A Dream Written By Hasmig

The birds on Kibbutz Einat chirped me awake this morning. For the first time in over week, I hadn't set an alarm.  When I was first coming to, I thought I was at home, surprised that Sevan hadn't woken me up yet. It was Saturday, after all, and time for some Sponge Bob Square Pants, my merciful weekend snooze button. I opened my eyes and closed them again. Had Israel been a dream?   I open my eyes again and look across the room.  My green suitcase is overflowing with peace t-shirts and passports, the shiny blue heart, a gift from Sandi (Craig's sister) that has been my pocket's companion this whole trip stares at me from across the room.  Yes, this has been a dream.  But a real one. We arrived on Kibbutz Einat, thighs burning from the bike ride across Tel Aviv, cheeks soaked with sun.  Shortly after we grabbed our things from below the bus, pairs of families arrived to bring us into their homes.  Gemma and Bebee walked off with a grandma, Evan, Alex, and Leib were picked up by two young boys, not more than 13, and Callie, Jazzy, and I walked off with two Seniors in high school who were in Building Bridges through SCG in Denver and are preparing for their year of service before the army. One has a mother who is a single mom by choice. Her older daughter is in the middle of her first year in the army's education unit, on one of her bi-weekly weekends home for a visit. The two girls, one who lives in the South, but was also part of BBFP Denver, and I went to the grocery store to shop for the evening's Shabbat dinner with all of the families and our kids. Along the way, we talked about Kyle and how we connected with Seeking Common Ground. We talked about high school and senior year and Jewish American tour groups and the integration (or lack thereof) between Arabs and Jews.  For  the first time on this trip, I feel like I am home again, back in Berkeley, having half finished conversations with teenagers about life, love, and war. The grocery store is preparing for Passover. I am looking for Bamba--a peanut butter snack that was highly requested from the States. I ask a woman near the snack aisle "Which one is Bamba?" "Big or little?", she asks me, and points me in the right direction. I bring the Bamba back to the girls and they check to make sure it's not Passover Bamba. "Its' disgusting, the passover Bamba.  Make sure you didn't get that." Over at the Passover aisle, there are stacks of Matzoh and cookies. I ask one of the girls which ones are best and she raises her eyebrows with a half smile.  "Well these ones are pretty bad," she says, "And these ones are also really bad, but less bad than those ones, so you should get those."  Then she tells me the story of how the army is sent so many stacks of Matzoh around Passover that they are forced to eat Matzoh long after the last seder plate is wiped clean.  Upon our return to the house, a girl was already starting the outside fire for the main course. I watched as she poured olive oil, spices, cut up vegetables and chicken all in a pot of boiling water, doused it with generous volumes of red wine from a local vineyard, covered the pot and set it on the fire.  

The kids were arriving from their host family homes arms full of food and drink.  The scene was very idyllic--green everywhere, flowers blooming, smoke rising, and shiny, clean faces full of anticipation for another community who has embraced us with endless warmth and hospitality.  The boys arrived first and soon after decided that they'd play a game of basketball before dinner.  

As they've done all along, they checked several times that their help wasn't needed for dinner before they ran off.  This genuine spirit of communal living has inspired me most on this trip.  Every one is doing their own part as well as the part of their peers. At school, I am often asking two or three times for someone to help with this or that. Here, I don't even have to ask. They ask, they care, they want to help, and they hold themselves and each other up. Every time. Jazzy, Callie, and I take a walk around the kibbutz. We find sweet little cottages, painted in rainbow colors (here, even the rocks are painted) with sweet gardens and winding stone pathways that lead to another corner of heaven. There are dogs and old people and hand woven fences abounding. Everyone is relaxed, breathing deeply, seemingly far away from the rest of this country we've been living in for a week. Not a soldier in sight.

Kibbutz Einat

A Dream

Dinner is divine as usual. We are sitting in circles around tables or the fire, talking in mixed groups to kids, teens, and adults who live on the Kibbutz.  Craig and I are deep in dialogue with one of the fathers from the kibbutz.  He has two daughters. One of them is playing Angry Birds to my left and the other is filling her plate with more food from the spread.  The one at the buffet is in her first month of her army service. The father says he is always surprised by Americans impressions of the Israeli army as always being in combat.  "Here the army is used for many things. We don't send our kids to other places to fight. We see them every two weeks and they are doing community service for our country.  In America, you send your army to other countries for war.  When Americans sign up for the army, it means they want to fight.  Here, most of them don't want to fight."  It crystallizes a theme I've heard many times: Military is not synonymous with violence and war here. At least not for some people.  Serving the country is a source of pride and so many people we've met can't wait to join and will avoid combat at any cost.  But at the end of the day, if they needed to, they would do what their country asked of them. Like Kyle, loyal to the end. Well, most of them.

Lighting Shabbat Candles

I re-read my words and feel like I have yet to speak. There is too much to tell. In the hopes of posting before our departure, I'll just end here.  We are off to Tel Aviv for a day on the beach to debrief, memorialize, and prepare for our re-entry into the atmosphere. Craig and I are on a set of stairs outside a random building that luckily has free wireless. We are overlooking the beach at Tel Aviv, from a distance our flock sits, sleeps, soaks, and munches on Israeli snacks. We are persistent communicators, my companion and I. It has made all the difference.   The dream has been awakened. We are just 15 passports, 15 boarding passes, 15 backpacks, 15 pairs of shoes, and 7.5 million hearts, Coming home.