Seeing as today was more or less uneventful (quiz/class, break, class, lunch/dorm leader meeting, class, Soccer(!), dinner, chapel) I will tell you more about where I live.
The actual name: Yad HaShmonah, which means the hand or memorial of the eight. It's a Finnish community plant from the 70s and the name refers to the 8 Jews Finland gave up to the Nazis before they refused to give up any more. Pretty interesting.
The Moshav, as it is called (similar to a Kibbutz if you've ever heard that term) sits on a hilltop northwest of Jerusalem near the Biblical site of Kiriat Jearim (The Ark was there for a while). Nearby towns include the Arab village of Abu Gosh, the Orthodox Jewish community of Qiryat Ye'Arim (aka Telshe Stone) and the secular Israeli village of Neve Ilan (I might have misspelled something there). We're up in the Judean Hill country, if we look west on a clear day - or night - we can see Tel Aviv.
In terms of size, Yad HaShmonah is somewhere between 25 and 40 acres (sorry Mom, I was wrong/uninformed before) which is a good indication that my analysis of acreage stinks. It's pretty here, green and nice for the time being. It will get warmer (although 60-ish degrees everyday and no rain yet is pretty nice) and then it will get more brown I suspect.
We're about 8 miles from Jerusalem, a little more from the actual old city. So by bus, our numero uno mode of transportation, it's about 25 minutes. Not bad, enough time to nap or read or memorize parts of Psalm 48 :)
Getting more detailed, my room is one of 4 on my wing. There are two wings per building. Most wings have between 8 and 10 people. I have 4 in mine :) Love that, especially when its time to shower. Some rooms have 3 people, some have two. Mine has two obviously and is about 8x12 feet, give or take a couple of feet. There's bunk beds, a desk (shared by Daniel and I) and a little closet of sorts. All in all it is "cozy," but it has a great view to the West.
On the Moshav there are lots of homes and little resort-type housing, a 1/2 basketball court, volleyball court, mini-dirt-soccer field, a big multi-level grassy area, some replica Biblical Gardens and other such neat things. Sometime I will make a video of the basics and put it on here for you.
I think that wraps up my life in terms of the what's and where's, if there is anything that you are wondering about it still then I suggest that you break from your tradition of silence and comment on this post about it and I will explain. (Obviously that little jab excludes Jordi and few family and friends, but that's a sidenote.) Stay tuned next time for another shorter post from the pages of Eli history.
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ReplyDeleteHey Eli,
ReplyDeletethanks for the e-mail letting me know where to go. We do pray for you and i am glad you are describing things there. i will have my daughter read this also as she is heading over to Israel for Spring break. It would be cool if my sister and her could say hi while they are there. Glad to hear the weather has been good. Thanks for the what's and where's!
-matt
Sorry Matt, all comments get "moderated" by me before they show up. So both of yours are up now, but in the future if you just do it once then I'll check it and it'll show up eventually.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the prayers.
". . . if there is anything you are wondering about . . ."
ReplyDeleteSince we've already picked your brain on that very important laundry issue (after the valid comments of your older brother [yes, know that "cheapskate" was mentioned in there somewhere!]). . . nothing really comes to mind but (surprise of surprises!) F-O-O-D-! Tell us more about what the food is like. It is a sad state of affairs when one packs their bag with Nutella (were you afraid that there wouldn't be enough snack materials in Israel---that manna was going to be the only choice?). Please tell us that you only took one jar! :)
Love,
Mom