Howard county & Baltimore federation visit OTZMA!

Sign outside the gate at Beit Canada 

Last Sunday was an awesome day for OTZMA, Ashkelon and hopefully Baltimore too!  We have been prepping for about a week for people from Baltimore and Howard county to come and hang out and tour the מרכז קליטה.  I woke up early, put on my OTZMA t-shirt and my jeans and headed to a quick meeting before Ulpan.


The first hour and a half or so of Ulpan went slow as we waited for the folks from Howard County to arrive.  We went over the activities that we would be doing with them and reviewed the map that we were supposed to have studied over the weekend (which OF COURSE we all did!!)  So when they arrived, the group from Howard County was separated into two groups and sent with us to the corresponding Moadon's.  First we introduced ourselves and talked about where we are from (Go Washington D.C. area!!). There were a lot of people who were from the same area that I am from and it felt nice to be able to talk about home and make those connections.  After brief intro's, we were given a map of Israel and tags and had to race to complete the map.  Being totally awesome, my group won and completed our map the fastest.  Booyah.  All me, in case you were questioning that.  Then we sang a song together and it was wonderful and horrendous all at the same time ;).  

The winning team with our completed map!  

After experiencing Ulpan together, we split the people from the mission into groups.  I started my tour off in the Ulpan classrooms themselves and was excited that the people on my tour were very curious about the nature of Ulpan and life in the absorption center.  I haven't written in much detail about the absorption center so I will fill in some of that info as I talk about the tour.  Basically, the Ulpan classrooms were part of a donation by the Grossman family from France that I will discuss shortly.  There are 8 classrooms and an office where Hebrew lessons are taught during the mornings.  There are several levels of Ulpan that one must go through as part of the absorption process.  Its an intense program and is difficult for us so I can't imagine how difficult it must be for people who don't speak the same language as their classmates or the teacher.  In the evenings, there are Judaic studies classes for new immigrants as well as space for older students to do their homework without interruption.  

The view from my room.  It's ok to hate me. 

The lovely bathroom in our room

All of our cooking equipment
 and the kitchen

The next stop that we went to was actually my apartment!  We showed them the way that we live here in the absorption center and I talked a little bit about what its like sharing such limited space with 4 people.  Luckily we knew we would be coming through our apartment so we cleaned like crazy and hopefully we were at least somewhat impressive.  



Inside each OTZMA apartment there is a big room and a little room.  The bigger room is a common room and has two beds, a dresser and a table for four.  The smaller room has two beds and another dresser.  The kitchen has a refrigerator, a toaster over and a stove-top type thing with two burners.  We have plenty of cabinet space and a nice big sink.  Off of the kitchen there is a smaller room with the water heater and a place outside to hang clothes... if only it was inhabited by a million birds that poop all over anything out there. 

2 of the beds in the main room which used to be
shared until one of our roomies moved with ITC

Recycled tires turned
 playground equipment

Part of the playground

After the apartment we walked down to the basketball court and playground.  This area was donated by a Bar-Mitzvah boy who gave $13,000 to the absorption center.  With that they built the basketball court which also has soccer goals.  These are used all the time so I think it was a very important investment from a wonderful child.  Next to the basketball courts there is a playground.  Last year some students from Australia came and helped to improve this area.  They did an ecologically friendly project and used recycled or reclaimed materials to give the children more areas to play, which I almost never see them using.  C'est La Vie.  

The basketball court donated by Bar-Mitzvah boy

The guard booth and one of the
guards with a little girl in the complex
holding a picture she made him!

The next stop was technically the beginning of the tour.  The guard station, main office and moadon.  We have a guard on duty 24/7 who keeps the crazies out.  This is also were the office of the director is located along with the offices of several other wonderful support personnel.  Next we moved onto the gan.  The gan is a building that was donated several years ago. In this building there is the gan-yeledim (preschoolish place), several offices, a music room and another moadon.  




During the day, the young Ethiopian immigrants go to a normal Israeli school.  When they get back, they have a few hours in the gan-yeledim.  In the classroom, young students are taught to integrate into Israeli society.  They are given activities that help them identify as an Israeli but also as an Ethiopian.  They are taught about the seasons and about life in Israel in a structured way but they also have a playground outback and they keep the kids active throughout the afternoon.  Currently there are only about 20 children in the after school program.  However, in the past they have had as many as 100 children at a time that they rotate in and out throughout the day.  Along with the donation of the building itself came the donation of a staff educator who worked at the absorption center for 2 years helping them to improve their after school education program.

"My Israel"

In the offices in this building there are several Ethiopian staff members, all of whom made Aliyah 20-25 years ago.  They are critical to the success of the program as they help to make the new immigrants feel more at home.  When they come here, they do not have the language skills and literally everything that they experience is new to them.  I have heard stories of new immigrants climbing up stairs on their hands and feet because they had never seen stairs before.  The staff members housed in this building help to make the transition a bit easier in any way that they can.  They take new immigrants to the bank and help them set up bank accounts.  They also take them to the doctor and help them to communicate and get a health check-up.  Its really wonderful what they do.

Building 3 - My building!

The laundry room and the
line of clothes waiting!

So, the next stop on our lovely tour in one of the 3 residential buildings.  Building 1 houses larger families and consists of 3.5 rooms per apartment.  This building (along with building 3) does not have air conditioning, but many of the apartments do have balconies.  Underneath each residential building there is a bomb shelter large enough to contain all of the residents of the building.  In fact, a year and a half ago when things were really bad here, the residents spent almost 1 1/2 months essentially living in the bomb shelter.  Staff members rotated who stayed in their with them and gave up time with their families to assist during this terrifying period.  Building 1 also has the laundry room and the office of the maintenance man, Oded.  The buildings are all about 30 years old and there is a constant flow of people coming and going which keeps Oded very very busy.




So, Building 1 has larger families and 3.5 rooms.  Building 2 is our building and houses student groups and people from different programs. All of the apartments in our building have 2.5 rooms.  Building 3 also has 2.5 rooms per apartment and houses smaller families and singles.  

The courtyard that was built as part of the
Grossman family donation

So, moving back to the Ulpan building.  In this building there is also a computer room and a lovely synagogue.  The Grossman family of France donated $1 million for the completion of this building and the main courtyard.  The computer room has over a dozen new computers with internet access and the synagogue is very beautiful.  There is a plaque recognizing the donation and it is pretty moving when you know the story.  They donated the money for this in memory of an entire part of their family that was killed during the Holocaust and in order to remind their children and grandchildren of the significance of this place and Israel.  I find it amazing that they chose to give the money to the absorption center and it really does show that people recognize how important places like these are to people who oftentimes have no other place to go. 

One of two plaques commemorating the family
members lost in the Holocaust - the names of the lost family members and ages are listed

I know I left out some details here and there, but its a lot to try and remember especially now that several weeks have gone by since Baltimore and Howard County visited.  If there is anything that anyone is curious about, please just comment or send me a message!  


So, after the tour we got on the buses and all went out to lunch together.  It was really nice getting to spend some more time with the people from the mission and we really enjoyed getting to eat at Yoko (the Sushi place) with them.  It was kind of fun showing off our Hebrew skills and encouraging them to have their children come to Israel with OTZMA or a program like OTZMA.  

Mosaic done by OTZMA 16 in 2001