Salt

"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea."

-Isak Dinesen (Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke )

This quote really rings through for me at this point in my Aliyah because thanks to the powers on high I managed to get two jobs. The employers, without out a doubt, get a lot more than they pay for. The minimum wage here is less than the cost of a glass of beer, and I certainly sweat more than a pint during each shift.

Both of these places of work gave me much more credit than I deserved.

First was the ice cream shop. The boss within in the first hour of me working there, left me alone in the shop to scoop ice cream for hordes of tourists groups alone. It was a great first shift though. I ate ice cream till the point of ‘bloated and crying’, and what was meant to be a 4 hour shift somehow transformed into eight.

It was hard work, and on the bus to go home feeling sore sticky and smelly, I worked out that I had earned what I could have earned in Australia in 2.5 hours. Despite this I somehow felt a strange sense of catharsis.

The next job was working with a catering company which is just starting up. It was a small home based Bat Mitzvah for 101 people in Modi’in.

My given shift was from 1:30pm till 11pm, that’s fine. I got home at 3:30am.

Every muscle in my body crying to be put out to pasture and put out of their misery. I schlepped, I set up tables, I served food, I cleaned, I schlepped some more, and all with a smile.

The entire time I had Ben Gurion’s picture in my head, the one where he’s pushing a wheelbarrow at age 80-something. I thought to myself, so this is what it was like to work hard to establish the state of Israel. I’ve never worked so hard in my life. I think it was so difficult because of my complete lack of upper body strength.

It’s amazing that it wasn’t my past job experience, or my university degree which helped me through this, but rather my experience in the Youth Movement.

Packing the truck, working on getting food out in time, and serving apple crumble to kids craving more sugar even though their twitching eyes and jittering hands told me they’d already had too much.

Knowing that my Zionist youth movement actually helped me which my Aliyah gave me a real sense of satisfaction.

I’ve swam in the salty Mediterranean here, sweated like pig in heat, and cried on a strangers shoulder. I think whatever needed curing, has been cured.