A few weeks earlier …..

I must confess I do not remember much about the Kibbutz Representatives induction meeting. I know it took place in a Hall somewhere close to Golders Green Underground Station and a quick look at Google Map shows a Methodist Church nearby. Some vague memory seems to trigger that at the time I thought it was incongruous that a meeting for a Jewish Organisation was taking place in a Christian Church but to be honest I could not swear that this was the venue.
I remember a kind of church hall with hard back chairs and glasses of weak Orange squash or coffee. Given that the meeting took place on a Saturday I was probably dreadfully hungover anyway and weak Orange squash would have not been my poison of choice.  A couple of large whisky’s might have taken the edge off.
I know we had to complete some form of questionnaire and then we watched a movie about Life in the Kibbutz and what we could expect.  Again, memory is very fuzzy but I seem to recall thinking that the movie was probably shot sometime in the early seventies judging by the clothing and haircuts and seemed to bare little or no resemblance to the stories I had heard, or photographs I had seen from volunteers who had returned in the last couple of years.  The movie was all tie-die t-shirts, cheesecloth and denim with beards and leather headbands, daisy chains and flowers in your hair, all shot in soft focus. Did not really match up with the drunken debauched image I had conjured up in my mind from the stories I had heard of all night vodka and arac binges.
I guess that the only judgement I can make on the whole affair was if it was some kind of weeding out process or some form of test then both me and Dingo must have passed because within a couple of days we received our letters of recommendation and an introduction letter, written in Hebrew, to be presented to the Kibbutz Representatives Office in Tel Aviv.
That Letter in Hebrew could have said absolutely anything.  “Throw these two in Jail and lose the key”, or “Please place in the most dangerous situation you can find.” I didn’t read Hebrew at the time and even two years later could just about read my own name on the work sheet and write my name on the Guard sheet for an early morning wake up call.
I remember at the time Dingo was trying to teach me some of the basics of Hebrew and I think we had progressed slightly past the “Hi how are you” onto something slightly more advanced so maybe I knocked them dead with a quick Manish-ma.
In the end we were approved, we had our Introduction letters and we could go ahead and book flights to Tel Aviv and get on with the process of extracting ourselves from our everyday lives in London.