Absorption Centers, Sunsets and the 80's

(Typical View of Ashdod)

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Week 2 of Ulpan. Today we had Ulpan in the morning as usual. Our teacher shared with us some of the news that had happened this weekend. First, last night was the record cold for the season so far, probably got into the 30’s. Lets just say I have been wearing my coat to bed some nights. The days range from cold to pleasant to hot. You never know what tomorrow will bring. Secondly, Syria and Israel have been having some disagreements, the President of Syria made a comment on how the Foreign Minister of Israel is not cooperating with the negotiations process. The last thing she told us was about a story that happened in the North of Israel. Around 200 people went out to play in the snow in the Golan Heights and some how did not realize they had crossed into a mine field. (I am not sure if these people did not know the area well or what because its not easy to miss the fields from what I have seen) While playing a young boy stepped on one and severely injured his leg. The mine fields are left over from when Syria had control of the land before 1967 and buried them there. The Israeli government does not believe that it is necessary to dig them up and that it would be a very expensive process.

This afternoon we visited an absorption center called Beit Canada (The House of Canada). My teacher said the architect won an award for the design of the building. It was build in the 1970’s I believe by a donation from a Canadian group and it was just renovated in 2009 by a group of Brazilians. An absorption center is a place where immigrants (Olim) come to live when they first arrive to Israel, many are from Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union, South Africa and South America. It was a beautiful building that is lined with apartments. The volunteers there will work with the 6-12 year old children for 1 hour with their homework and then one hour of enrichment activities and educational programming. They also take trips and learn about the holidays and culture of Israel. It can be difficult for many because they must learn Hebrew and also improve their English to fit in to the correct class with their peers in their regular schools. I am very interested in the immigrant situation in Israel and I hope to be working here at least one day a week.

I was curious to see how far we were form home so I walked home from Beit Canada with my roommate Zak. It is basically on the other side of the city and it took about 45 minutes to get home. There was a beautiful sunset. It was a pleasant end to the day.

(Sunset over the Mediterranean Sea)










Monday, February 8, 2010

Hebrew as usual this morning. I went for a run this afternoon then headed to check out a women’s shelter as a volunteer option.
As we were walking into the neighborhood I began taking pictures of this building covered in graffiti, completely unaware of what would be on the other side of the walls and sure enough it was the women’s shelter. Many of the women and children living here have escaped abusive relationships and have come to Ashdod for protection and a chance to build a new life and rebuild their confidence. It is a very protective and protected place so their husbands and fathers do not find them. While in the shelter the mothers receive counseling and the children get art therapy. They are also placed in jobs, often house keeping or working in shoe stores because some of them do not have the necessary skills to have higher paying jobs. The shelter helps them as much as they can. Each mother gets a room and bathroom for her family. It seems to be a pretty nice, modern facility but we were not able to take pictures. They can stay they for 6 months to a year and after they receive services to help keep them on their feet, sometimes they women choose to go back with their husbands other times they begin a new life. It was a wonderful organization but hard to deal with the fact that these children and women have all been through traumatic experiences. We watched the children play on their playgrounds and they seemed so happy to be there playing with their friends. Whomever chooses to volunteer there will be great role models for these children.

Artwork in the shelter in honor of Tu B'shvat, I believe it is a bible quote that says "and they will come to the land and plant all the trees."

Tonight we celebrated the birthdays of two participants in our group, Sasha and Nikki. The "middle house" threw an 80's party. We decided to all wear polos that Oranim gave us and go as counselors from the 80's. Surprisingly we did not get that many awkward looks while walking to the party and we put the polos to good use.