Yep, that's me at the finiashing ceremony for our course. Lerone, Idan and Tiferet came to cheer me on and it was such a suprise cuz I thought no one would come. Which I was fine with...until I was sitting watching all the happy soldiers with their family and those are the moments you realize: yep, I don't live with my family anymore and they can't come to this silly ceremony.
But suddenly there was Lerone saying: You didn't think I wouldn't come...did you?!?
She is great...haval alazman.
But that was a month and a week ago. And now I am in to so much more. I'm in deep. I can find my territory on the map I have in my room. That's crazy, that means 50 years from now I can sit with my grandchildren and say: see these were the cities I was watching, guarding. Weird thought.
I finished my test on the territory. The first of a few tests. This required me to point out every steet, hill, downwards part of hill (what is that called in English?) and 65 of the most major house names, valleys, a wadi. Yeah, all together around 200 plus places.
Now I am on to something harder. I have a book of arial maps of my territory. I have to beable to find aything on the camera on the map. And , no exaggeration, the houses or the size of a dot of a pen. Or I have to find a rock. I grove in the earth....find it. Its crazy!! Sometimes I can find things really fast, sometimes I just can't. So will practice and practice till I am ready for a test.
The next step is to learn code words to take on the transister radio. And then I will learn how to talk to soldiers, tanks and even airplanes. And finally i will have a final test that is using all this and simulating a war situation.
Which by the way it is kind of common knowledge here and common talk that there will be another war this summer. The month of May is going around a lot. I guess they want to start early this time so they have a long time to fight. Yes its a scary thought.
I was talking to a girl about the war and what it was like. So was like...."it was crazy. We would sit sometimes on the cliff and watch the katushot falling. We all slept in the bomb shelter guys girls everyone and there was not enough room. Everyone on everyone. And you know that a rocket fell on our rooms right?
Yeah, they told us when we first came that it was basically impossible for that to happen because of how our base is situated, but I guess it did.
But we must not dwell on this thing. Come what may, we will deal with it when it happens.
I am having a hard time with my roommates, we really don't get along so well and that can be hard. They are in such a little cliche and pick on everything I do, nothing is right. But its not the end of the world, just a pain in the ass.
I had such a great weekend. There was a reggae concert on my kibbutz and it was really good. Before and after we danced and danced. My first reggae concert and in Israel of all places. Then today (Saturady) Lerone, Idan, Tiferit, and Amitai came up from Tel Aviv. We were going to go hiking in the Gilboa. But as soon as they came in and sat down, well that didn't work out so good. But we had such a nice time, sitting outside eating laughing. Idan gave me a head massage, so needed.
So tomorrow back I go. That's the way it is in the army. You get a few minutes to breath and then back again. But you hold on to the good when its not so good. On Friday I was in Afula with my neighbor Richie and we went to a resturant to eat lunch. It was so good and fun and I told him: so next week when you have to do your final treck of basic training (over 50 kilometers) just remember things like this and I hope it will help.
