Good Morning

Craaaaakaboom!
is the sound that woke me up this morning almost immediately followed by 'Eeemma!' - Mummy in Hebrew.
Before I was fully conscious or even had my eyes open I bounced out of bed and yelled at my daughter to run into the security room, more commonly known as my son's bedroom.

Yes, this morning I was snuggled under the cover trying to ignore the annoying rooster alarm tone from my mobile phone that does its best to irritate enough to get us out of bed every morning.
Today it wasn't having much success. Both yours truly and son were tucked under the covers though my daughter had managed to get up and dressed.
The thought was just passing through my dreams that if I didn't move soon the children would be late for school when a great cracking noise ripped across the sky above us.

I had no problem recognising that sound having heard similar almost every month since we moved to Shlomi in 1996 and with a much greater intensity during the summer of 2006.

My body leapt into action even before my brain was able to process the recognition.
Of course, my body was still in my nightclothes and I hopped around my dark room trying to drag on something decent while yelling at my concerned daughter that she must stay in the security room and I would be with her soon.
After a while I realised much of my clumsiness was due to the fact that I had forgotten to put on my glasses or switch on the light.
Finally, after a couple of extremely long minutes I joined my children sheltering behind 55cm of reinforced concrete. Then I texted my husband and phoned my parents so they would know we were OK.

Everything was so familiar from 2 and a half years ago: exiting the safety room after waiting the required amount of time, phoning friends to check they are alright, checking the news on the internet and TV, trying to recognise where the missiles have landed from news photos.

My daughter stayed calm by phoning all her classmates to exchange a few words of comfort while my son relaxed with the Sims.

After I had contacted my local friends and compared notes with my parents about the people they had contacted I received a call from my father in law who had just stepped out of the shelter at his work in Naharia. He joked that my phone had been busy all morning.

Then I began to reassess our plans for the day.
School was cancelled so I insisted the children tidy their rooms.
I work at the local library which was closed and nobody had phoned me so they obviously didn't expect me to take part in any emergency measures. Despite this I felt perversely guilty about staying at home!

I warmed up a snack to replace the breakfast the children had missed in all the confusion and then prepared lunch. I made an effort to tackle the laundry that has piled up since our broken dryer and the damp weather had combined to make drying laundry Mission Impossible.
Basically a normal day at home except for our dash into the security room when the sirens went off just before midday

Then there were our plans for the afternoon. Obviously I wasn't going to be walking around Naharia in the company of my children in order to visit friends but before Lebanon II there were frequent 'love' missiles from Hizbollah and after an hour or so we would all return to our routine.
Was the new reality that we now expected every 'booming' to turn into Lebanon III?

Not quite - life still goes on in a limited fashion; ballet was off, the bat mitzvah party was on.

So as soon as I finish writing this I need to get ready for a party

Hanukah Cookout Part I

Every year as we approach Hanukkah I plan to fry up fabulous batches of latkes and doughnuts. Using the holidays as an opportunity to display to my children the mixed delights of Hanukah and cooking.

But then some how my plans go awry. 

The first two candles of Hanukah the children are still at school and their evening time is taken up with parties and rehearsals and visits to friends. And even once they are holidays from school after school activities plough on regardless so that is two evenings wiped out and Saturday evening is spent with the in-laws.

Then the Hanukah holiday frequently falls near the end of December when my husband is busy with preparations for stocking in addition to the usual end of the month rush and I have 'end of month', 'end of quarter', 'end of year' and 'plain badly scheduled' financial reports to churn out. 

My children are quite happy to sit at home vegging in front of the TV or trying out the news games they have received as Hanukah 'gelt' and my parents normally dream up some trip to take them on so I don't suffer too much parent guilt for letting my children turn into couch potatoes. But that doesn't leave much time for a family frying adventure.

Considering that, in contrast to previous years, I now work outside the house 2 mornings and 2 evenings a week a Hanukah frying fest this year did not seem likely but then, as my mother will tell you, I always like to be contrary.

First of all I now possess a deep fat fryer which is great as I have a phobia of deep frying.

Second I shelved the idea of cooking with the children. My kitchen is small, my children are restless and we are dealing with hot oil.....

Thirdly I just seem to be in the mood - the weather is cold and I actually got to wear my hat and scarf a couple of times, even gloves.

So we come to Monday evening - second candle of Hanukah. My children, as part of the local orchestra, had been asked to perform at a Hanukah 'do' for the local council. (I will not dwell of the irony of wind instruments and a gathering of local government!)

Well the local council did their usual inconsiderate best keeping the children waiting for over an hour while each council member in turn pontificated on the wonders performed by himself and his fellow council members. 

Blah, blah, blah 'Aren't we doing fantastic things for Shlomi!', blah, blah, blah, 'Forget about the corruption and nepotism!', blah, blah, blah, 'Vote for me!'

The conductor was furious (Go Reuven!) and threatened to send the children home without performing. Most of us parents sat outside making snide comments about the council gas-bags and reviewing the various types doughnuts and sfinge offered as festive refreshment.

Sfinge, being a traditional Moroccan recipe, has an oral traditional - perfect conversation fodder for a group of restless residents, in a town started by Moroccan immigrants, with no way to pass the time except chat ie I was told the recipe by one of the women I work with as we were waiting.

 

A transcript of our discussion 

Her: You take 1-11/2 kilos flour, a packet of shimrit and a hand full of sugar (holds out a cupped hand to give me an idea of the quantity). Mix. Add at least a teaspoon of salt, be generous with the salt it adds flavour. Add water. Mix until smooth.

Me: How much water? 

Her : I don't know. Enough. You need quite a soft dough. Let it rise for at least an hour. Also if you add some alcohol it makes them better!!! 

Invigorated with enthusiasm for Hanukah baking I decided to make .....

latkes

(Look to the top of this post. It says something about me being contrary:0)

Actually I was going to make both doughnuts and latkes but I remembered to buy potatoes and forgot the yeast!

Latkes frequently suffer from my lack of patience as I grab them from the pan when the potoatoes are still cruncy and almost totally uncooked.

So I watched a couple of videos on making latkes to relax. 

I grated my potatoes and onions, mixed in the flour and egg and then set my timer set at 3 minute intervals while I glanced at the TV through the kitchen doorway treating the latkes sizzling in the pan with a certain nonchalant disregard instead of my usual method of staring at them intently, hoping by force of will to make them to cook at Mach 3.

Success!

They were really tasty and after munching through a kilo of latkes my family decided they didn't need any supper. 

Latkes for the win!

Unfortunately I was being so nonchalant I forgot to take a photo!

Return to School 2008

I know I said I wouldn't talk about the return to school but I just couldn't resist.

I worked Sunday so I was free for the 'Welcome to 1st Grade!' ceremony on Monday morning - both my son and daughter were playing in the orchestra. In addition my daughter and the other vavs (6th graders) taking part in the actual ceremony.

To start the ceremony there is the entry of the first graders to lots of singing, flag waving and clicking of camera shutters. They do a round of the basketball court, in the style of a mini-Olympics, either looking scared and tearful or waving happily to their parents.

Once they are seated there are the speeches (why oh why does every single event involves speeches?) by the Headmaster, the chairman of the local council and the chair person of the parents' committee.

Speeches!

Luckily it is election year so the chairman of the local council kept his speech to the bare, boring minimum. Normally he arrives half an hour late then spends forty minutes thanking his cronies and telling us all the wonderful things he is doing for our town, in general, and our children, in particular. Brilliant for insomniacs.

After the official speeches there is always a kind of rhyming prose poem, an Israeli specialty, about the delights of returning to school.
Each child reads a line or two, which involves some complicated shuffling of the microphone and a lot of unintelligible mumbling, until they reach the end of a row: about half a dozen children. Then there follows an interlude with dancing and singing to badly amplified music.
Lather, rinse, repeat four or five more times until all the participants have either danced or spoken.

This year participation in the entertainment was allocated according to gender with the boys speaking and the girls dancing. Although one group of boys from a lower class gave a short display of their gymnastic ability.

Throughout the ceremony the class teachers do their best to keep the lower classes quiet as they wriggle in their seats. But by far the greatest disturbance comes from the parents.

When the first graders make their entrance their parents are so totally overwhelmed with emotion they run amok, squeezing both cheeks and shutter buttons with almost hysterical enthusiasm.
After a few minutes of patient waiting the headmaster, a stickler for discipline, calls them to order. Setting a great example for their children the parents ignore him. After several more minutes, with the help of a few teachers and judicious use of the microphone, the parents are herded to the back of the crowd.

In my day, oh so many moons ago!, parents sat on chairs while children sat crossed-legged on the floor. Not so in today's Israel. The chairs are all reserved for the children while the parents must stand at the back, shuffling round in the semi shade, straining to hear what is being said and doing their best not to miss their progeny's 15 seconds of 'fame'.
As time wears on they become more and more restless until they huddle in groups discussing in muted, and not so muted tones, various subjects only marginally related to their children's education and bemoaning the waste of a morning's holiday from work. A few give up altogether and go to sit under a shady tree.

Finally it is all over, the children disperse into their classrooms, the mothers of the first graders blow kisses and shed a few tears and the rest of us hurry off to be getting on with whatever it is we get on with.

Parents milling around the school gates

The Orchestra

I have already mentioned that both my son and daughter are taking part in a wonderful orchestra project that has been started in Shlomi.

They enjoy playing their instruments and both of them are aware of the fact that they must practice to develop their embouchure and produce a clear sound.

My daughter has been playing a couple of months and already has a good sound.
My son has only been playing a month and at first he complained that after only a few minutes his mouth went 'wobbly'. We explain that this is what will happen until his muscles become strengthened though practice. He has taken this very seriously and once he has finished his homework he wanders round the flat trumpet in hand, even when he is watching TV. He practices for a few minutes, then rests, then practices again. Depending on her mood and how interesting the TV program my daughter tolerates the loud blasts or chucks him out of the room.

The Trumpet

A couple of weeks ago my daughter came home with the announcement that the orchestra was going on a trip. Everyone was going to a hostel in a small community about 15 miles away and they would be spending the night. It would be an opportunity to practice together and create a spirit of cohesion among the members of the orchestra who are of different ages and from both of Shlomi's schools.

I was excited for her. Both my husband and I have taken part in musical trips and we know what a fabulous experience they can be.

Last Wednesday my son came home from school, and his trumpet lesson, and informed me that he was to join his sister at orchestra practice that evening and the teacher had asked that a parent also put in an appearance.
I knew I had paid everything required so wondered what more paperwork I would be signing.

When I got there, the conductor informed that I had been asked to come because they wanted my son to join the orchestra trip. I checked with my son that it would be OK; although he had never been on an over-night trip before he would be with his sister and although most of the children were older than him, he is quite friendly with the boys from his sister's class.
Then I wandered off to pay for the trip and then phoned my husband to ask which restaurant he intending taking me to on our childfree night.

They set out yesterday afternoon. All the parents were crowding round the bus, some of them crying, others saying they would have to pay a visit later in the evening.
I don't really do the 'mother hen' thing. I blew kisses through the window and waved goodbye in the expectation that my children would have a fine time.

They returned home this morning full of stories about how much fun they had had mainly telling stories and playing games in their rooms until late in the night. They even played a little music!
My daughter was also proud to tell us that she had helped a younger girl learn how to hold her flute properly and place her fingers on the right keys.

The Flute

Of course are so much fun they were pretty tired out this evening but they still had enough energy to show off their instruments to the guests at my parents' for Shabbat meal.

Pita Party

Today my children were invited to a friend's party.

We started getting ready at 4pm, late afternoon but the sun was still shining. It was relatively cool outside but I was still concerned that I might be too warm in my long -sleeved shirt. I always forget just how cold it gets in winter once the sun disappears.

By the time we took the bus and started walking along the road to the party's location the sun was setting and it began to get cold.

The place we were heading for is called Taboon BeLul, which literally means Oven in a Chicken Coop.

The northern area of Naharia is still quite agricultural and most of the properties are still small holdings or small farms.

This particular farmer had turned his chicken shed into a location for holding children's parties. The large space was equipped with a kitchen and a play area decorated with rugs and colourful wall hangings. With sofas and chairs against the walls for waiting parents and tired children.

About 50 children turned up for the party and they got a little out of hand but there were people paid to take care of that. I sat on a sofa in the corner, gently sipping some wine and chatting with friends. However, we were sitting by the door and every time someone walked through the cold blasted in so soon we were wandering the room, edging closer to the warmth of the oven.

The main attraction of the 'lul' is the taboon which is a domed oven containing a flat metal plate over the open flame.

The children were all given balls of dough and rolling pins. They rolled out the dough into a vaguely circular shape. The 'pita' were then slapped on the hot plate where they cook quickly. On another table there was labane, za'atar or chocolate spread to put on the homemade pita.

Strange to think that when my father was growing up all his bread was cooked in a similar way.

Paperwork - (not) music to my ears

One of the annoyances you most often hear people complaining about in Israel is the bureaucracy. I have been here long enough to become inured to a certain extent and there is no doubt that in the 19 years I have been here government offices, the major source of irritation and bureaucracy, have improved their customer service by about 1000%.

However, I still occasionally encounter some pencil pusher who believes that the world economy will collapse if every form is not filled out in triplicate and passed through at least a dozen hands before finally coming to rest.

At the end of last year they started a wonderful project here in Shlomi - an orchestra.

The moment she heard about it my daughter became extremely excited, pondering daily about which instrument they would chose for her and how difficult it would be to play.

I was also ecstatic because not only is the project subsidised, most of the lessons take place during afternoon school so there are no scheduling clashes with other activities.

I always sang in the choir and played, if rather badly, in orchestra and even though I never had the slightest chance of making the concert circuit, creating music gave me many hours of pleasure.

Darling, the husband, was a skilled trombone player in his youth and has happy memories of time spent with the orchestra.

Trombone didn't seem a likely instrument for my daughter and although I still have my own clarinet from my days of mangling 'Sloop John B' at band I was sure that my daughter was destined to be a flautist.

So all is perfect. Well not quite. Although the lessons are during school, the project is run by an outside entity through the local community centre. The payments are made at the community centre but unlike all other activities there, I was given the paperwork to take home.

A fortnight later, after the first lesson, the teacher demanded that all the children must bring a receipt to show payment. All other teachers working from the community centre ask for the printout of the names but for some reason the music teachers must have the actual receipt.

I made a copy to ensure I have the receipt in my records and then sent my daughter to school with the piece of paper tucked into her diary, hoping it will not get lost among the thousands of other bits of paper crowding her school bag.

Next, the teacher said the children must bring in the liability form I had signed for the rental of the musical instrument. I made a copy of that and sent the form to school with my daughter. In the evening my daughter returned still in possession of the aforesaid form. The music teacher didn't have a suitable instrument for her and would only accept the form in exchange for the instrument.

That miserable piece of paper visited school with my daughter once a week for a month until they finally gave her the flute. I think congratulations and full marks go to my daughter for organisation. If that form had been in my school satchel for so long it would probably have ended up as a calculations sheet for my math homework.

After all the fun time we had playing with the paper work the orchestra actually got down to business and I was cast in the role of 'Proud Mummy' in September when the orchestra, including my daughter on flute, played at the First Day ceremonies of both the local schools.

I was also pleased to hear that this year my son would also have a chance to join the orchestra. I had a feeling that the trumpet would suit him best.

Like a good little parent, I arranged for payment as soon as possible. A week or so later I get a call form the community centre:

'You need to come and pay for you daughter's music.'

'I've already paid.'

'You've paid for the lessons but at first they decided only new students would pay for the rental of the instrument now they have changed their minds.'

'Brilliant! I can't get there to pay before the next lesson. They had better not hassle my daughter about the payment.' When things are not done on time my daughter gets anxious, not the state of mind most conducive to producing beautiful music.

My son went to his first music lesson and again they demanded receipts and forms.

I copied the forms twice this time; once my daughter and once for my son, but my son is not quite as organised as his sister and managed to misplace the form. In addition, he was so concerned about the teacher's warning to bring the receipt and forms he didn't go to the lesson. When he got home and told me this, I flipped.

After I calmed down I paid a visit to my friends at the community centre who agreed that the orchestra is peculiar among all courses held there in that they insist the child brings the receipt and form to the lessons rather than keeping them on file at the community centre.

Moreover, it seems they are so into the bureaucracy they have their own secretary.

I obtained the secretary's number from the nice lady a reception.

Next day I had a little word the secretary.

'No, my son will not be arriving at the lesson with his receipt as it has been lost due to his having to haul it round school with thousands of other bits of paper. You will go the community centre reception, just like every other teacher, and with the help of the printout confirm that both my children have paid and then you will inform their teachers.'

She grudgingly agreed to do that, all the time emphasising the fact that she could only do so IF I had actually paid, in a tone that suggested she had the gravest doubts that I had.

Then she informed me that my son would still have to bring the liability form to the next lesson in order to be able to take the instrument home.

Well that was not going to happen either. Remember that bit about my son losing papers?

I suggested that like every other activity they open a file at reception where I could hand in the form to be stored safely until it could be retrieved later on by her or one of the teachers. She didn't like that idea but eventually conceded that the day before they had arranged to have a drawer at reception and I could leave the form there.

Unbelievably it's only taken them 7 months to figure put that having a place at reception, where the parents fill in forms and make payments, to store the paperwork is more sensible than having primary school children traipsing round school with important paperwork wrapped round their sandwiches or stuffed in a pencil case.

Preparing For School

Since the day after the ceasefire my son has been concerned about when I was going to buy all the school supplies. We are lucky that we don’t need to purchase textbooks, instead we pay the school a set amount and they provide everything.
Even so we have an A4 long list of exercise books, pencils and other various equipment. I stalled for a while until, as I had suspected, a representative of the parents’ committee phoned to inform med that a school bag filled with supplies had been donated for every child in the north.

The last week of the holidays the Matnas had organised a proper summer camp for the children with trips and plenty of group leaders. After dropping them off I went to the school to collect the bags. They were piled up relatively neatly on the floor but there was a bit of a scrum as parents swapped items between bags to ensure that their son didn’t get a Bratz pencil and their daughter didn’t get a motor racing diary.

When I got home I checked through the contents of the bags. There were squared exercise books, which are useful though I think they gave us enough to last to the end of the decade. Unfortunately the lined books were with wide lines which the children haven’t used since first grade. They hardly cost a fortune but the pure waste pains me especially when you consider that thousands of these bags were donated. What really astounds me is that most people don’t understand why I even care. They just throw the useless books in the rubbish and buy replacements.
What shocked me most was the diary. It centred on a popular teenage star and was definitely targeted at teenage girls. Apart from the pages of coupons for feminine products the diary was liberally decorated with pictures of this girl in a bikini and other skimpy clothing. In addition the pages were peppered with boxes of beauty and dieting advice and there where whole page inserts with advice about relationships and other teenage concerns a in a that superficial ‘pop’ tone. And don’t get me started on all the advertising.
I would imagine it could be quite useful for a girl aged 14 but whomever thought it was suitable for primary school girls (grade 1-6) needs their head examined.
My daughter took a quick look at the diary and handed it back to me in bemused disgust remarking that it was no use because there was too much rubbish cluttering up the pages. She much preferred the Bratz diary I’d bought her. So did I.

Although the bags contained many useful items there was still a long list to buy.
On Friday I made a determined effort to get organised and we actually got out to the mall quite early. All the sales were in full swing and my children were very patient as I tried on some clothes and indulged in some successful retail therapy.
Next we went to the cinema to get tickets for Over the Hedge. The thought of being stuck in a cinema with hordes of chatty fidgety children gives me the heebie jeebies, which is why I don’t take my children to the cinema so often. I guessed the Friday morning show would be pretty quiet.

We had an hour left to brandish our school supplies list at the poor assistant in the stationery shop.
By the time we had finished I had a pain in the credit card and two heavy bags full of goodies.
I hauled it all back up to cinema where we had only a few minutes to wait. We were the only people in the cinema. At first my children sat in their assigned seats, eager for the film to start but in the break they ran up and down the stairs and between the seats in an effort to discover the optimal viewing position.
The film was fun, not a masterpiece but very enjoyable and when we emerged from the darkness my husband was just walking towards the cinema.

ES

It’s So Quiet

This week I have been as quiet as my surroundings.

On Sunday we went to sleep wondering what we would wake up to. The booming continued throughout the night and then just before 8am Monday morning there was quiet.
By midmorning the ceasefire seemed to be holding so I braved the outside world and took my children along the road to the shelter.
There were dome female soldiers running the activities for the children. One was demonstrating origami, which kept us occupied for quite a while.

An older lady who had spent the whole month in the shelter started to prepare lunch for all of us. The children were more than happy to stay.
After lunch the soldiers packed up and said they would be back at 5:30pm.
We cleaned the room and the children lay down on mattresses while we watched the news.
We discussed the abysmal organisation of the municipality. A couple of mothers phoned to inquire whether the next day’s trip had been cancelled. It had not been cancelled but there were shouted conversations as the women insisted they had signed up and the municipality insisted their names did not appear on the lists.
At 5:30pm the soldiers returned. They read a story out loud and then the children drew pictures. At 6:30 we all went home. It felt so strange to walk freely along the peaceful street.

Since then life has gradually returned to normal.
Tuesday my father-in-law picked us up and we spent an evening at their house.

Thursday I decided it was time for a trip out. The sheroot taxis (service taxis that run like a bus) were back in business and we bumped into Naharia. The town was slowly coming back to life with the shops and restaurant opening again. It was hot so we dived into the aircon in Hamashbir (an Israeli style department store). After sniffing the perfumes we made our way up to the children’s department where they were having a sale. With Israel’s 6 day week I normally can’t get to the sales accompanied by the children so I took full advantage and got the children some clothes they needed.

Opposite Hamashbir was a fancy children’s shoe shop. I had only planned on window-shopping but they too had a sale. A 1+1 deal, in fact. I bought some pretty, sparkly sandals for my daughter to wear on Shabbat and a practical pair for my son. He doesn’t need any sandals at the moment but knowing his track record he will by the time he’s been back at school a month.

Next we looked in a curio shop where my daughter discovered another fairy statuette she had to add to her collection.

After that we were hungry and had falafel and swarma at Lusky’s, the best falafel in Naharia.

The first time I eat here was years ago when I was in the army and a group of us ended up hungry and in Naharia. I was, as usual, the lone girl with a group of boys from the ‘fighter’ artillery base where I met my husband. In fact my husband was in the group and coming from Acco he is a bit of a connoisseur of falafel so the guy who recommended Lusky’s was trying to impress him. We were impressed; the falafel is excellent as is the swarma.

We arrived home tired and happy. I tidied up the house in preparation for the imminent arrival home of our family warrior. At about 9:30pm the door pushed open and there he stood. Tired and tanned he was demobilized and again a civilian.

ES

The ceasefire is over

I woke just after 6am to the pahom of artillery. A sign that things were back to ‘normal’, at least normal for this summer.
As I padded barefoot around the house I detected the addition of a distance rumble of fighting from inside Lebanon. Mid-morning I was hanging laundry out the window of my utility room and heard the judder of heavy machine gun fire. War was raging just a few miles across the border.

The sirens sounded and I called for my children to get in the security room. The siren is new, before we were expected to stay inside all the time. Now it sounds every so often - every time a barrage of missiles is spotted heading in Israel’s direction, I assume. It is instead of the guy from the municipality driving round making unintelligible announcements over a megaphone.

I joined the children in the room, gave my daughter some math worksheets and practised English reading with my son. Then I read to him a bit. I read from picture books thinking that when I asked questions he could guess the vocabulary from the pictures rather than struggling with the reading. However I discovered that unlike his sister, who has developed a relatively wide English vocabulary through chatting with my mother, my son doesn’t immediately remember such words as candle or flag so he ‘cheats’ by reading the caption! Strangely enough he did remember the word for juggler.
Really I shouldn’t be surprised - his vocabulary also includes ‘income tax’ and ‘house repairs’ as his acquirement of English reading skills has been driven by his urge to read the ‘Chance’ and ‘Community Chest’ cards in Monopoly, at present his favourite game.

After while my father-in-law phoned to ask how we are. I assured him we are safe. He told my mother-in-law came back for a few days to work but the renewed bombardment is not to her liking and he is taking both her and her mother back to Tel Aviv.

I made lunch for the children and while they were eating remembered that our pet guinea needed to have his cage cleaned. I took apart the cage and allowed him to wander round our sitting-room with my children. I went to empty all the dirty litter from the bottom of the cage straight into the communal skip-sized rubbish bin which crouches at the roadside about a dozen strides away from our front entrance. As I stepped outside there was a loud crack above my head – definitely not outgoing artillery fire. I checked the sky for falling shrapnel and waited awhile, debating whether I wanted to leave smelly guinea pig litter in the house. After a minute of quiet I trotted up to the large bin and upturned the cage bottom. As I smacked it against the side of the bin there was another loud crack. I decided to forgo a thorough cleaning and trotted back to the flat, sluicing the last few remains of dirty sawdust into the toilet.

Throughout the afternoon I having been listening to podcasts (to distract me) and scanning the news(to keep me updated) with the pahroom, pahroom of a war going on in the background and the occasional wail of sirens. My eardrums are numb with the incessant surges in air pressure and on hearing the first rising tone of the wail my children automatically rush to the security room. I check Ynet to see where all the katuyshas have fallen.

Later

My children have given me a handwritten invitation to a performance. Their little bodies maybe confined to 7msqr of security room but their imaginations are not. The sirens have gone off three times within the last half hour and there is no TV within our security room.

At first I lay on the sofa until there was a loud boom above us, which shook the whole house. I joined the children in the security room and even when I stepped back to the computer I reiterated that they were to stay there until further notice.

The rumbling in the background is like an extremely aggressive thunderstorm and although there have been a couple more forceful bangs there is no ‘whoosh’ to signify a landing nearby.

My husband has just phoned from the army to check we are OK. They had a short break and he heard there were civilian causalities. I refresh the page I was looking at and see that 6 people have been killed - 3 in Acco where my husband was brought up. His parents and brother still live there so I give them a ring. They are unhurt though they think one kutuysha landed near my brother-in-law’s house. My mother-in-law worked for a few hours but has come to gather a few things before they set out for Tel Aviv.

It has quietened down a bit and I can hear a few cars go past outside.

And now I have performance to attend.

ES

The Water Park

I got up at the crack of dawn. OK so it was 5:30 am, which is when my husband always gets up, but I’m just not a morning person. It wasn’t so bad yesterday as I haven’t been sleeping so well. I wonder why?

The artillery was already going strong or maybe they hadn’t stopped all night.

I dressed, checked supplies for the trip and having said goodbye to my husband woke the children. They were too sleepy to eat much but I got them dressed without incident and at 6:50am we set off for the bus stop.

As usual we were the first to arrive. I positioned myself on the road to look out for the bus with the children close to the shelter, in case.

My daughter’s teacher arrived with a large suitcase and her son. After a day at the park they were staying in Tel Aviv. Her husband has to work so he will be at home taking care of the house and their dogs.

At 7am, when the bus should have already arrived, more people rolled up and there was quite a crowd when the bus finally put in an appearance at 7:15am

We drove on to the next shelter to pick up more people. And there we stuck. I have no idea what the problem was or if there really was any problem but people hovered outside and got on and off the bus. After half an hour something was resolved and we finally swung into action – only three quarters of an hour late!

The journey was reasonably uneventful with only light traffic. There was the obligatory pit stop that always takes longer than it should because some people have no sense of time (or just no sense) and can’t resist the urge to shop. This made a long journey even longer but the children were happy and had a school friend to play with.

When we got into Tel Aviv, and the inevitable traffic jams, we discovered that the driver had no idea where to go. He ended up asking directions from a passer-by in the Old Port. Of course we were going in totally the wrong direction so he had to phone the other drivers, who had already arrived. Finally we joined the long, slow queue to entrance.

We had been told lunch would be provided and when I inquired they said that there would be an announcement but they sounded a bit vague.

There was no one we really knew on our bus and the children were more eager to jump in the water than socialise so I found some chairs in the shade for our things. I was a little concerned about leaving our bags unattended although in an enclosed place like a water park they do a thorough security check at the entrance so there is not usual security panic connected with unaccompanied packages. I never take any valuables but losing my cell phone, particularly at this time, would be annoying. Normally we go to these places with my husband’s work and sit in an enormous group of friends and colleagues so there is always so one hanging around, resting.

Not that I got much rest this time. My son adored the wave pool so we went three times. At first we stood in the middle but the waves were quite gentle. We moved over to the side were the rise and fall was much more dramatic. The lifeguards were pacing up and down the side whistling constantly to insure that minor infringements of the safety rules didn’t become major incidents. There were bars on the side and my children hung from them like orang-utans I tried but it was too much strain on my biceps. I am always amazed at how strong and athletic my children are. Not my genes I’m sure.

There were several slides but my children were only interested in the ‘toboggan style’ and I guessed it was the only one suitable for my 7 yo son - he was just above the 120cm height restriction.

The queue was frighteningly long but moved pretty fast. One boy in front kindly informed us that the white run was fastest with red a close second. The blue was for scaredy cats and the infirm!

My son was in a brave mood and chose white, my daughter was perfectly happy with red and so I went blue.

I have been on several of these slides and they are great fun. Normally you can sit or lie flat to control your speed but here there were gallons of water making it too slippery to sit and it was fast. So fast that on the corners I almost flipped over. It was exhilarating but I was a little concerned that it might have been too exciting for my children. They were ecstatic and my son hardly paused for breath as he told me, and demonstrated with arm movements, how he had gone swoosh, swoosh and vroom vroom voom.

When lunchtime came I could hear plenty of announcements but none for us. However I did see people collecting food portions. I went on a look-see and found several worried people crouching over coolers: They had run out of food. There were a few portions left for the children but nothing for the adults. Whether more people came along than signed up or the person in charge had forgotten simple arithmetic, I didn’t stay to ask. I wasn’t really surprised.

Anyway the portions we received were adult-sized which was plenty between the three of us especially as my appetite is not up to par.

I also saw a woman I knew vaguely from the pool. She greeted me with a grin and started to chat about how they had had enough and relocated to Tel Aviv. I was a little confused so I asked whether it was happy coincidence she was here with every else from Shlomi. How naïve!

‘No,’ she told me, ‘the bus picked us up. When I heard about the trip I phoned the municipality and said “Don’t we deserve a little fun too?”’

Apart from being curious how she had heard about the trip from Tel Aviv when most people in Shlomi didn’t know, I had to bite back to urge to say ‘Well no, actually. These trips are not just as ‘a little fun’ but a breathing space for children stuck in shelters 24/7. Not for those who have gone to Tel Aviv have access to activity camps and can play outside and move around as freely as they wish.’ But I didn’t want to start a fight.

I wouldn’t have been so furious if the trips had been more openly advertised but unfortunately it seems Vitamin P is still a necessary supplement when dealing with Shlomi’s municipality.

(Vitamin P = protectzia i.e. it’s not what you know but who you know)

After lunch we investigated a pool I’d noticed on the other side of the park. This was an adventure pool. There was a tree-house style ‘island’ with slides, hidey-holes and water sprays. I particularly enjoyed the vertical sprays, which give a firm back massage.

On the way back for ice cream I found a friend wading cautiously into the wave pool. She is as myopic as I am and was without her glasses so I helped her spy out her daughter. She was also unimpressed with the organisation of the trip. She too had only found out about it by accident and had had to fight with them to sign her up. Then when the bus arrived they weren’t on the list and the bus organisers were all for leaving her and her two children behind. No chance!

She said her children have been on the slides about a dozen times and she highly recommended the inner tubes.

When we had sated ourselves with ice cream we stood in line for the inner tubes. It was a short slide and not as creative as the one at Luna Gal in Tiberius but it was fun. My skinny daughter ended up with a large tube, which she fell out of and she had to be assisted by one of the hundreds of staff looking after us all. Because I was heavier and lower in the water than everyone else I seemed to create twice as much splash.

After that I collapsed in a chair with my book while the children played in the spray pool nearby.

It was announced that the Shlomi buses would leave at 5:30pm so at 4:50 I got the children out of the pool and a little after 5pm we were ready to leave. I felt a little foolish being ready so early but an English childhood still conflicts with the Israeli habit of being late. We weren’t the first people on the bus but it was quite empty and we settled into our seats.

By the time the bus was set to leave there was another furore. For some inexplicable reason people had decided to play musical buses and almost everyone had chosen to travel with us. In addition some adults had decided they were tired and stretched out over two seats to sleep.

As a result, even though several passengers had stayed in Tel Aviv there was not enough room on our bus. The female soldiers in charge of the bus were very sweet but totally ineffective in sorting out the situation. One little boy had a total melt down and sulked all the way home while a couple of families moved over to the other half-empty buses.

We’d scarcely left Tel Aviv when the bus pulled in for a pit stop. It was decided we would only stay 10 mins for a bathroom break but some cocky teenage boys decided they were hungry and we spent half hour waiting for them. The driver wanted to leave them behind for the other bus that was taking a longer break but their mother wouldn’t let him even though she refused to go and hurry them up.

At least the driver made good time and we got home some time after eight o’clock: a little sunburnt, rather tired but, despite all the craziness, very happy.

ES