Date:Sun, 1 Feb 2004 10:07:20 -0800 (PST)
From:"Melli Knee" <melliknee@yahoo.com>
Subject:final milkings and goodbyes
Shalom all,
Hope all is going well on the home front--I guess I'll be there too before I know it. This will probably be my last update from the Holy Land. I am returning home on Friday February 13th (just in time for Valentine's day in case anyone had anything special planned ha ha just kidding) for about 2.5 weeks.
The Ulpan is slowly ending--I milked my very last cow today. I made everyone in the milking room stop what they were doing as I put the last machine on the last cow, while singing "Pomp and Circumstance." The only response I got to the termination of five months of faithful milking (which averages out to about 25,000 cows milked and about 100,000 teats dipped in iodine) was my boss saying "Stop giving me a headache and start cleaning the machines." Good to know I'm appreciated.
We had our end-of-ulpan test last week, and I have another test early next week which, if I pass, will give me three years of Hebrew language credit at UMD. Tomorrow is my last day of "class" and then we go on a Tiyul (trip) to the Negev for two days. After that I have approximately a week to bum around the holy land, and as of yet I don't have anywhere to sleep. Well, something will work out.
In other news, I've signed up for bartending classes while I'm home so I don't go crazy spending all that time with my parents while all of you are still in school.
So I guess I'll sign off here... It's been a crazy five months. There were many difficult times--hearing about pegui'im (bombings) on routes where I walk or take the bus all the time, watching the bodies of three kidnapped soldiers come home while 436 prisoners were released, trying to understand the twisted conflict of where I am.
And there were also so many incredible moments--watching friends get married, or engaged, or fall in love, going to so many ancient places and so many holy places, feeling the history of the land bleed into the present... the personal triumph of coming here with absolutely no Hebrew, and now being able to express myself (however incorrectly, but still with some success).
Meeting people from all over the world and all different backgrounds and coming together for five months, when the only thing we had in common was our religion (and many in the conversion program not even that) and a deep love for this land. So now I'll return home, a little older, a little wiser, and a lot better at shoveling cow shit. What more could a Jewish girl from suburban Boston ask for?
B'ahava (with love),
Melanie
"Fly away little birdDiscover the sky Fly where you want to go Only don't forget There's an eagle in the sky Be afraid..." -Uf Gozal
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