and everybody's gotta learn sometime

what a beautiful day. i woke up and the first thing i did was log onto bbc.co.uk and the first thing i see is obama and his beautiful family smiling and holding hands in jubilation on the home page. i smiled bigger than life, put my hands in the air and screamed, "YES!!!". alice echoed my sentiment and we woke up to a bright new day. i talked to my mom on the phone, and my dad on the computer today. we are all very excited.

walked to the school where we'd be tutoring kids in english apparently, called sharet. we got there a little early and waited for the principal to direct us to a class. or something like this. we sat at a table outside the office while i had some coffee. never have i been approached with such curiosity and tenacity that these kids exhibited towards al and i. they just came up and asked us where we were from. sweet kids. real cute too.

we were escorted finally to a random classroom by the principal, who is a nice, grateful woman. i just stook there, examining the teacher's long, straight hair and elaborately decorated fake nails while she, every couple of minutes, would audibly say a word with a perfect english accent. the fruits of this visit materialized in the form of a list of hebrew names that would meet al and me in the teacher's lounge. the names were of children that were good in english, so they would sit and talk with us so they could practice their conversational skills. the first group came in and they were absolutely adorable, sweet, articulate even. michael the best of the group in english carried insights that i might hear from someone my age. nati, the little ethiopian boy who can do the robot, and this indian girl who told alli and i where to find the indian restaurants in ramla. we asked them questions to get to know them, which was awkward at first, but we all warmed up to each other very quickly and it helped to have al to diffuse any weirdness. actually, i didn't even mind when one of the directors of the school took alli to work with the younger kids. we had a blast. soon it was time for recess to al and i reconvened on the playground where i met the little tiny kids she was helping teach. they all like to give hugs. which i like. after recess we got two more classes of kids, each class seeming to know less and less english. however, all very sweet. in our second class, we even knew two of the kids from kadima. so that was really cool. last class we all got so excited that the principal had to quiet us a few times. al and i played simon says with them to practice their english, but adapted it to "alli and sally say". they get a kick out of the fact that our names rhyme. i do too truthfully.

we ended our day, walked home and i took a nap. all day i've been talking to excited people from home. i'm actually really sad i wasn't in dallas for this. i would've loved to celebrate this day with everyone. oh well. i'm happy enough to share via the internet... i woke up, and we walked to our second volunteer/tutoring thing at the school where we have ulpan, but got a call from ofir saying that it was cancelled until next week. after i made al jump in a pile of leaves on the street so i could photograph her amidst strange looks from passers by, we went to the market instead near ulpan to get fixin's to make dinner for the apartment people since they did it last night. i decided to make asian stir fry lettuce wraps and al wanted to make ricotta shells and cheese. we came home and wrote out the questions we will ask people for our documentary, so that was productive. then we all made a scrumptious looking dinner for everyone to share. ray ray, al, jodi, and i cooked up a fucking storm. rayna made pictures of everything so we'll remember forever. we ate as soon as we were all done. the food was amazing. ray ray made brown rice-ish stuff and jodi made cinnamon/lime chicken. it was really good actually. we ate early and just saved the rest for the apartment people. we all hung out afterwards, tessa straightened my hair, which looks weird. naama is back from the states and stopped by the house to say hi!!!! we missed her! and then we all tried to jump onto this tower of mattresses without it falling over. once we laughed and fell and died and came back to life, it was time to go to bed. al and i tried to load and watch annie hall again, but only made it half through. i need to sleep. elderly center tomorrow. i've been taking some interesting photos. i like it. i'm tired. change can come. yes i can.

goodnight motek,

love,

sally