nickc

Israel in June 1987 was apparently in the grip of a heatwave with temperatures exceeding the seasonal norm and humidity an unbearable 98%, not the best place to go for a stroll lugging your worldly possessions, particularly after a night of no sleep and too much alcohol. We didn’t know it at the time but we were becoming dangerously dehydrated.
In hindsight, the indications were clear although they could and we did attribute them to other factors. We were tired and lethargic, hardly surprising when we had both been awake for two days. We both had headaches which we attributed to the onset of hangovers. We had both decided that in order to make a good first impression we would stop the intake of alcohol, for the time being, and try to appear sober to our new hosts. We had both been thirsty and instead of drinking water we had kept with old habits and drunk several cans of coke. The general dryness of skin and mouth we blamed on the desert air.  We were in fact getting ourselves into a very dangerous situation and had absolutely no idea what to do about it.
The last thing either of us would have thought of at that point or indeed earlier when we were stood in the supermarket would have been to reach for a large bottle of water. Our mindset at that time firmly followed the “fish fuck in it” train of thought. That attitude we quickly learnt could get us killed.
Then from behind us, we heard the growl of a diesel engine. We stopped and placed our bags on the ground as a strange-looking panel truck slowed down and cruised to a stop.
As the driver had approached he had stuck his arm out of the window and banged on the roof of his cab a couple of times.  Strange behaviour? What we had witnessed we later learned, was a secret message in “hitchhiker speak”.
The message the driver was conveying to us as he approached was that his vehicle was full and the only place he could fit us would be on the roof.
But this was the desert and there are certain rules to be followed so instead of speeding past in a cloud of dust the driver pulled to a stop and wound down the window.
He looked us up and down and obviously decided we were in trouble because the next words out of his mouth offered us the solution.
Unfortunately, like so many of his countrymen, of a certain mature age, he only spoke Hebrew, so the sentence, we later learned it was in fact a question, was
“Do you guys want some water?”, in Hebrew.
In amongst the confusing and guttural sounding bundle of noises that came out of his mouth, we were both able to distinguish one word. “Mime”.
Now I cannot speak for Dingo here. I have no idea what went through his mind at that point. Suffice it to say it was clear that as always, we were on the same page in the story because we both looked at each other and then facing each other we raised our hands and started to do the invisible glass wall.
What the driver thought at that point I have no idea and although I stayed on that kibbutz for a very long time I never once came across him again and was therefore unable to ask him. Whether he was simply a visitor from another nearby settlement or just spent the entire length of my stay avoiding me is one of life’s mysteries.  I suppose we should be grateful that he was at least kind enough to wait until I had finished my pushing a rock uphill and Dingo had done his fight with the umbrella on a windy day before he drove off.
We both stopped what we were doing.
“Tough audience.” I said.
“Never really works without the stripy shirt and the white face makeup,” Dingo replied.
So both dissatisfied that our attempts at impersonating the great Marcel Marceau had failed so miserably we collected our bags from the verge and we walked on down the road.
We had not got much further when a second pickup truck pulled up.  A guy wearing aviator shades stuck his head out the window. “Volunteers?” he tried helpfully in English first. We both nodded our heads. “Put bags in the back and get in.” We complied with the instructions.  His English was heavily accented but had a vague American twang to it.  This was something we got used to quickly.  Most Israelis only aural exposure to the English language was from Hollywood movies and American TV programmes so you could hardly fault them if their accent had that vague mid-Atlantic twang that is favoured by crappy radio DJ’s and ageing British rock stars.  We climbed into the cab and settled ourselves among the general detritus that seemed to fill all the kibbutz working vehicles. These ranged from broken bits of irrigation machinery to odd-shaped tools, a short-wave radio that chirped and warbled away and the ever-present water carrier.
Our driver had just helped himself to some water and passed us the square-shaped container.  About a foot square and encased in polystyrene, there was a screw cap on the top and a tap on one side.
“Drink”, our driver urged us. “Here in the desert, you must drink more than you need.”  He nodded with approval as we quickly got the hang of the contraption and managed to take a mouthful each without totally soaking our shirts in the process.
“You must always drink more than you need.” He repeated it like some sacred mantra.
This was not the last time we were to hear this immortal phrase over the next few days and weeks and I must confess we did take the words to heart and over the next two years, we tried our hardest to live up to them.  Of course, our driver was talking about water but we took his words more literally and drank “more than we needed”.

In fact, in hindsight, we probably drank “more than was humanly possible.” But that is getting a little ahead.

Between 1967 and 2000 some 350,000 young people volunteered in Kibbutzim and Moshavim in Israel. I first joined them in 1987 and stayed for a few years. In my time there I met and talked with many volunteers and since returning home I have spoken to many more. In 2017 I marked the 30th Anniversary of my arrival by starting this blog and then as a tribute to all of you, the hard-working volunteers I decided to document some of your stories and the character of Billy Randell was brought to life.
Yeah, sure, there are parts of me in Billy but there is an equal part of all of you who have shared your stories here and on other social media.
The Eilat Trap, A Pocketful of Charm and Khamsin are just the story so far. All available from Amazon as Paperback and E-Book 

The bus ride south to Ashkelon was unmemorable in its ordinariness.  It was to become a route most often travelled as the years passed.  Therefore to isolate that first journey from the wealth of later memories would be impossible. Nothing memorable happened. The bus left the Bus Station on time and headed out of the city.  Most of the passengers fell asleep and I guess I sat and looked out of the window and watched this strange country unfold in front of my eyes. Like I said it was a trip I made many times and I have travelled that road many times since in cars, trucks, buses and even once on the back of a motorbike.

Nowadays long-distance travel seems to be plagued like everything else by mobile phones. Certainly, my last bus trip (2003) from Tel Aviv to Eilat was plagued by stupid ring tones and people talking to friends that they had just left at the last bus stop. I was certainly ready to kill someone and use the old ‘it was the voices what made me do it’ defence.  Not sure what the current state of play is. I wonder of like many other transport companies Egged has taken an initiative and introduced ‘mobile free’ buses. If not then they should certainly examine the concept. But back in the golden days of 1987, the mobile phone was still the size of a small house and buses were little more than mobile dormitories, in as much as people got on the bus got themselves comfortable and were usually asleep before the bus reached the city limits.  We had our own pet theory that Egged the bus company pumped a sleeping gas into the air conditioning system to make passengers fall asleep and thus prevent them panicking at some of their drivers exploits, but we were never able to prove this and I never caught the drivers wearing gas masks. (maybe they were immune to the gas or were actually aliens)

Ashkelon bus station was like Bus Stations all over Israel. All built to the same design.  A line of Bus Stops along one side, under a concrete roof and usually backed by a selection of cafes and kiosks selling fast food and other items like cigarettes and newspapers.  To the front, there was a large area where the buses could all swing around before lining up for the slot where they were stopping.  Around the perimeter of this area were parking points for buses and drivers that were off duty and set down points where buses that were terminating could offload passengers.  The whole place was busy and overcrowded, thick with the cloying stench of diesel fumes and the ubiquitous fragrance of fried food.  To find the stop you want requires a trek down the line of bus stops until you locate the one you need.  All we knew at that point was that we wanted the stop for Erez and sure enough at the far end, there was a stop for Erez and right next door to it another one marked Erez, but with a different bus number. We had been given the number by the helpful people in Tel Aviv, but hey they were miles away and Erez is Erez so what is the problem?

Most of the buses that serve the outlying communities are the same make and mark as the Intercity buses, reasonably new, air-conditioned and painted red, but we, who had only been in the country about eight hours were not to know this, therefore when what can only be described as a wheezing old charabanc painted blue and white, whose only attempt at air conditioning were the cracked or missing windows, turned up at the stop marked Erez, how were we to know any different.  However, when we tried to board the bus the driver, who was an Arab, politely pointed out to us, in broken English, that we probably wanted the other Erez bus as this was the bus reserved for Palestinian workers returning to their homes in the Gaza Strip via the Erez crossing.  So, we got off again, consulted the sign on the adjacent stop and discovered that there were several hours until the next bus departure to “our” Erez.

This gave us some time to kill so we trekked up the road to the local supermarket.  The first of many such trips we made in search of the Holy Grail.  This was not some jewelled cup but a clear glass bottle with a green top, the Elite Arak.  Not sure when we would get a chance to buy more we invested in a small supply of several bottles and then to try and convince the staff at the checkout that we were not hopeless alkies we also picked up some interesting looking local chocolate bars.  Then with our purchases safely stowed away out of sight, we trekked back to the Bus Stop to wait for the bus to Erez at 2:30.

When we arrived back at the bus station there was still a couple of hours to wait until the next bus and the lack of sleep, lack of food and too much booze was beginning to take its toll. We were bored and tired and to be honest I just wanted to get there now.
We were debating our various options when a helpful member of the public overheard our conversation and pointed out that many of the buses departing the station for destinations south of Ashkelon travelled along the main road and that any one of those would be happy to stop at the top of the road leading to the Kibbutz.  We would have to walk down from the main road but it was not that far, even with all our luggage, and in the heat of the early afternoon sun, but as the Noël Coward song lyric points out.
“Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.”
So we took a chance and hopped on the next bus to Beersheba, asking the driver politely if he could drop us at the Erez turn off.

There was a famous photograph, sadly now missing, which we entitled “The Road to Nowhere.”  The picture shows two guys from the back with ripped jeans and untucked shirts carrying guitar cases and walking off into the distance. It was taken on the approach road to Erez on that first day.  It felt pretty good at the time. Real Rock and Roll. The camera was on a remote timer.  The only problem was we had to walk back and pick the camera up along with the rest of our baggage and then continue on our hot a weary trek towards the settlement which seemed to be getting further away by the minute.
We had learnt another valuable lesson. What Israelis consider to be a short walk and what we might consider one were not mutually compatible.

Between 1967 and 2000 some 350,000 young people volunteered in Kibbutzim and Moshavim in Israel. I first joined them in 1987 and stayed for a few years. In my time there I met and talked with many volunteers and since returning home I have spoken to many more. In 2017 I marked the 30th Anniversary of my arrival by starting this blog and then as a tribute to all of you, the hard-working volunteers I decided to document some of your stories and the character of Billy Randell was brought to life.
Yeah, there are parts of me in Billy but there is an equal part of all of you who have shared your stories here and on other social media.
The Eilat Trap, A Pocketful of Charm and Khamsin are just the story so far. Billy will return…

Visitors to Tel Aviv in 2021, who are thinking of using public transport can now enjoy the relative calm of the new multi-storey, multi-level, shopping complex with added Bus Station on the roof, that serves the city today.
Back when I first set foot in Israel it was a different story. The central bus station, the transport hub of a nationwide network resembled an open-air cattle market, with all the bus stops lined up in ranks and the whole place awash with armed soldiers.
Everywhere you looked there was a Green uniform toting either an M16 or some other form of long-gun.  Some wore full battle dress, others seemed more relaxed in uniforms where boots seemed to be optional and shirts were worn untucked, berets tucked casually under shoulder epaulettes.
And the berets. There were Red Paratroopers, Brown Golani Brigade, Purple Givati brigade, and loads of other colours as well.  Occasionally among the sea of olive green, there stood out another uniform, Air Force or Navy but green was the overwhelming colour.
“Do you think war broke out overnight and the pilot just forgot to mention it?”
I asked my brother as we forced our way to the front of the queue at the ticket office. We collected our tickets and went off in search of the correct bus stop.
Over time I got used to the ever-present soldiers and their guns and even began to pick out the different groups from their dress and general demeanour.  I always had a soft spot for the older guys who seemed to have second-hand uniforms that bulged open over well-developed stomachs and older weapons. They weren’t quite ‘Brown Bess’ muskets but I certainly spotted the odd Lee Enfield .303 and German Mauser among other weapons of that vintage.
These older guys were, of course, the troops called up to do their reserve duty and as I got to know more Israelis I came to realise what effect that month of service could have on someone and the fundamental effect it could have on their personality.

There were two other things that struck me about the central bus station on that first morning. The first was the noise.
Above the general racket, that which occurred from so many chattering people all congregating in one place, the revving engines and the blaring horns, you could hear strident voices yelling what appeared to be random city names.
Welcome to the Sherut service. Costing about the same as a bus ticket a Sherut was a more flexible type of transport.
These Sherut Taxis all set off from the same place as the buses in the central bus station and basically worked in the following way.  You paid almost the same as the bus fare but could ask to be dropped off anywhere at all.
You didn’t have to go to a particular destination so if you wanted to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere at the end of the road to your settlement they were a viable alternative.  Obviously, they look like normal taxi’s and there were no convenient bus stop signs for them, therefore it was necessary for the drivers or other paid individuals to announce the destinations of their Sherut by yelling the destinations at the top of their lungs.  Therefore, above the normal level of background noise, you had the nonstop calls of, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Netanya and Jerusalem, with the occasional Haifa and Sefat thrown in for good measure.  Took a couple of Sherut taxi rides in my time but after the second one when I sat with a flatulent woman and a chicken in a cage that was suffering from avian dysentery all the way from Jerusalem to Nazareth I abandoned that mode of transport and hit the road to hitchhike or used the Egged buses. Hitchhiking might have been a gamble but after that Sherut ride, I was sick to my stomach for days and just existed on Arac and water.
The second thing that hit me on that first day was the wonderful smell of food.  This came from the food stands that surrounded the place on all sides and from a number of people who were walking around munching on the Israeli answer to fish and chips, the falafel, even at that early hour.
Everywhere there was the smell of deep-fried chickpeas mingled with the smell of cooking meats on large rotisseries as you see in kebab shops back home.  The thought of falafel or shawarma for breakfast really did not do it for me.  In time, I would learn to take nourishment, like sleep, whenever and wherever it became available.
One final note on the subject of the Old Bus Station. I recently discovered that the place is now firmly in the centre of the vice trade, surrounded by sex shops and porno cinemas. It’s kind of a shame because the place was so alive and vibrant, we were excited to be on our way to a new life and to be surrounded by so much visual, aural and olfactory stimulation just added to the overall feeling of euphoria.

The bus dropped us and our baggage on the right street and with a minimum of fuss, we found the right place and the sign on the door which said opening hours 08:30 to 16:00.  Great, well we only had three hours to kill until opening time.  But wait, what is that just across the road from the Office, down the steps across another road and yep you have guessed it, Tel Aviv beach.
Now somewhere you would have thought that someone would have had the common decency to put up a warning sign.  They are very quick with their ‘no litter’, ‘no walking dogs off the lead’, and their ‘no swimming when the red flag is flying’, but nowhere is there a sign that says ‘Beware of the Wrinklies.’
If you intend to beat a path to Tel Aviv beach first thing in the morning consider yourself warned.  All over the beach, you will find groups of swim suited individuals, average age between 60 and 80, taking part in physical exercise.  It was like Baywatch collides with Tai Chi on Bad Acid. Now don’t get me wrong I have nothing against the ageing community anywhere, but to have walked into that sight totally unprepared was, to say the least, an eye-opener, and at worse, a breakfast loser.  I did feel sorry for the guys who had obviously spent the night in one of the beach cabana’s and were waking up with hangovers to that sight, at least we were still drunk.
We were lucky enough to find a stretch of beach that was largely deserted and sat ourselves down to wait.
Over the years I have read plenty of accounts from people of their first morning in Israel and how they sat on the beach and watched the sunrise, usually with an accompanying YouTube video of the song they associate with the experience.  I honestly cannot remember that kind of detail.  Checking up with Dingo, he seemed to recall that we sat and drank some of our duty-free scotch and played some songs on the guitars. That may have been a contributing factor to the apparent emptiness of the beach around us.  After a night-flight of no sleep and too much alcohol, I am sure we were not in the best condition to be tuneful. (Not that we ever really were).
Time passed quickly and the hour approached so we saddled up and beat a hasty retreat to the Office.
There seemed to be little or no science in the allocation of places or kibbutzim.  We were shown a map of the country and asked where we wanted to go.  We waved in the general area south of Tel Aviv. Dingo had spent several months the previous summer on the countries northern border with Lebanon. So rather than return to his old stomping ground, we decided to try somewhere new. The staff were helpful, lists were consulted, computer keys were tapped and phone calls made. Eventually, a smiling face informed us we were going to Erez.
Where?
Nowadays anybody who follows events in the Middle East in any detail will probably be familiar with the name Erez.  It has been the scene of suicide bomb attacks and peace talks but back then it was completely unknown outside of Israel.  There was the northern border checkpoint, The Erez Checkpoint into the Gaza strip and lying just across the road the relatively small Kibbutz of Erez.  Dwarfed by its more famous neighbour, Yad Mordechai, where the Israeli Army had halted the Egyptian advance in 1967, Erez had been founded shortly after 1948 by a group of pioneers who had broken away from the control of one of the other neighbouring Kibbutzim. Back then in the days before the first intifada started, we had to ask directions.
“Take the Number 300 bus to Ashkelon from the Central Bus station and change to a local bus when you get there.”
Fine, we said, anybody, know the Hebrew for ‘Central Bus Station’?  Someone uttered something that sounded like “Tahane Meer Ha Kazit.” We had to write that down as we would never remember it, and at this point, we were unaware of the fact that most signs at bus stops are in Hebrew which we couldn’t read on the one side and in English on the other.  Guess what the sign on the bus stop outside the Kibbutz reps office said, Yep, “Central Bus Station”.
The Airport Bus we had caught into downtown also serves all the major hotels which line up along the seafront to the north of where the kibbutz reps’ office was situated so on the way in we had avoided the chaos of the Central Bus Station.
We were in for a shock.

My last blog post about arriving at Ben Gurion Airport for the first time definitely struck a chord with some people and as always your comments and stories re-kindled my own memories and reminded me of some other incidents that either happened to me or someone close to me.  So in the best ISHTAV tradition here are some more Airport Tales.

The first visitors we had in Israel were my sister and my brother’s girlfriend who arrived to spend a week with us travelling around and seeing the sights.  Obviously, at the end of the trip, we returned with them to Ben Gurion and as their flight was early morning we decided to spend the night at the Airport along with many of the other volunteers and backpackers who were flying out the next day.
Among the arrivals throughout the evening was one of the ex-vollies from Erez, a Dutch guy called Ari. He had been travelling around Israel and Egypt since leaving the Kibbutz and was now on his way home to Holland to study.  He decided to join us for the evening.
I recall that a large group of us had congregated down at one end of the departures hall and set up a kind of dormitory area with sleeping bags rolled out on the hard marble floor. (And yeah there was the guy with the polishing machine who just ‘had’ to buff the floor in the middle of the night), but while he was shining up the area where we had been sleeping we decided to take a stroll down to the cafeteria and buy something to drink.  Ari, Dingo and me set off with orders from the girls. About fifteen minutes later we arrived back and handed out the coffees. Ari was frantic someone had walked off with his rucksack.
Then up pipes one of the girls.
“Oh that was the Airport security people”
“What did they say?”
“They asked who the bags belonged to?”
“And what did you say?”
“Well this was mine, that one was your sister’s”
“What about the rucksack?”
“They asked us if we knew who it belonged to?”
“And what did you say?”
“No, we didn’t know the person.”
Which in hindsight was actually true, they had spent precisely two hours in the young man’s company but as many of you will know lifelong friendships were forged in less time. Needless to say, I was well pissed at the woman concerned and was cursing freely under my breath as we went in search of one of the security staff.
After plenty of walkie-talkie comms, we eventually located Ari’s luggage. It was outside the terminal in a bombproof bunker with reinforced concrete sides and a rather hefty looking iron cover. In the dark depths of this bunker, Ari’s orange pack looked very scared and lonely.  Reunited with its owner we returned to the terminal building where life was beginning to return to normal as the day got going and the tables were rolled out for the security staff to begin the thankless task of vetting travellers wishing to leave Israel.

On that note, there were one or two incidents worth recalling from the security check area. One was when an unfortunate at an adjacent table was called forward.  I was in that waiting period between the first interrogation and the second where they ask you the same questions hoping to catch you out. But I was just leaning against the table that had my backpack on top and looking around me. So this lad arrives and hands over his ticket and boarding card. He is asked the first question.
“Is this your bag?”
“Yes”
“Did you pack it?”
“Yes”
“Has it been out of your sight since you packed it?”
“No”
“Would you open it please?”
ZIP
“Shit”
The last word came from the open mouth of the volunteer as all the colour drained from his cheeks.  It was also the last I saw of him as he swiftly disappeared under a mountain of flying security personnel who wrestled the poor lad to the floor and then dragged him and his luggage away at the speed of light.  I thought it was the last I would see of him but as if by some miracle about two hours later and just as the flight was being called forward for boarding he arrived, sweating and out of breath, having legged it from passport control down to the gate.
I couldn’t resist it. I had to ask him.
Apparently, he had packed his bag on the kibbutz and then left it in his room while he went to say goodbye to some of the other vollies. At this point, his room mates (and I use that last word with a degree of caution) thought it would be great fun to place a belt of machine-gun bullets in the top of his luggage.
Brilliant prank or rank stupidity? I will let you guys be the judge.

If you enjoyed this little slice of madcap humour then you might also enjoy my books based on my own and other peoples experiences while living, loving, thriving and surviving (mostly) in Israel. All three are available in both paperback and e-book format from Amazon/Kindle. You can find more information about these books elsewhere on my website www.nickcree.com or follow the shop links above to order your copies now.

Just as dawn breaks over Tel Aviv so the overnight flights from Europe begin to arrive at Ben Gurion airport.  We actually arrived a little early so as we came in over the coast my first sight of Tel Aviv was of the roads still lit with the orange glow of street lights. Out of the plane window I was surprised to see how much traffic was already out and about.  As you well know all the main roads in the city run parallel with the coastline so as we crossed over them in turn there already seemed to be traffic jams on most of them.  I didn’t know then that many Israelis go to work at dawn to avoid having to work in the heat of the afternoon.
Looking out the window I got my first glimpse of the countryside as the plane continued its descent towards the runway.
In time and after many more flights I was to become familiar with the landing approach. Several years later when I was employed in the Airline Industry I made several flights to Israel at the last minute and being on standby would not always ensure you a seat, but one option available at the discretion of the Captain was to offer staff members the jump-seat in the cockpit. Numbered among my customers at the Airline were all the Flight crew so it was easy to discover who the Captain was and to have a friendly word in his ear. This meant that several times I was actually on the flight deck for take-off and landing.
The approaches to many airports are famous for their sights. Coming into Heathrow one gets the view of either Windsor Castle or Canary Wharf and Central London, dependant on which way the wind is blowing.  For Copenhagen, there is the majestic sight of an army of windmills in the Oresund between Denmark and Sweden. For the old Hong Kong Airport, there was the legendary descent through the high rise buildings (terrifying the first time you did it). For Tel Aviv, you got a close up of the city dump.

 The Hiriya Landfill site (Shit Mountain)

The Hiriya Landfill site, to give the place its correct name used to receive over 4500 tons of waste per day and at its closure in 1999 it measured over half a mile in length and was over 80 metres above sea level. On a bad day, it could be smelt miles away and earned the nickname “Shit Mountain” from the locals.
After its closure in 1999, it was transformed into a park so at least now that is the sight you see on turning finals.

The airport was chaotic but coolly efficient and the warm blast of air as we exited the plane was a pleasant surprise. Given the time of day, I was definitely not expecting the temperature to be so high.  But the temperature combined with the air humidity was definitely not something I was prepared for but it was something I became used to with time. Exiting from an air-conditioned bus or coach into the heat of the day was often a shock. On the coast, it was like being hit in the face with a warm wet towel. Further inland the dryness of the air could actually scorch the breath from your lungs making it difficult to breathe.
A shuttle bus took us over to the terminal building where we passed through immigration with a minimum of fuss. It seemed that as long as you had convinced the security detail in London that you were OK then the rest of the country welcomed you with open arms, a sweet smile, and a big blue stamp in your passport that said valid for three months.

This had at least been explained to us before we left England.  In an attempt to curtail the number of beach bums and workers in the black economy, you were required to have a valid tourist visa stamp in your passport.  If you thought that there might be problems travelling in the future with an Israeli stamp in your passport then on arrival you could ask for the stamp to be put on the landing card and then provided you kept both pieces of paper together there would be no problem.

If you were staying at a recognized ‘Tourist’ place of work, like a Kibbutz then the visa would be renewed every three months and the cost covered by the Kibbutz. If you left or were thrown off the kibbutz then you could only get a one-month extension, unless you left the country and re-entered at which point you would be issued with another three-month visa.  What they failed to tell us was that when you renewed your visa on the Kibbutz and there was no landing card in your passport then the Visa people would simply stamp your passport on the next available page.

Since the introduction of the rules regarding tourist visa extensions in 1982, there had been a growth in the number of people drifting over the Egyptian border and down to Dahab, where they could get stoned on Bedouin hashish for a week and then pick up a new visa on the way back across the border.  For us, this modern-day version of the hippy trail was in our future.  So with our passports and visas tucked securely in our pockets we bravely strode out into the land of Israel.
When that door opens and you are confronted by a sea of smiling faces, all strangers, and you have to run the gauntlet past them all, pushing the one luggage trolley with the defective wheel that squeals like a castrated pig and pulls the whole cart alarmingly to the left threatening to crash you and trolley into the innocent welcoming committee, it becomes a real walk of shame. A thousand eyes boring into your soul. But we were both still pretty sloshed from the flight so it was like water off a duck’s back.
And instead of dying of shame on the spot, we crossed the road from the terminal building and boarded the Airport Bus to take us into downtown Tel Aviv.

Now before leaving London we had done some research into this kibbutz thing.  Enough of our friends had been out there, with varying degrees of success.  Some returned after a few weeks with horror stories of concentration camp living conditions and slave labour working, which we chose to ignore, others after several months with gorgeous tans and stories of the good life, which we chose to believe.

Being the type of people we were, we had shunned the ‘organised’ trip where you are all gathered at the Airport and ferried to your kibbutz in a minibus, part of a nameless and faceless group.  These groups are usually recruited at a time of need like harvest time and are put to work in a large group and remain as that group until they leave at the end of their stay.  We were individuals and we wanted our own adventure, so armed with an address and a rather vague set of directions we went looking for the Kibbutz Representatives Office in Tel Aviv.