Paying to Volunteer and Getting Paid for Honesty...

Inside this update from Ari:
Food update: I have yet to successfully make pasta.
Laundry update: My clothes are still wet from the washer and dryer that barely work.
Shabbat update: A beautiful shabbat in the wonderful community of Beit Horon!
...and more!
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The end of the week progressed slowly, I did a little more shopping and attempted once more to make pasta, this time I had everything I needed but chickened out trying to light the flame on our ancient stove. (Definition of chickened out: didn't even try, chickened out from the mere thought of it...). On Thursday night I attempted to do laundry, which was long overdue, little did I know that the washer and dryer would give me so much trouble. There is a special setting on it for it to advance to the next cycle on its own, but I did not know that. I don't know exactly what it was doing to my clothes for close to 2 hours, I hope it used the soap I put in, but honestly, I am not quite sure. The dryer also needed a little bit of "coaxing" to get working, and even then did not produce the greatest of results.

On Monday night at our Nefesh b'Nefesh dinner, two young guys got up and spoke to us towards the end about their organization called Nikayon Tzion which during the year takes groups of Yeshiva and Seminary students to random neighborhoods in Yerushalyim and picks up trash while getting an "interesting" tour of the neighborhood. They invited us to come this Friday as a group to do the same, so that was my Friday morning activity. We met behind Ben Yehuda near some of my favorite restaurants and were handed semi-ugly purple t-shirts so we could be indentified together as a group. We also got gloves and green plastic bags. We walked around for nearly 2 hours just listening to the guide talk about the neighborhood and then grabbed trash on the way. Not the ideal way I'd like to spend my day, but still not so terrible. At the end of the tour, they asked for our feedback, and then 40 shekel as an optional donation. While 40 shekel isn't that much, I think that they really should consider separating their volunteers from their sponsors. They are a not-for-profit organization, and they need to make their money somewhere, but there really ought to be some type of differentiation. I just spent 2 hours of my morning helping them, and then they ask me to pay for it as well??

After lunch I headed with a bunch of friends to Emek Refaim for lunch, we settled on Pizza Sababa, and now that Pizza Hut is gone, it might be the only Pizza place in the area. After that I headed back to my apartment. When I got on the bus, I asked the driver for a kartisiya. Being that I was with another girl who asked for a kartisiyat noar, he asked me if I also wanted the discounted version. You are technically allowed to buy this one with 20 punches for the price of 10 until you turn 18 but many stretch the rule. I told the driver, "I'm 19, you sell me what you'd like." He grinned, gave me the regular buy 8, get 2 free card, and said, here is a 1/2 shekel discount, and your change. I chuckled as I found a seat, but that was a nice gesture. It wasn't nearly what I would have saved if I had bought the noar card, but it was his way of saying, "thanks for not cheating egged."

When I got back to my apartment I got ready for shabbat and then around 5:30 headed back to downtown to purchase a gift for my shabbat hosts. I decided against marzipan rugelach, only because genuine Israelis really don't like it. They don't obsess about it like Americans do, and often shy away from it, because to them rugelach isn't anything special, its sold en masse in the grocery store for very cheap. I headed to the shuk, which an hour before shabbat starts is amazing. If I had wanted and had the patience to stock up on fruits and vegetables for a week for only pennies, I could have. I walked around looking for some flowers. I passed one, took a brief look and decided to continue on. I found another guy who was screaming, flowers 5 shekel ($1.25) and I couldn't believe it. I knew stuff was cheap, but not that cheap. Obviously, they weren't the nicest flowers, but I had no idea what was nice or not. I can only wonder how much he sold them for only a few hours earlier. I spent a good 5 minutes looking for ones that I thought were nicest and then bought them. At that point I called my host, and he told me he was 15 minutes away and I should meet him at the bottom of the shuk. I had already gotten most of the way back to the top so I turned around. As I passed the guy again, he was now yelling, "2 bundles for 5 shekel!" Too bad.

I arrived in Beit Horon at my host's house Tali & Erez Winner, who my dad met back 5 years ago when he visited Detroit. My dad helped fundraise for Erez's elite Duchifat unit and I also visited them once last year. Before shabbat, I took a few pictures of the amazing surroundings of the yeshuv, as well as per my dad's request a picture of Erez & I.

A view from the yeshuv's look-out point.
At night, you can see the lights of Tel Aviv and the surrounding areas.

Shabbat was very nice, Erez & Tali like inviting over people who I can relate to, so just like last time they invited some American olim (not so recent, but still..) who by coincidence they had also invited last time and also for lunch 2 young guys from the yeshuv as well. I was also introduced to the many English speaking residents of Beit Horon over shabbat and played a lot with Alon & Ilan, Erez & Tali's kids.