Today we traveled to Sterot. Which is the closest Israeli town to Gaza. Because of this, it is also the town most frequently shot at with rockets.
The bus stops in the town are covered with concrete that protects people from the debris of rockets. They have bad aim when shooting the rockets, and they know this, so they fill them with shrapnel and various other things that end up hurting people. These bus stops are the governments way of acknowledging that many people cant/wont move and therefore decide to protect their people from attack.
This is an elementary school, the entire school has a concrete protection built over the roof to protect the children from a rocket attack from Gaza.
The majority of the people living in Sterot are too poor to move and include both Holocaust survivors and Russian immigrants. Also, these people are so tired of being oppressed and victimized they claim Israel as their land and would not move even if they had enough money or the right opportunity.
We went to Sterot today to unpack a set of food palletes that we made yesterday with the Joshua Fund. Then we set to work making bags for people in the community to pick up. We made 170 food bags.
Selfie at the end of the assembly line. My Baby Ruth days and Pine Cove came back to haunt me today as I was on cardboard box breakdown duty. Good thing I'm a pro!
Here a few of the bags we packed.
Driving out of the city we were able to stop by the police station and see a handful of rockets that had landed in the city. Each is dated and marked with the location it landed.
This case is mainly used as a display of different parts of the rockets
You can see the date and location (in Hebrew) on this one.
December 20, 2008
A few years ago, during the height of conflict, there were up to 1200 rockets shot into Sterot in a single week.
This situation makes it hard for people to carry out their daily lives. They have to get their children from school, they cant go to work, they are afraid to leave the house even to go to the market. Many died of heart attacks due to stress and anxiety and not from the rockets themselves. This truly is a terror attack.
When getting back to Jerusalem we were told that Rockets were fired on Israel yesterday. From Gaza in the south and from Syria in the north. Israel responded due to its attack in dual locations.
We never even knew anything happened. It is calm here and on our way to Sterot they warned us of the sirens and told us where the safe room was in the house we were working at.
The fact that we were able to make bags of food for these people living in such fear and disruption of daily life is humbling, but also seems miniscule. There is so much more that we can be doing for these people, but instead America is sending money to Syria thinking it will promote peace.
On a different note, tonight is the beginning of Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, which occurs 50 days after Passover. The people stay up all night studying the Torah and celebrate the receiving of the law from God. Just like Shabbat, this is a time of no working.
We rang in Shavuot with yummy Arab food (unkosher with both meat and cheese...oops) but it was so so yummy.
Our yummy holiday meal!
WEDNESDAY JUNE 4
Unlike the Jewish people, we did not stay up all night. Instead we woke up at 4am (I wanted to die it was so early) and walked to the western wall with the rest of the masses.
This is the day Christians know as the Pentecost. After seeing the amount of people out and about, especially at the wailing wall, it is easy to see how 3,000 came to faith on that day in Acts 2.
The Western Wall... 100,000 people were said to be there this morning. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.
We walked back to the house and I got another three hours of sleep and then we headed to a picnic!
views on our way back home at 6:30am.
There were about 800 people there at the picnic and quite a few young attractive men (a nice theme ive been noticing in Israel ;). It was also the hottest day it's been so far since we've been here.
At one point we ran out of water and I didnt drink any water for over an hour... I grew a little delirious, then we realized there were water spickets, but you had to pass the crazy israeli children having water fights... So I took the risk and entered the war zone only to realize I was very grateful to get shot at right in the face with a water gun. It cooled me off quite nicely. It was so hot I was dry within minutes.
There were live bands playing so we decided to dance, but we don't know any israeli dances yet, so we made up our own. We have realized that we are a dancing group! And I love it!
It was quite the feast! We had plenty of leftovers.
but, you can't forget dessert!!! Baklava!!! :D it was so so yummy! It was also served with Turkish tea and coffee!!! Another yummyness!
I'd say I fully enjoyed myself.
When we got home I helped clean our urine infested toilets. Somehow our bathrooms in the house have reeked of pee the past couple of days and we finally had time to deep clean them. The biggest and most odorous bathroom, the one in which I helped clean, still makes me want to vomit. It also makes me rethink my cleaning abilities, which I know are above average, maybe someone on our group just has supernatural pee. In any case, that was something I didn't have in mind to do here, but hey, sometimes that stuff happens and I don't mind cleaning a toilet or two.
I have been in Israel a week today. Which is crazy. It's going by so fast. If I was here for only a 10 day tour trip I'd only have 3 days left. I can't believe people do so much here in so little time. I got an email today from southwest to remind me of my upcoming flight to Dallas, which isnt even for another 3 weeks I think. I didn't like that reminder of my limited time here.
We keep joking about going to a matchmaker here in Jerusalem and finding all of us single girls some hubbies. However, one of the main stipulations for the matchmaker is to make sure you wont take the boy out of israel! And I would be 100% okay with that, however I'd probably want to live further north, you know I'm no hot weathered person.
THURSDAY JUNE 5
It's spa night!! Not for us though! We put on a spa night for single moms. It was a crazy day. We went to the market and to a few stores to get supplies. we cooked for 30 women and did nails and massages and pedicures AND watched their kids. It was a mad house,
Food :D
However, I was put in charge of decorations and it was a blast. i was sent to a random store in which I had no idea where it was. And was told to "match the burgandy table cloth we already have" It was so much fun!
Blurry awful photo of part of the even, but it was so amazing to serve these hard working, single moms who deserve so much more than a spa night put on by some volunteers. I only know how to paint others nails because my mom taught me in second grade! But the women loved it!
Their children were an extreme handful. And only two kids spoke english. so that was fun! One of the boys who spoke english has parents from America, so he speaks english at home. He taught me A TON of hebrew, like how to count to ten, and how to subtract, and how to say snake. It was a lot of fun.
However, i'm still struggling with the language barries. So many people speak english, but I hate being the stupid American who cant communicate except in English. It's thw most frustrating thing in the world.
What that, I encourage you to learn, practice, and use the foreign language you are "learning" it makes a world of difference!
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