A Day in the Life of Ulpan Etzion

Sorry for the hebrew, was going to translate but really can't be assed.

 A Film By Ben Goldman

This film, although in hebrew, gives a pretty good summary of the months I spent at the Absorption Centre/Ulpan. I feel it describes the excitment, the frustration of standing in lines to sign stupid forms and then not having the right piece of paper, getting lost, dealing with the hebrew language and making friends, all of which I've probably written about somewhere in this blog.

I am ready, I am.

Today I moved out of the bubble the government provided for me and 249 other Olim Chadashim (new immigrants). My toilet roof was leaking most of the time, the drains vomited frequently, it was infested with fruit flies for a bit (despite the complete absence of fruit - wtf), it was freezing in the winter and hot in the summer, and the walls we paper thin so I was privy to my Argentinian neighbour’s domestic disputes, but for 5 months it was home.

It’s really quite liberating. I’m still in the same city, same job, same friends, only now, I filled with this sense of independence. That life has begun. It’s real.

I think I could really liken my experience in the Ulpan to purgatory. You’re neither here, nor there, but you know something big has just happened, and something even bigger is going to happen.

Unlike the old place, the new place is definitely more furnished than the room of a teenage Buddhist monk. My new housemates don’t live in the same room as me. They are also both of the female gender.

The final party at the ulpan was really nice. Looking around at the people I remember looking at in the same room. I remember judging them at first glance; hot, not so hot, cute, potential friend, indie etc.

At the end of year party I had deeper adjectives by which to describe my friends, my family; the laugher, the woman who cares, my neighbour, the guy who’s always up to party, the stoner, the girl with the butch waddle, the talker (avoid when in a rush), the shtettle mum, etc.

During ulpan 5 couples go engaged, 3 got married, a couple people dated and broke up, and 3 people were in an intensely awkward threesome. Memories.

I was a little apprehensive to leave the nest, but I think now I can safely say “I’m ready to start living!”

Stay tuned for my video apartment tour.

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.