I had arranged with Debbie Sher, my Sar-El mate from Australia to be at her hostel at 630 am so we would have plenty of time to get from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv to catch the chartered bus back to our base in the South of Israel. I was up very early and went to her hostel at 545 am and figured I would use the wifi until she appeared in the lobby. She was already there and we took a lite rail trip a few stops to the central bus station and then we got in line for tickets for the Tel Aviv bus. Even at 615 am it was getting very busy with soldiers traveling back to their bases after having the weekend off as most do. We were on a bus at 630 am and were in Tel Aviv at 730 am with lots of time to spare. We met up with our Sar-El mates and took the long (by Israeli standards) ride to the base. It was less than 3 hours.
The above picture is of our barracks from the assembly yard (which look a bit better at a distance). We occupied the upper floor and male soldiers ocuppied the lower. We unpacked and had lunch and did not have to work in the afternoon so we swapped stories of our weekend adventures. My experience at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene topped them all.
The work from Monday through lunch on Wednesday consisted of two and a half days of "working with tanks" (which I thought would be seeing the mechanical side of these 80 ton monsters). For me and three other volunteers it consisted of checking the covers on countless tanks for open areas. The Israeli Defense Force stores lots of tanks and armored personell carriers in the desert. Each is contained in a giant zip-lock like bag. The bag has two halves. They drive the tank onto the bottom half. The seal is about three feet above the ground and the fit the top have of the "bag" on the tank and then close the seal. There are ports for electric cords for a battery charger and a dehumidifier and a drain for a dehumidifier. That was the easy work. The hard work was dragging obsolete covers out of the parking spaces so they could bring in a new tank. The covers weight at least 400 pounds for each half and they're very thick and ultra violet proof. Thankfully I brought my back brace and avoided serious injury. We dragged and folded a lot of these covers in the dusty desert 90 degree heat. It was doing work like this that made me glad I went to college.
While the work was hot, dusty, and exhausting we didn't lose sight of the fact that young Israelis are drafted for three years to do this same work.
On Wednesday I caught a cold and begged off "tank work" for the afternoon. I was assigned to "Intelligence" which sounded cleaner and much less strenuous. Me and two of my Sar-El mates, Sidney Conn who I described earlier, and Eric Goldberg who is an indescribable New Yorker and a Sar-El representative for his area. Eric is a perpetual prankster and I will be making prank phone calls to him on a regular basis for the forseeable future. Our "Intelligence" assignment consisted of the three of us being supervised by two very nice female soldiers. One spoke English and the other none. I used the opportunity to parrot back the Hebrew phrases I learned from my CD course. "Where is the Hotel", "Where is Rabin Square", "How much does that cost", etc. Our intelligence work was the counting and boxing endless maps made by aerial photography of "relevant" areas of land in the event of war. By the time we quit at 4pm my cold was far worse. We weren't to have work on Thursday and instead would start the weekend (or end of service for me) with a tour of the Israeli Air Force Museum. Before we left I raised the flag after breakfast. I then changed from my incredibly dirty uniform into my own clothes and said goodbye to some of the soldiers I had befriended.
The Air Force Museum tour is entirely outside. Lots of planes going back to Israel's war for independence in 1948. I didn't last too long as my cold symptons weren't going away so I cut my part of the tour short. I did get my picture taken in an old single engine trainer.
We continued on the bus ride to Tel Aviv and I said my goodbyes to my Sar-El mates, most of whom are staying on another week. In Tel Aviv I found a taxi and headed through terrible traffic to my next hostel/hotel. This time a great place called the Abraham Hostel. I got a private room with a bath and a fridge and fast wifi, all spotlessly clean and I got a 10% discount for doiing volunteer service with Sar-El.
I stayed in Thursday night and got up early Friday with the best intention of visiting a busy street market and some museums. I walked to the Carmel Market which also has an art component but I knew right away I wasn't going to have the energy to walk to museums. I drank some water and people watched after walking through the market.
I walked back to the hotel and I'm about to sleep for a bit before Shabbot dinner with my Cousins. I'll do more later and hopefully Saturday and Sunday will be more action filled than today.
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