Welcome to Tel Aviv

Passover vacation has arrived, and as excited as I am to have little obligation other than sleeping in, playing on the beach, and enjoying Tel Aviv, I am a bit panicked that it is already the end of April. Seriously?

In just a few weeks I will be on a plane back to the States for a short visit home before staffing a Birthright trip at the end of May and coming back to Israel for an open-ended period of time. Conveniently I will be able to attend Miss. Julia Buckner’s wedding in Cape Cod and I could not possibly be more excited. I feel like I should use an exclamation point at the end of that sentence to express my excitement, but it feels too forced. You probably get the gist…

Now for a bit about my time in Tel Aviv. We moved in to our apartments at the beginning of April and it was already hot. Perhaps unseasonably hot. Our living arrangement is by far the nicest accommodations that I have had, and that says a lot. We are three ladies living in what is essentially a low star hotel. Anne and I live in one bedroom and Serena lives on the pull out couch in the common room which doubles as a “kitchen”. Our kitchen is a four foot long counter with a sink and a transportable stove burner. One burner. No worries, it is more than sufficient. We live on the northern end of Ben Yehuda in an adorable and safe neighborhood. Our street is dotted with comfortable cafes, sushi restaurants, art galleries, ice cream shops, and five minute walk to the beach. Also the gym I joined, Pure gym, is not more than four long blocks south of our residence.

I love this gym. The people who workout at Pure are insanely fit and I’m slightly intimidated, but it is inspiring and pushes me to work hard. There are DJs on the cardio floor and even a DJ for my kickboxing class. By the way, kickboxing class has an entirely new added element knowing that the teacher was a badass (for lack of better word) fighting soldier in the Israeli Army. Not that I asked him what he did in the army… I’d rather just think that way.

I spend my time interning at Save a Child’s Heart, a magnificent organization which brings children from all over the world to Wolfson hospital in Holon for various surgeries and care to treat congenital heart conditions. The office is attached to a large house in Azur where the children reside before treatment and while recuperating. The children come from literally all over the world. From Vietnam, Ukraine, Eritrea and the Palestinian territories just to name a few places. Because of the large financial burden and lack of space, not every child’s mother comes along. As a result, mothers take responsibility for several children from their respective countries. For example, if four children come from Kenya, one mother might cook, clean, and care for all four of these children for weeks or months until they are all ready to return home together. That said, people from around the globe live together in this very house in close quarters simultaneously.

A few days ago I was in the house playing a revised version of soccer with a few little boys. One little one from Iraq, one from Kenya and one from Zanzibar. With no common language amongst us we played until exhaustion and boredom was written on their little faces. The child from Iraq just ran around yelling “One, two, three, four, five,” in random outbursts, the child from Kenya was sporadically yelling “balagan” which is Hebrew for big mess. The whole time I was trying to teach the kids not to use their hands while playing soccer by holding my hands behind my back and saying outloud, “No hands.” It is unclear to me if they understood, but it resulted in the little Iraqi child yelling the following stream repetitively: Balagan! One, two, three, four, five! No hands!” These children might be the model for us to follow to learn how to coexist and learn together…

In terms of Israeli non-profits, I hope this organization receives the most publicity possible. Out of the 1848 children who have received care since SACHs beginning in 1996, 828 of the children have been from Palestinian territories. Considering that the next highest receiving country is Ethiopia which accounts for 345 children since SACHs inception. Clearly, I would recommend anyone who is looking for causes to donate money to donate to SACH. Or to get involved in any way possible whether by raising awareness or organizing a fundraiser.

SACH right now has an international photo exhibit in circulation which can be transported to any location interested in hosting it. For more information click on the “From Art to Heart” emblem from the mainpage (saveachildsheart.com).

More to come later…