When I am not watching chickens die...

So, in my last post I talked about the happenings on farm, but there are plenty of other things that I have been doing with my time here in Ofakim.

My schedule is supposed to be pretty routine, although I am learning in Israel that routine really doesn't have much of a meaning.  Sunday and Wednesday afternoons I work with Youth Future.  I think I talked a little bit about my work with them a few weeks ago, but I will quickly explain again what we do with them.  Youth Future is a project that has a lot of potential.  They receive equal funding from 3 different sources: The Partnership in MetroWest, The P2K group in Ofakim and Israeli philanthropists.  In Ofakim, there are 16 trustees, each with 16 students that they work with.  When we go, we help them practice their English and bond with the kids.

Every week is a little bit different and the programs are pretty flexible.  What we do depends a lot on what the kids want to do... as long as we do some of it in English.  Some times we just sit and draw together and try and have a conversation while we draw.  They teach me some English while I teach them some Hebrew.  I am finding that doing that seems to be the best way to teach them.  They gain confidence when they feel like they are not the only one learning something new.  Plus they like to laugh at me for my pronunciation and spelling of things.  I don't laugh at them though :)

I also work at The Warm Home for girls.  There are 2 groups of girls that have activities and due to scheduling conflicts, I only get to work with the younger girls.  This is one of my more challenging placements for a number of reasons.  The girls that I work with are 12 - 14 years old and there are 7 or 8 regulars who attend the two times a week that I am there.  They don't seem to understand that I can understand and speak some Hebrew.  I just can't understand teenagers who speak 8 millions words a minute and change topic every 10 seconds.  When I finally catch on and understand what they are talking about, for example, elephants... they switch to something COMPLETELY unrelated, such as their brothers soccer team.

The girls making Latkes as part of a workshop

The girls are really starting to warm up to me though and I really love them too.  If I am not there for some reason, they ask about me and have even called me on occasion to harass me.  I love it.  They try to pick up English phrases to talk with me and they will say something and then go "what does that mean?" in Hebrew.  They are good girls though and hopefully we will be starting to do things more geared towards building our relationship soon.  Oh, one day I even got a dance routine performed specially for me.  I felt honored :)

As part of the warm home program, the girls are also given workshops.  These girls are girls that are at risk and the reason the warm home is there for them is to give them a safe and fun place to spend the day so that they are not out wandering the streets.  In the different workshops they learn many skills.  Some of the workshops are art related or computer related... and then some just seem fun to the girls.  The most recent one is one that really just teaches them to work together and listen to each other without them even realizing that they are learning some important life skills.

Meshi and Dina  

In addition to those two afternoon programs I spend 3 mornings a week in the elementary school.  I have been having fun with the elementary school kids but I can see the challenges that an under-funded school faces first hand.  In addition, there are many families with problems in Ofakim and the children are the ones that suffer.  I help teach grades 3-6 and some of the children are so weak in other subjects (such as math or Hebrew) that they really don't know any English, even the letters.  In Israel, English classes are typically started in 3rd grade so by 5th or 6th grade, they are supposed to be reading, not just learning the letters, although many of them still are

It is challenging for me in the school sometimes.  Most of the time I help them with one of their study programs and they do not actually want help.  They want me to give them answers.  If I am too slow to give them the answers, they go to google translate and guess before I can stop them.  However, I do have several students who I absolutely LOVE working with.  They want to learn English and more than that, they want to understand why "teeth" is the plural of "tooth".  I usually can't explain why but I enjoy their interest and desire to do more than just click the answer I tell them to click.  I have one student in particular, Natanel, who is amazing.  His family is apparently not the most stable but he really wants to learn English.  Every time he can, he calls me over.  "Orian (thats what he calls me?), sit with me", "Orian, please help me".  He is not even the strongest student but he tries to understand when I explain things to him.  Plus he is just super cute.  Pudgy faced with a tries to gel his hair into a baby mohawk... Adorable.

So, there are many other happenings here in Ofakim but I wanted to at least give a very basic summary for now.  I will continue to post more as I have time :)