Kibbutz Shefayim

Proof once more that the world (especially Israel) is freakishly small, Tomer, a friend from high school, lives on a kibbutz about 20 minutes outside of Tel Aviv.

And it happens to be a lovely place.

It's a community of families, lone soldiers, and packs of allegedly domesticated dogs that is sandwiched between the highway, a national park, and the Mediterannean.

I visited a few weeks ago, and Tomer and I walked through the park along the Cliff Trail. There were painted rocks every few meters to mark the trail.

So we're walking along, nature, sweet, trees, bushes, flowers... Then:

BAM.

We're on a cliff.

We creep up to the edge and look down, and BAM.

Water.

It was a freakishly windy day, so we didn't get too close, since sand was being blasted into our eyes and hair was being whipped everywhere, not to mention getting actually pushed around entirely.

But it means that the waves were awesome.

We gawk at the edge for a while, and then continue down the path. There's a nice boardwalk, and a crapload of couples. So many, in fact, that when we walked past two girls, they immediately began pointing and giggling. Nice.

Anyways, we kept walking down the path, and all of a sudden, there's this dog. Cute yellow lab, collar, tags (in Hebrew, of course), but no owners in sight. I pat him on the head, and it was love.

Paco, as it turned out his name he was called, followed us around for the rest of the afternoon. He would run ahead on the trails, and wait for us to catch up before sprinting off to catch the next scent or pee on the next bush.

Occaisonally I would try to shoo him off, to go back to wherever it was he came from, but he was ours. Tomer read the tags, and it turned out he was from a kibbutz nearby (not Shefayim), so when we left the park he just turned tail (ha.) and went home.

What 19-year-old has this view from their window? Seriously.

We had dinner that night at the kibbutz's cafeteria (there has to be a better word for it), and me, Tomer, and his roommate David are eating some lovely kibbutz food when this phenomenally raisiny old woman canes up to our table and starts talking in Hebrew.

I can catch the occaisonally pronoun, but other than that it's all over my head (what else is new?). She asks for our names, and that I do know, so I said my name was Amanda.

Apparently Israelis don't hear that name very often, because she scrunches up her face (I really didn't think more wrinkles were possible, but these things happen) and goes, "Ma? Ma? Amanda? Ma?" (Ma=What).

So I say it again, Amanda.

More confusion: she's asking things in Hebrew, and I don't understand, and there's cane thumping, and she's really old so I'm just smiling politely, which only confounds the situation further.

Luckily Tomer jumps in and explains that I'm American and have an American name and don't speak Hebrew (I think that's what he said, anyhow). She looks at me, and says, "Well, she's in Israel now, isn't she??"

Fair point, at least on the language, but seriously, lady. My name? I know you've been on this kibbutz since the age of the dinosaurs, but that's crossing a line.

Besides, even if I did get a Hebrew name, I would probably still manage to butcher the pronunciation.