oh give me a home

and something about buffalos... WOW. ok, so this morning, alli, butzy, jodi, and i walked to one of the youth centers where we can volunteer. it was the first day of the school year for them, so there was an opening talk by the director (nice lady, can't remember her name) and everyone was getting to know each other. they also have in-house volunteers that are younger and speak hebrew, but the director introduced us to the kids who range in age (i'm guessing) from about 11-16. they are all from low income, single parent, or at-risk situations. but the weird thing is that they are just normal, rambunctious kids. yeah, sure some of them act out. mostly the boys. but we played games with them, tried to talk with them, and i had a really nice time today. each of us circulated throughout the rooms as each age group was playing an icebreaker type of game to get to know each other. the room that i went into was literally playing an icebreaker game, where each person had to hold a block of ice with candy frozen inside as they told about themselves and tried to get the candy out, until your hands got too cold. i didn't really understand and thought it was a riddle or a brainteaser, and immediately started formulating a plan to get the candy out and impress the kids. so as soon as i got the ice block, i started sucking on the side that i could see the candy through since your mouth melts ice. unfortunately, i quickly found out that the point of the game was to talk about myself, in a language that i can't speak out of a mouth that was so numb i couldn't form words. great.

but luckily, the kids thought it was funny, so i told about myself briefly as translated by one of the hebrew volunteers and side-stepped (somewhat) a potentially embarrassing situation. the kids get a hot meal at this center, so the director told us to go eat with them (food was schnitzel and this amazing rice, soooo yummy). we hung out for a little while longer, playing and meeting with more kids, and then left to walk back to the house where we met with MASA representatives.

MASA is the organization that gave me grant money to be here. it gives grant money for people to be here from all over the world in 150 other programs throughout israel. from 1500 participants last year, there's 8000 this year. they are cool. the reason they came was to inform us about what they do and about seminars that they will be conducting while we're here. rally interesting sounding ones actually, political, social, cultural, etc. i'm definitely going to as many as i can. they also offer a seminar that takes place over three weekends, called something Future Leadership, which i interviewed for. they only can take 50 people, so i'll hear back in a couple of weeks if i was accepted. i think it'd be good for me to stretch myself and learn more about the leadership opportunities that i can take so that i can actually do something for the community and the world someday that makes a lasting impact.

the other part of their visit was an exercise that had us explore different journey's taken by people throughout history and how we defined each of their journeys in relation to our own. MASA means journey in hebrew by the way, just so you know. then they asked us what we thought our own journeys meant to us, etc. etc.

i had to think for a minute because what i agreed to be true about journeys are the following:

A) a journey can be accidental

B) the journey maker is somehow changed

C) the journey is usually filled with challenges

now this last one is important for me, because i realized that yesterday i was having a pretty hard time feeling OK. it was kinda shitty actually. and i have felt shitty a couple of times. but what i have felt today, especially after being at the youth center, is that i am going to run into shitty, hard times. and really uncomfortable situations. but if i can learn to embrace them and know that i will emerge from them a better, happier person, then i won't be scared anymore. so i'll work on that. and have my own MASA hopefully able to help other people while growing myself.

ANYWAY, after the meeting, i did my interview with the representatives (cross my fingers) and most of us walked to this supermarket at which naama got us a discount. it's so nice having butz around since he is israeli and can help us figure out what to buy and what labels say. alli and i bought a bunch of shit. soon, maybe i'll even be able to clip coupons (that's for you mom and gammy). TOMORROW we start ulpan!!! 3 hours of hebrew lessons. i'm gonna be fluent. i've been catching on pretty quickly. i really like hebrew. tis a beautiful language mates. so i'm really tired. goodnight!

OH, new photos posted and more on the way (ALMOST CAUGHT UP!!!):

www.flickr.com/photos/blackmarketfunnelcakes

love,

sally