Here are the top five events since Yom Kippur:
1. Classes and volunteering resumed for a total of three days. They are now on hold until October 3 due to Sukkot. One more holiday and I think I will have a total of 30 minutes of volunteer time while living in Bat Yam. However, today my group had our meeting at a local elementary school where we will be teaching English to fifth and sixth grade students. We met with the principal and the English teacher; what I find crazy is that the students, and we, are instructed to call the teachers by their first names. No "Mrs" or "Ms," but "Carmella" and "Larissa" and "Tzippi." Something tells me if I ever tried that in school, things would not turn out well. After our meeting (they were quite impressed by our Powerpoint presentation; I mean, the background on the slides DID match the theme of our lesson plans, so I'm pretty sure that sealed the deal) we were invited to stay for a "ceremony" about the three holidays (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot). This was not a normal assembly. Every student, at one point, either sang a song, did a dance with his or her grade, performed a memorized poem or skit, or did a combination of several. It was adorable, and quite impressive. The principal introduced us at the beginning of the meeting (pre-song and dance festivities) and a hundred wide eyes turned around to see the six American girls sitting at the back; you would have thought we were the lions at the zoo - the most awesome of attractions. Too bad we were a combination of tired, sweaty, unkempt and once again, sweaty. I think they were all slightly disappointed. In any case, we start working in classrooms at the beginning of next month; there are about 24 kids per class, so we will be sufficiently outnumbered. It will certainly be a challenge!
2. My apartment has acquired a shower curtain. The shower no longer closely resembles Noah's ark. I will not miss the flash flood of water that was always on the floor of the bathroom; the days of risking breaking my neck simply by stepping out of the tub have ended. I am not sad about this.
3. Our oven no longer works. It seems as though while Ofer and Omer (I am going to assume the maintenance guys who came to install our shower curtain were named Ofer and Omer. This is generally a safe bet) were putting up our shower curtain, they managed to leave us with only one working outlet in the kitchen (there are at least six outlets in the kitchen) and a defunct oven. How this occurred, I could not tell you. Granted, our apartment is not a big place, but there is no way installing a shower curtain should ever tango with oven function. Anyway, good luck making dinner sans oven. I did it, but it was not simple. I decided (before realizing our oven was useless) to make teriyaki salmon for the four of us for dinner. Well, after a solid hour of marinating the fish and sauteing some onions, I went to turn on the broiler. No luck. I thought it was the outlet. So, one of my roommates helped me move the oven (it's free-standing, so we were able to wiggle it away from the wall) into, of all places, the living room, where there are several outlets. After moving it across the apartment and plugging it in, only to realize that the oven itself was broken, I had some choice words. But I was also intent on having salmon for dinner. We returned the oven to its rightful spot, and I plugged in our burner (it's really a hotplate with two coils that can be moved based on available space and working outlets. Thank God our burner isn't on our oven, because then we'd have had sashimi). I ended up cooking and reheating the salmon, the onions, and made some chicken in case the salmon tasted like feet (it could have been a disaster) on the single burner, some rice, and of course, Israeli salad, and we had a delicious meal! When the going gets tough, the tough use their wimpy hot plates! In retrospect, we could have built a fire outside. But I'm pretty sure the Russian lady who lives downstairs would not have liked that.
4. Finally, Israeli dance class happened! The teacher's name is Marvin, he's a classically trained dancer from the States who made Aliyah several years ago. In an hour's time, we learned three Israeli dances (one line dance, and two that are done in a circle). How to differentiate the steps? In the line dance, there is a lot of vertical (up and down) motion, while in the circle, you move from side to side. Do not get me started on the whole direction-switching fandango. Some people are just not meant to dance in close proximity to others. Ever. But no one got (too) hurt and it ended up being a great time. If you're ever given the opportunity to learn Israeli dance, try it! But make sure to bring lots of water and, depending upon who your dance partner(s) are, a helmet.
5. I am going back to Jerusalem tomorrow with my roommate to explore an art festival happening in honor of Sukkot. The festival is all day tomorrow; we are spending the night in the Old City at a youth hostel and will return Thursday night, when the buses begin running again. I'm sure the next few days will be yet another adventure! Wish me luck!
I PROMISE to post pictures when I return from Jerusalem!
Thanks for reading, lots of love,
Elana xoxox
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