אופקים

So, 2 weeks ago today Richard and I moved to Ofakim (אופקים).  Our apartment is pretty nice... now that I have taken care of the former (and quite possibly still current) residents. The residents I speak of are little furry critters that were trying to take over.  I have at least forced them into hiding for the time being... but we will see how long I can keep them at bay. - for the record, I am not even done with this post yet and I just saw a mouse.  so clearly not long.  *huff*

So, in a previous post I gave a very short summary of Ofakim, but now I know a bit more so if you read the first post, sorry for the repeat.

Ofakim is a development town that currently has 27,000 residents.  What is a development town? you might ask.  Well, you are just in luck because I am going to fill you in.  In the 1950's our newly established country of Israel was having some issues.  There were frequent cross-border attacks coming from the Gaza strip and Egypt.  These attacks were aimed at destroying the one water pipeline that feeds the entire south of Israel.  In addition, there were large immigrations coming from Northern Africa (Tunisia, Morocco, etc).  The government wanted to find a way to populate the area and help to deter the attacks against Israel.  So, Kibbutzim were established along the borders and development towns were started.

Basically, what they did was took these new immigrants, loaded them onto buses, drove out into the desert and dropped them off.  One of the places that many people placed was the area surrounding Ofakim.  Communities developed (they are now the Merhavim surrounding Ofakim) and remained largely separated according to place of origin.  There was a Yemenite community, a Moroccan community, a Tunisian community, etc.  Ofakim itself was established as a tractor repair stop and grew by the 1990's into what was known as "the pearl of the Negev" or "the garden city."  Apparently during that time, many people from all over Israel wanted to move to Ofakim and it was considered a good place to raise children or just vacation.  In 1994, during a time of economic struggle, the main factory in Ofakim closed.  It was a textile factory and about 600 members of the community lost their jobs.

After the factory closed, Ofakim started to decline.  Now, the school system is not in great condition.  There is not a lot to do here so kids get into trouble after school.  There is no movie theater, no mall, only one cafe... and what else do teenagers do?  Furthermore, once kids leave Ofakim and go to the army and then onto higher education, many do not return.  So, there are not that many people in my age range here.  

In terms of the youth, because there is not a lot to do at night, they have some problems.  Some of the volunteers here run a youth cafe, where only teens are allowed.  Its open most nights and there is a TV, a pool table and I am not sure what else.  We will be volunteering there but haven't started yet.

Enter MetroWest (a big federation in New Jersey).  They have helped Ofakim to build a women's center, helped finance a tennis club and a bike riding club and are currently helping with the construction of a building that will serve as an at-risk youth center and house many other community activities.  In addition, there is a nominated mayor who has set up committees composed of residents of Ofakim.  By doing this, he has made the people who live here responsible for the community and it has been steadily improving in recent years.

We actually found out yesterday that even in its current state, there is not a single empty residence in Ofakim, so they are working on building a new housing.  

Great... so what does this all have to do with me?  And what am I doing in Ofakim?

I have several volunteer placements throughout the community.  3 days a week I am volunteering at הגבעה elementary school working with students in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade.  I am helping the English teacher there and while I was TERRIFIED to be working with such young kids, I really really love them.  The first day I went into the classroom I felt like a bit of a celebrity.  They were FULL of questions about me, my family, where I live, why am I here, etc.  I put together some pictures of my family and other things from back home (which, of course, sparked MORE questions) and did a little presentation for each class.  By the end of the first class they were all calling me "Erin, Erin, help me! help me!"  It is definitely challenging because of the language barrier and they make fun of my Hebrew a lot, but I am learning.  As Kami says "slowly slowly".

2 days a week in the afternoon I am working at the Warm home for girls.  I have a feeling that this is going to be my favorite placement.  The home is a center for girls that are at-risk.  There are two separate groups of girls, a younger group and an older group, that come at different times and have a place to be.  They have seminars, they cook together, they talk to each other and I really think its wonderful what they do.  I was there this afternoon and listened as the counselor told them about the rules of the warm house.  Whatever they talk about in the warm house stays in the warm house.  They are not allowed to discuss anything that they talk about while they are there anywhere else.  For next week, I have been asked to prepare a presentation about periods for the girls.  Should be interesting.

Youth Future is another placement where both Richard and I volunteer.  They have trustees that each have 16 students and a couple times a week they work with the students, kind of like group tutoring, but they try and make it fun for the kids.  We help them with English and we have a weekly meeting with several trustees to get to know them, help them with English, learn some Hebrew, etc.  The three trustees that we work with are absolutely amazing.  We went out with one of the girls Saturday night for her birthday and had a blast.

Lastly, we are working on a farm.  We haven't started volunteering there yet (our first day is tomorrow!!!) but I am super excited!  The farm is owned by a Yemenite couple and Yonah, the wife, is an AMAZING cook.  She runs the agricultural side and she makes jams, cheeses, this crazy good yemenite bread and a whole bunch of other stuff.  Hopefully I will learn how to make goat cheese, some of the jams AND the amazing bread that she makes.  When we work with her there is a chance that we will be helping her cook for groups that come on tours of the area.  :)  The husband, Danny (I think) runs the dairy part of the farm.  With him we will be hooking the cows up to the milking machines and taking care of the baby cows!  I love baby cows.  Last time I was there, he made me hold a bunch of baby bunnies.  OH! BABY ANIMALS!!!!  Yay!!  Danny is a REALLY interesting guy.  He is a police officer, rabbi, kosher butcher, moyle and who knows what else.  I am nervous about working there because his English doesn't exist... but it should be a lot of fun and I have Richard to help me.

So, we have done a bunch of other stuff this week as well that was pretty cool.  Last Sunday we hung out with a birthright group from New Jersey and told them about MASA programs and OTZMA while we painted a community center in merhavim.  It was really funny because they asked me a lot of questions about my birthright trip and I realized that it kind of blended into my experience with OTZMA because of how close together they were.

Another day we hung out with a group from Rutgers and learned a bit more about the city.  We went to a place called Aleh Negev which is a home for the special needs population of Israel.  It was one of the most amazing places that I have ever been.