March was a very busy month for us on workshop. At the end of the month, my kvutza did our very first (and last) kvutza weekend. Everyone stayed in for the weekend and we planned fun activites for each other. For instance, we all watched the sunset together, has a picnic in the park, played a giant game of hide and go seek tag in the park, had a kvutza wide scavenger hunt all over Akko, and had a falafel lunch in the old city! It was an awesome weeeknd spent with my kvutza.
That Sunday after the weekend, all of Workshop went to Tel Aviv for VIA talks, which are TED style talks led by the WZO (World Zionist Organization). Most of it was pretty boring, but a few of the lectures were interesting. We got to meet the new Habo SAANZ and Australians for the first time too!
We also had a bunch of seminars in March/ early April. After the kvutza weekend, we had our Chava achot seminar. Each kvutza ( and the Aussies) are paired up with a HaNoar HaOved kvutza that is similar to ours. My kvutza's is in Haifa and earlier in the week we had dinner at their place and got to meet them before the seminar. The seminar was interesting, and I got to learn a lot about the similarities between the 2 movements. It was held at Kibbutz Ravid, which overlooks the Kinneret. Sometimes when peulot would get to be too long and boring, I would take a step outside and look at the amazing view.
2 days after the Chava achot seminar, we had another seminar! However, this was waaaay different. It was held in Jerusalem at a hotel and it was run by Masa who partnered with Hillel for the seminar. We were split into groups with other gap year programs based on what school we're going to next year, location of that school, and type of school. I wasn't with any other workshoppers, which I was nervous about, but It turned out being just what I needed. I got to meet some people who are going to American next year too, but who are on a different gap year program. It was also interesting because unlike the Chava achot seminar, a lot of the other programs had a values and beliefs that did not relate to mine (or Habo's). I thoroughly enjoyed hearing everyone else's opinions though. By the end of the seminar, I was made even more excited for next year, but also sad that I also won't be with any habo's from my kvutza there.
We also had a kvutza Seder the night before the actual first Seder and the night before chofesh started. We invited Maya and Nir over and set up the living room to make it like a dining room. I made the veggie option which was quinoa with cooked spinach, and I made chocolate torte for dessert! Other food that we had was brisket, potatoes, broccoli, and Matan's chocolate matzah brittle which was amazing. A few people in my kvutza made Hagadot for the Seder! Something we tried to do was incorporate everyone's Passover traditions into the Seder. Since it's most of our first times away from our homes in the States or Canada for the Seder, we thought it was especially important to incorporate a little bit of familiarity into the kvutza Seder. Ari made a traditions slideshow which gave little excerpts of everyone's traditions. For instance, Dan's family says a modern plague in addition to the 10 plagues, so we did that as a kvutza for our Seder too. Most of us wrote that our seder's involve a lot of singing, so we obviously incorporated a lot of singing into ours as well!
We finally have a kvutza name! While the name sticks will always have a special place in our hearts, we are now... (drumroll please).... Kvutzat Anafim! Anafim means branches in English. Branches are essentially sticks, but while sticks lay motionless, branches are constantly growing, just like us. Branches also stem from the same roots. The metaphor is endless! I'm very happy with our name. I love the metaphor, and not to mention Anafim rolls off the tongue pretty well.
Every Friday the bakery by our house gives us the left over pastries that weren't sold for that day. They can't keep them because they aren't open on Shabbat, so we get them for free! The week during Purim we got a ton of hamentashen! Too many pastries to count!
About a week ago, we packed a thousand or so boxes of food for pesach for the residents of Akko who wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise. The first day of the packing was actually a day that my tzevet had our Keitana, so when we got home we took a 20 minute break and then were on our way to help! When we got there the Kiyum 4 person tzevet was also helping. Earlier in the day Dufda and Kiyum 3 were also there, but they had to leave for messima before my tzevet arrived. HaOgen also showed up a bit after we did. We stood passing boxes down the line while little orthodox children placed Matzah, ketchup, oil, matzo meal, etc in the boxes. The kids would scramble around trying to make sure that everyone box had the same amount of food in it, but sometimes the line would go slow because we would run out of sugar for instance, so I would often hear "ani tzerich od sucar" and I, or others would have to run and get more. Even though each tzevet had a very tight schedule, I'm glad that we were all able to squeeze some time in to help the Akko community.
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