My experience living in a kibbutz

This is an old email, from the period where I had deleted my blog. I found it and thought it was worth recicling it! Hope you enjoy the reading!

I am in Madrid now, in a real apartment, eating real food, having real shower. That is awesome after almost 2 months in a kibbutz in the Arava desert in Israel.

I chose to go to kibbutz Ketura because I wanted to be in the desert and there is a very nice research institute there, called Arava Institute. They have graduation and undergraduation classes in a project to have Palestinians, Jordanians and Jewish students all together. I attended the water management and water harvesting classes and was impressed by their quality and commitment. Unfortunately they were not very interested in exchanging information, but anyway it was a very nice opportunity.

One's experience in a kibbutz depends greatly on the job, which depends greatly on the connections inside the kibbutz, that can result in an easier access to good food and better jobs. What is interesting is that the kibbutz wealth is not an important aspect, because the volunteers or the Ulpan students are treated almost the same way. The Ulpan Program is one in which Jews come to study Hebrew in a kibbutz, having classes every other day and working in the rest of the week. Volunteering in a kibbutz means working almost 8hs a day, 6 days a week, in manual work. Nowadays, most of the kibbutzim, unfortunately, don't have place for volunteers in agriculture, mainly because that is not their important source of income anymore and also because their hire the Thai people for that. The volunteers and ulpanists end up working in the dining room, kitchen, laundry, shops, hotels...

That was my first big surprise. I would rather work in the fields, but my first job was to fold cloths and put them into shelves, so the kibbutz members could easily get them later. After one week I managed to switch into a better job- the dining room, where I worked until the end of my stay, apart for helping the carpenters twice a week in the last 2 weeks (and that was fun! we built a closet together). The best job there was either to be a lifeguard or to work in the hotel, where you could get tips and the leftovers.

The dining room is interesting and is the place I learned mostly about their lifestyle.
What amazed me more in the very beginning was the food. They eat such an unhealthy and bad food. I was there for 2 months and desperate, I could not figure out how is it to eat it a whole life. The others volunteers ate about 7 eggs a day and every dinner we would have a contest on the best egg salad. In the dinner the food was terrible, because they would keep kosher, which means that we could not eat meat (Jewish people don't mix diary products with meat, so every meal has to be one or the other). Every day the kids would eat nuggets at lunch. The brown bread was expired for 2 weeks. And everybody eat that everyday, they don´t eat in their homes. If they do so, they take the food in the dining room in advance.

The other aspect that I think is important is how the kibbutzim kids have less opportunities to better jobs and a career. They keep pressuring them to stay in the kibbutz, that they need them, although if they work there for 1 year after finishing high school the kibbutz pays for their studies. Their life is so volatile, most of their friends and relationships are with the volunteers and ulpanists, that come and go all the time. They must say goodbye to the people they like too often and I can figure out how much they suffer.

The rhythm of life is slower... we don't care too much about the rest of the world. People would complain because I was not writing so often or that I had no phone... but that really was so far away... I would wake up, go to work, come back, put my bathing suit, go to the pool, spend the rest of the day there, come back, take a shower, go to dinner and hang out with the others volunteers... if someone dropped by with a computer I would check it, otherwise... maybe tomorrow... why should we be in a hurry??? Since I arrived in Madrid I have been connected all day long! So funny! The day there seems shorter...