianna, had thought that was her name, “Irrelevante.” We’d gotten her to crack a smile and we were guessing her age to be about 20.
We finally found out that her name was Nofar, she was 19 years old serving her army time. She was the nicest person, and she admitted that she’d wanted to laugh so many times during the week, we were so funny! We all friended her on facebook that evening. When we saw our bus driver Sammi for the first time all week, we hugged him so hard he almost fell over.
He took us to the beach town at the very southern tip of Israel, Eilat. We had another relaxing weekend shopping and hanging out at the boardwalk.
The last three weeks have been boring compared to that. Mostly school, but we’ve had trips into Jerusalem, the mystic city of Tzfat, and my mom came and visited me! She brought tons of food, most of which was gone within the day, though my roommate and I are about to eat the last bowl of Thai garlic rice noodles.
In Jewish history class we’ve been moving into the modern era, up to the 1930s. Guess what major Jewish event happened then! So we’re going to Poland tomorrow night at 1 in the morning (so technically Monday). We’re going to be there all week, visiting sites of the Holocaust. It’s definitely going to be an emotionally tough week on all of us, but I’m going to be making a video diary to send to all the classes reading the book Night by Elie Wiesel.
I miss you all tons, and if you have any questions feel free to contact me!
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