Oh, to the left!

First, let me start by apologizing for my lack of recent entries. It's been way too long since my last post, but let me explain why:

On Friday morning, the tsofim (Israeli scouts) took a group of us to the Kinneret for a tiyul (a trip). We arrived midday on Friday, set up our "camp site" (no tents, dirt and sleeping bags only) and swam in the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). Later, we had a barbecue and, naturally, a dance party (no camping trip is complete without the right amount of techno and obnoxious autotune). After roughing it for a night we traveled to our water hike! In some parts, the water was ankle-deep, in others, it hit my shoulders, but throughout, it was very rocky and slippery. I emerged muddy, tired and black and blue (unfortunately, there is no photographic evidence of this because I didn't want to risk ruining my camera. The trek was dangerous enough without begin responsible for any form of technology). Since you are all familiar, I'm sure, with my deep love for nature and the great outdoors (bahaha) you can imagine my attitude toward my post-camping, post-hike state: I needed a shower. Badly.

We returned to Bat Yam on Saturday night; I smelled like what I'm sure is a cross between unclean feet and horse manure (it was that bad, let me tell you). On Sunday, after a brief meeting to discuss my volunteering program, I went to Tel Aviv to take another dance class; this time, I tried jazz. I hopped into a cab, and, just my luck, I got the most talkative driver in Israel. He wanted to know if I liked the music he was playing. Where I was from. Why was I staying in Bat Yam? (An excellent question, I might add. I get that quite a lot). Eventually, the Spanish Inquisition ended, he dropped me off, and asked what time I needed to be picked up later that night. I told him I didn't. I could not have handled another half hour of that for the life of me.

I arrived in plenty of time, found a spot to stretch before class began, and waited for the teacher to take command of the class with what is usually a high-pitched "Yala!" ("Let's go!") As soon as Roy (I was expecting Roy to be 6 foot and dark and handsome. This Roy is a girl, she is maybe 5'2'' and not more than 100 pounds) started barking at us, I stood up and moved toward the front of the class. "Smoll!" she screamed. "Yes, I'm short," I thought to myself, "I'll move up more so the taller, lankier girls (i.e. everyone in the room) can have more space." As it turns out, she wasn't yelling at me to move up because I'm a dwarf. "Smoll" means "left." She wanted me to move over. Ooops. But, now I understand "smoll" and "yemeen" (right). So, later in the class, when she began ordering "Veh, step, smoll, yemeen, smoll, veh turn veh jump veh yemeen!" I understood. I was very proud of myself for figuring that much out and keeping up in the class when the music stopped and Roy came up to me and motioned for me to repeat a piece of the combination we had just learned. I really thought I was in trouble. Then she started explaining something in rapid fire Hebrew and asked me if I could please... All I could think to myself was "No, I cannot because I only understood that last part because my Hebrew is about as good as your Swahili, so I have no idea what you want me to do." Well, I smiled, said "Slicha" (which means "excuse me," or "sorry." Always a good word to throw in when things get awkward. Which for me is all the time) and explained, in English, that I'm from America, I'm living here for a while, I've been dancing for my whole life and wanted to continue while in Israel. Everyone in the class found this intriguing; they wanted to know if I've been to New York, if I know Beyonce, if I understood a word that had been said during the past hour. My answers went something like: Yes, I love New York, it's 30 minutes from my house, but no, I don't know Beyonce, and no, I don't understand anything you've said in the last hour, but I'm glad I fooled you all! As it turned out, Roy wanted me to demonstrate a piece of the choreography we had learned, which flattered me, and she was more impressed when she found out that my Hebrew is so limited. After telling me she wants to see me next week in her class, she ordered me to get my leg higher. Too bad it was at my face already. Her response? "It can always go higher!" How Israeli are we? Answer: very.

Monday was a full day of classes; I'm learning prepositions and verbs. Watch out, world, Elana can make Hebrew sentences! Today (Tuesday) I began full-time volunteering at the Ben Gurion school. For the first hour, I work in a sixth grade English class of 25 students. Of the 25, maybe 10 actually sat for the entire class doing their assigned worksheets and exercises; the rest ran around outside, screamed at one another, and wreaked general havoc. It was madness. One of the particularly engaged students, Daria, held a complete conversation with me in English; she wanted to know where I'm from, what America is like, and if I know Justin Bieber. I told her not personally, but I know of him. The fact that she laughed led me to believe that her English is nearly fluent; she later told me that her parents enrolled her in an after school program to supplement her English skills, and they practice with her at home. Unfortunately, many students do not share her enthusiasm. For example, her classmate Mordecai told me he never needs to learn English because everyone he knows speaks Hebrew. I asked him, "What about me? How can we talk and be friends if you don't help me with my Hebrew and I don't help you with English?" At this, he opened his notebook and began his grammar exercises. It was a small victory, granted, but one more sixth grader practicing his sentence formation instead of raising hell in the schoolyard.

After a short break, we went into a fifth grade class (except there were 35 of them; the extra 10 does make a huge difference) to do more of the same: encourage an unruly group of ten and eleven year-olds to open their workbooks instead of run around outside. Upon introducing myself, a group of girls, Bar, Sapir and Maziel, surrounded me, asking for help with their worksheets and their overwhelming vocabulary lists. I sat them each down, and began explaining the exercises in the simplest terms I could; they corrected my Hebrew mistakes and I made sure to make little notes in colored marker where their English grammar was incorrect. At the end of the day, Bar pulled out a sticker book from her backpack and peeled off the biggest heart-shaped one she could find. "For you," she told me, "for teaching me all the best English!" She hugged me and ran down the hallway. As I was leaving, she and her friends came to find me and practiced, as I had taught them, "See you soon!" The sticker Bar gave me is currently on my water bottle; I'm hoping to have a complete heart and rainbow collection papering my Nalgene by the time I finish teaching at their school.

That's been the last week (almost) and now I'm looking forward to the Israel vs. Croatia soccer game on Saturday night (a bunch of us decided to go!). I am that desperate to watch professional sports. But, in any case, it should be a great time; I just need to learn how to say "run faster," "score a goal," and "trip him" in Hebrew. Shouldn't take long.

Love from the Holy Land,
Elana