More From IST and now Israel

Hey! It still amazes me how amazing it is to be back home! I just love it!!

I told my friend Alyssa that I would have a story about pickles, so eventually I'll get to that, but let me start with some intro to this particular blog, post, thing.

I decided, back when I first blogged after coming home from my 6 week trip, that I would DEFINATELY NOT post about my trip in the order that it happened, and however confusing that is going to make it for all my dedicated readers out there, I apologize in advance. Unfortunatly with my first post that was specified, I went against my own rule and wrote about the first week, well, first. So, now I will follow my rule, and I will write this post on my trip through the desert.

We went into the Negev, the desert in the south that makes up about 50% (or something like that) of Israel. We went into a part of it called a maktesh(I don't know how to spell it, but this is it phonetically: mah-k-tay-sh), and did our hiking in that (Second pic is of the maktesh before we entered). A maktesh is a geological phenominon that only occurs in Israel. It is like a crater that is so big from each side to the other side that you can hardly see the opposite side at the widest parts. You could almost compare it to the Grand Canyon, but instead of being long and made by a river, it is round, and was made by layering of hard and soft rock. Then an ocean covered it, and it turned into a mountain of sorts. After that there was a crack on the top of the mountain, and when rain and other forms of water got in the crack it made the crack bigger. Finally the crack got so big that it widened out to look something like a bathtub. A G-d sized bathtub, that is what a maktesh is.

So, that is what we were hiking in. It was not a desert like what you would see in Aladdin, but it was many rocks and tall walls, a few scattered plants and the very occasional oasis surrounded by greenery.(Third pic is us in the maktesh hiking) The hours from 1 till 3 we were not allowed to hike because it got to be so hot that if we stayed out for more than 15 minutes we would be completely dehydrated and would not be able to rehyderate ourselves fast enough, so we had to sleep in the shade under a rock.

Before we got to the place we were to start hiking from, we got to visit an Alpaca farm. I am a knitter, and I love alpaca yarn, but the animals that the yarn comes from, I don't like as much. They are like bad tempered, ugly llamas. (First pic is of alpacas)

Now, to rapidly change subjects again, I will tell you the story about pickles.

When we were hanging out under the rock during the hottest part of the day in the desert, not everyone could sleep (me included). Right before we were told to go to sleep, we had been given lunch (last of the pics above). One of the things we were given for lunch was pickles, and very few people actually ate them, so we ended up with about a can and a half left over. Well, all the people who couldn't sleep were bored, so we went about trying to find something to do.

One kid found something to do that entertained all the people who weren't sleeping. He took a pickle from one of the cans, and slowly placed it in one of the sleeping kid's hands that was only open enough for a pickle to fit in. When he didn't wake up, we all had to try to keep from laughing, because that would have surely woken him up.

Then someone who did not have as steady hands as the first guy, tried to put a slice of orange in the kid's other hand, but he woke up. When he woke up, he looked at the orange in his hand and was unhappy to find out that we had found it funny that it was there, but it took him a whole three minutes more to even realize that the pickle was in his other hand at all. Had he noticed it right away it would have been funny, but the fact that he didn't notice it for the first while was even funnier! This story is probably one of the most boring stories you have heard in a while, and I apologize for that. Now that I have used up your time, bored you to tears (if not to sleep), and shown/told you more about my trip, it would seem that my work here is done.

Have fun with whatever is left of your summer, I know that there is almost nothing left of mine! And I will hear from you later, and post again sometime soon!

Lizzie~

Poland Writing

In Poland, on IST, we went on what I call "the tour of the death of Poland". We went to death camps, labor camps that turned into death camps, we went to a shtetl, (a cute, little village like Anna Tevka in Fiddler on the Roof), but after seeing it- we saw where all the people from the shtetl died. So we got a full tour of death in Poland. So, being the person that I am, I wrote alot when I was doing this touring, and this is one of my favorite writings.

Singing Eli Eli

I'll never sing that song
the same way again.

Suddenly it all means more to me.
And to think,
it meant so much to me before,
that I had no idea how much more
there was.

The sand,
stuck between my toes from the beaches
of my past.

The sea,
the calming sound you search for in shells.

The rush of the waters,
washing away the dirt from my feet
when walking in the woods.

The crash of the heavens,
lights flash, and loud booms shake the earth.

The prayer of the heart,
every poem is a prayer from my heart,
soul, mind, and every fiber of my being.

Just being there,
just seeing all we saw that day.

Feeling all the tension and emotion
in the air.

It made the words feel different,
as if I put blue sunglasses on my
thoughts.

I had mever cryed while singing
that song before,
it was a song of hope,
and still is.

That hope seemed so small,
when sung after seeing a world of hate.
Yet it was so strong.

People,
yes- people we didn't know,
came to listen to us,
yes- us , a bunch of tone deaf
Jewish teens.

People came to the edge of our oval,
I'm not even sure if they could
understand a word we were singing.

It didn't matter,
sadness, mingling with hope is the
samd in all languages.

I will never sing that song the same way
ever,
ever,
ever times six million,
again.

Ever again.

~Lizzie Rose~

Explaination:

I wrote this poem after going to Majdanek (pronounced my-don-ick). After touring Majdanek, you end up at a huge dome. Under the dome there is a huge pile of ashes that were collected after the camp was liberated. All of the 98 teens and the 6 American councelors and the 2 tour guides that we had in Poland all gathered in an oval next to the dome, and we sang Eli Eli. It was the first time that I had cried when singing that song. So that is where I got the inspiration for this poem. (The picture at the top of the post is of the pile of ashes under the dome, it was said that each handfull was one person, and there were uncountable numbers of handfulls of ashes in that pile. Even that picture does nothing to show the size of the pile.)

Further Explaination:

Eli Eli is written by a woman Chana Senesh, a female paratrooper. She was caught and killed, and after the Nazis killed her the found some of her writing in her pocket. It was the poem Eli Eli. This is the song (I will leave off the Hebrew and just write the English).

Eli Eli (Oh Lord, My G-d)
I prey that these things never end.
The sand and the sea,
The rush of the waters,
The crash of the heavens,
The prayer of the heart.
The sand and the sea,
the rush of the waters,
The crash of the heavens,
The prayers of all.

~Chana Senesh~

I wrote this poem after going to Majdanek (pronounced my-don-ick). After touring Majdanek, you end up at a huge dome. Under the dome there is a huge pile of ashes that were collected after the camp was liberated. All of the 98 teens and the 6 American councelors and the 2 tour guides that we had in Poland all gathered in an oval next to the dome, and we sang Eli Eli. It was the first time that I had cried when singing that song. So that is where I got that sing.

I'm Home!!!!!

Oh my goodness, it is so GREAT to be home!!!!! I have done so much since I last posted that I don't even know where to begin! I have gone to Poland and experienced the five day tour of death of the Jews. I have gone to Israel and seen the Western Wall, and toured so much that I almost feel like I could lead a few Israel tours myself with all my new knowledge. Not to mention all the hiking that I did. I not only did some really really fun dayhikes, but I also went on a 4 day from six in the morning until you made it to the next campsite (around sunset which is approx. 8:00 p.m.) every day.
On that hike I was one of 18 kids and 4 councelors to go from Sea 2 Sea (the Mediterranean Sea to the Sea of Galilee) or from one side of Israel to the other. 18 teens might seem like alot, but compared to the 98 that were on the entire trip, it was a very intimite group. In that group many boarders were broken, and ties were made, and so many inside jokes were made that if I were to see one of them in the grocery store I could say all of 3 words (and that is at most three) and make them crack up.
On this trip there were two kinds of madrichim (councelors), there were the madrichim that came with us from the US (all but one came from Colorado), and there were the Israeli madrichim or Israeli staff members. That was very exciting! It was such a change for me to have native (or almost native) Israelis with me on a group tour, though they were only there for the part spent in Israel.
In Poland we had our US staff members (not called madrichim until in Israel) and two tour guides. One was Devorah and the other Rabbi Levi Cooper. They were two outstandingly amazing people. When I say that I mean that they were not only fantastic tour guides, but they really knew how to talk to people, no matter what age, and they had great hearts as well as great heads.
I don't want to bore you any longer, so I will finish telling my story(in bits and pieces) filling in random pieces of the puzzle that is called IST (Israel Study Tour) until you get as clear a picture as I can paint in your head. I hope that everyone here has been well, even without my superb presance, and that you will still be my friend!
Have a super day and Happy Belated Birthday to me (on July 12th) and one of my bestest best friends Ashley (on July 14th, yes I am two days older!)!!!!
Lizzie~