how do we like it? how do we like it? shtiam!! shtaim!! shtaim!!

"akshevet mefakedet!!" "ken ha mefakedet!"

this past week, from sunday to thursday, i was in the israeli army. the IDF. not really, but at a gadna. gadna was created for 17 year old israelis to spend a week seeing how the idf works. but now they also do it for tourists and ulpans and stuff. there was another ulpan there, as well as a whole bunch of little french kids, and some israeli kids.

we had to stand in a chet when our mefakedet (commander) approached us. a chet is like the letter. there were three girls on the left side, three girls on the right side, and five girls at the base of the chet. it looked like this: l__l (sorta).


we had to carry around our squeegee, cause we spent a whole lot of time cleaning ( meaning with water and toilet paper- israel is not up to date on sanitation and cleaning supplies. our mefakedet didnt know what we meant when we asked for bleach) we had to stand at akshev, which meant straight, not moving, with our feet in 1st position (heels together and toes pointing out in a v) and our hands making diamonds behind our backs. we were in one uniform the entire week, and it smelled sooooo bad by the end. we had to yell the seconds counting down while we ran. were were given 20 seconds to get here, 10 seconds to get there, and so on. when we got to one, we either had to be in 2 lines or a chet, standing in akshev and shout 'tam azman akshevet mefakedet!' if we did something wrong we did pushups. we were in the sun almost the entire time.

we were split up into two groups, boys and girls. our segel (officers) were our mefakedet (commander), samelet (one step above our commander), mem mem (one step above samelet). the boys's commander was actually a mem alef. i dont know what that means, but she got promoted and this was her last week doing gadna. we had a ceremony today and she started to cry. when we said goodbye, she gave us all a handshake and a good hard punch (somehting weird and painful that they do in the army)

the first day, we got kitchen duty. (this is me, sarah, and alexis in the kitchen) the kitchen, in short, is unsanitary. they dont have bleach or real cleaning supplies. we took handsoap (soup as our mefakedet called it), put it in water, poured it on the floor, and squeegeed it out of the kitchen. we didnt touch the walls. the food is also nasty. the bread was moldy. they gave us chocolate milk for our cereal! the pasta was not real pasta. it was more like mush. they didnt use any salt. it was all gross food.

the second day, we did a lot of running and marching. we played a game where we layed down on the rocks and dust in the blazing sun in pairs of girls, and one person was the cat, one person was the mouse. the cat would chase the mouse and the mouse had to run and lye down next to one of the pairs of girls, and the girl on the other side had to get up and become the cat, while the original cat became the mouse. it was very confusing and very dirty. my hair was caked with dirt. i got so much dust in my lungs that now i have a shitty cough and my voice is going. they gave me cough drops which made my toung numb. it was weird.

we also had classes about the army, how to shoot an m-16, types of jobs in the army, ranks and badges, stuff like that.

on wednesday, we had a fitnes test. we had to run 4 laps (1.5 km...i dont know how far that is in miles) and do 86 sit ups and 40 pushups. lo tov. that was before the nasty breakfast. afterwards, we had an 'in the field day'. we were not allowed to say 'mefakedet' because the 'enemy' cant know who the commander is. we learned about shade and hiding, how to walk quietly, how to cover our faces in mud, where to hide, stuff like that. i learned the indian crawl (fast and low) and the 60/6 crawl. the 60/6 crawl is really slow. its the sneaking up crawl. you go 6o meters in 6 hours. it was invented in israel so the soldeiers could sneak up on the enemy. we got to drop and crawl through rocks, dirt, barbed wire, and broken glass. it was lovely. i have some beautiful cuts and bruises. my friend sarah broke her camera. it was really really hot. we had to play a hide and seek game, and i hid under a truck. i fell asleep, and it took them a while to find me. it was great.

that day was the only day we got our mefakedet to laugh. we tried so hard. she almost did when we met her in a chet the night before (in our pjs before we cleaned before we went to bed) with our shirts tucked into our shorts, and our shorts pulled up REALLY high. we all looke rediculous. she came, looked at each of us, tried sooo hard not to laugh, and forgot to speak in english. she started giving us orders in hebrew and we had no idea what she was saying. it was great.

but the day we were in the field, we had to sneak up to the fence where the enemy was before we could 'shoot' them, so we did the 60/6 crawl, and then this big adhd redheaded russian girl lena said "echad, shtaim, shalosh" jumped up and started pretending to shoot like a crazy woman. our mefakedet just cracked up.

that day we also learned about grenades.

we had other classes on other days. we learned how to shoot an m-16, we had a lecture on other guns, we learned about the rescue of the french plane filled with israelis and jews that was sent to uganda (i kept thinking about The Last King of Scotland) and how benjamine natanyahoo's older brother was the commander and got shot but they did a great rescue opperation, and about this one guy who jumped on a granade and sacraficed himself to save his team, we talked about war and purity (my mefakedet didnt really enjoy me sharing my opinions about this) and about missing soldiers and a whole lot of stuff.

every day we got up really early, a little before 6, and had to unmake our beds and make sure the blanket that stayed on the matress was wrinkleless and all our stuff was packed up and on the space before the blanket started. we had to clean with toilet paper and water, as i said before. it was insane.

today we got up around 4 and walked to the shooting range which was at the bottom of the mountain, about 10 minutes walk from the base. we got to see the sun rise over the kaneret sea, surrounded by this beautiful Arab town on a mountain. it was beautiful there. thats was great. the view was incredible. we were surrounded by mountains with the kaneret sea in the background, and all these fig trees in groves around. there were a bunch of Arab towns around us, and at about 430 am every morning, i woke up from the uncomfortable beds to the sound of their singing to call to prayer. it was obnoxious, but pretty none the less.

anyways, we went to the shooting range and i shot 10 bullets out of an m-16. i got to keep my shells and target. i actually hit it a few times. i wasnt very good, and i didnt really like shooting. it was cool to get ready to shoot, to lie down and hold this huge gun, but i didnt like the backfire thing, and all these burning hot bullet casings from the girl next to me kept hitting me and they hurt me.

then we had to do all this stupid stuff like clean a lot with unsanitary stuff and get really frustrated. and we had shitty food and i didnt like it at all. finally, at 11 we got to take off our uniforms and talk to our mefakedet like a human being and she was so cute! shes 20 and has 2 more months at gadna before she changes jobs. she lives 4 hours away from the base, near jerusalem, and has a boyfriend who shes gonna marry when she gets out of the army. hes in the army too, and was in the airforce, but failed and is now in the tank unit. she has 3 older brothers, and her name is tamar. it was great to talk to her, and she told us how hard it was for her not to laugh at us.

we played this really intense game of capture the flag on our 'in the field day'. we were supposed to practice using our new found skills, and capture a glowstick while a whole bunch of soldiers patrolled. it was really hard, but we ended up winning. it was a lot of fun actually.

gadna was not too bad. it was sooo hot, but i learned a lot and played a lot of games and had fun.

we had to carry around this green squeegee the entire week, and couldnt forget it. we had to name it, so we named it ari, after the ulpan director. the boys had one too, and coincidentally named theirs ari as well for the same reason! it was funny. we also had to take turns carrying a gurny and a stretcher. they were heavy and we had to do everything with them.
(this is me with ari, the squeegee-אני ים ארי)

now i am back at yagur, and sooo glad to be here. i love the food which is really just bad cafeteria food, but is 1000 times better than gadna food. and i love the beds which dont have holes in them, and i love waking up at 730 not 545 or 4 or anything like that. i love having my body belong to me, and my time be my own.

my camera died on the first day, so give me some time to put pictures from this week up. i will, dont worry.