back to school

saturday: early morning beach trip with my friend on the trip Jackie and her host family. they are health nutty parents with an eleven year old girl. we went to a lovely beach north of our kibbutz, very near to the lebanese border. she, the host mother, fed us brown rice and tuna fish--upset she forgot the seaweed, which, she says, would have tasted delicious and brought the meal together. i enjoyed the rice and tuna (i was so hot and hungry after the hour at the beach that i would've eaten anything).

we returned to our kibbutz and joined our group to an outing at Kibbutz Gaton (a nearby kibbutz that produces medical supplies, i think, and has a huge dance program). we watched a beautiful and innovative modern dance performance. i really enjoyed it. the dancers were part of the company, so they were the teachers not students. the audience, however, was clearly filled with dancers. one of which was a daughter of a family friend of cindy/my dad's. i sought her out for a conversation--she is doing a five month dance program at Gaton and arrived about a month ago. she seems to love her program thus far.

in the evening i went, for the first time, to my host family's house. Maayan and Orr are the parents, with Carmel (she's 6) Gilad (he's 3) and Arabel (she's 14 months). Carmel was very excited for me to come and is anxious for me to quickly learn english. she immediately became my teacher--bringing me things and naming them in hebrew, running me around their apartment to name more things, opening up books and pointing to the pictures, etc. she knows only a few words in english, not enough for a conversation. after a little while, gilad opened up and he too began teaching me by naming things. the parents were very nice and spoke good english. i stayed there for about three hours just talking and playing with the kids.

today we had our first day of volunteering. we went to a high school on Kibbutz Evron. Kibbutz Evron is a kibbutz about fifteen minutes southwest of yehiam. the high school, grades six through twelfth, has students from other kibbutz's and the nearby towns/cities. it used to be that the high school was all, then mostly, children from various kibbutz's but not anymore. now the kids from kibbutz's are the minority.

we toured the school, which is made up of several separate small buildings, all with doors leading to the outside (like a motel, none with indoor hallways). we also saw a bit of the kibbutz, including their dining hall. the dining hall was large and set up like a cafeteria where you get a tray and have a variety of choices then go to the cashier. (we didn't eat, just looked)

the head of the english department is Betsy. she has been living in israel for nearly 25 years and hails from chicago (a northern suburb i believe, she told me which one but i forget). another english teacher is from philadelphia and the other two english teachers we met were from israel. (perhaps there are other english teachers we did not meet, i don't know).

i worked one period in a class with Betsy, alongside another volunteer in my group. she had each of us sit in specific places in the classroom, next to children who usually need help and extra attention. the kids were in 9th grade, so about thirteen years old. there were about 25-30 kids in the class. they were studying past progressive and past simple. thankfully i actually knew a bit about this and was able to help the students with their worksheet. i was not looking forward to teaching english, but it did go much better than i expected. although, i am still doubtful that i will enjoy teaching english nearly everyday for five months. tonight we have a meeting about volunteering and creating a schedule, perhaps a rotation, so we'll see how that goes.