Day Nine

Its strange to write 'day nine' at the top of this post. Besides for it meaning nine straight nights of barely any sleep...it also means that this program is almost over and its really sad. This is one of the most amazing experiences in lives and its flown by too fast!

Anyway, there will be time to be sentimental when it is over...for now, lets review today!
So we struggled to get out of bed (as usual) and (I, at least) sleepwalked onto the bus.
When we arrived at the school, our first activity was run by on of my favorite people ever, Shani! And since she is probably reading this...thank you so much for everything and have a great deserved holiday!!!

She introduced the theme(s) of the day: Education (and later, Nature).
She asked us each to say something positive and negative about the schools we are in and stressed the fact that our entire childhood, about 12 to 14 years, is spent in school! Then she asked us to write down something that a teacher said to us about five years ago. The responses were hilarious, especially becuase we had to say it in the accent of the teacher!

After her activity we met my other favorite person ever, Yaakov Hecht!!! The reason behind everything! He showed us a fascinating slideshow about Education in the world and what it is doing to people and what Democratic Education is and the difference between its methods and the regular education system. I have tried to take pictures of the slideshow so you can see what it said in general there. Then we were joined by Michal and Galit! the AllGo designers from the first day of the program. They gave us all a present of a slideshow of the pictures of our activity with them and we al got their autographs on the cd's and exchanged email addresses. I must say, the most amazing thing I personally am taking from these ten days is great friends! It really was an emotional farewell to Shani, Galit, Michal, Yaakov and Reshef.

Then we had a bit of a break and chilled out in the playground followed by a much appreciated lunch of unlimited pizza!

Then we had a cool activity led by the one and only Reshef in which we had to make up our own language! The results were brilliant! I must admit that I was writing the blog hakadosh while the next activity went on but rumor has it that it was amazing!

We had another short break before we all piled into the Ethiopian hut.The pictures will have to do justice to the structure because it is/was indescribable! We were greeted by a man (pictures!) who is 45 years old now with three teenagers but who, when he was 15, fled from Ethiopia to the Sudan and from there was helped by the Jewish Agency to come to Israel. We were joined by his lovely, gorgeous daughter, Cherut, for the presentation with him and we all hope she will come back tomorrow!). He was followed by his family of 12. He lives in Givat Olga and has built a hut just like his home in Ethiopia (except that theirs had two floors and was bigger) and is planning to grow ethiopian plants around it and furnish it just like his home. It is beautiful and extremely intricate, yet he managed to build it with the ethiopian children of all ages in Givol.

We started our walk through the sand dunes soon after. It was sweltering hot so wasnt easy and we kept on being stopped by Ila to be shown different animals homes in the dunes! We finally sat down in the middle of the desert. Ila started to translate what the Ethiopian man was saying (I apologise, I have forgotten his name!) and he was saying how in his country they use the sling in wartime and it is a very effective weapon and is made out of the Eucalyptus plant. It is also used in many other ways. He then demonstrated the slingshot. It was incredible! It went so far and made all the sand shoot up like a bomb had hit it when it landed! He then told us how when he lived in Ethiopia he used to catch 24 partridges for his mother every day! He said there are a few partridges in the desert we were in and there would be a good chance we would even see one.

We then climbed up the most impossible sand dune but every step was worth it when we reached the top. The highest point on the coast for miles. It was breathtaking and gorgeous! Just check out the pictures! We watched the sunset and had a group picture. Unfortunately, Meri, Linor and Avital werent there and were really missed. Of course we will have more group pictures though.

We then walked about ten minutes to the local forest (of course there would be one!) and were greeted by our local lifesave, ROTEM!!! She had set out a whole mat for us to sit on and started the fire and preapred the food. She is/was amazing!

In short, because i must sleep, we had a beautiful bonfire and barbeque followed by an equally beautiful kumzitz! We were there in the pitch dark till about 10.30pm when our buses came to pick us up. It was sad to leave but tomorrow will be really cool but wont ruin the surprise!

Guest Tomorrow: DANNI FRANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good night!

Brocha