All good things come to an end

Nothing lasts forever, not even our time here in Tamra. Today is our last day here and the day after that we are heading back home. We’re heading back home with mixed feelings. We will miss the people here, but we can’t wait to tell our family and friends all about our adventures and experiences in Israel. But before we get to that, a recap of our last week in Tamra.

Cake for evryone 

Sunday was our last day teaching at the Al Mutanabi School. Last week we started a project, where the students made collages about four stories. The students that participated in the project had the opportunities to give their collages the finishing touch. After putting the dots on the I, the students prepared a few words that they would say to the principal about the project when they presented it to him. After they did this Nathalie went to get the principal and when she got back she said that the principal would get there in five minutes. The students told us that this was not possible because we had to go with them. They blindfolded us and took us to one of the empty classes. Then there was a huge surprise, a surprise goodbye party with cake and everything. It was such a nice surprise, we were very touched. They told us that they had such a good time having us here and that they were going to miss us very much. It was nice to know that they feel the same way we do. After the party, we continued our presentations for the principal. We were so happy with the results, the student made such beautiful collages and almost all the student knew their stories by heart. Except the group that did the story about Romeo and Juliet. According to one of the students Juliet didn’t die,  always the optimist. But I have to admit, Romeo and Juliet isn’t an easy story to read and understand. After that we said some goodbyes, but told the students en teachers we would stop by, on Wednesday to say our final goodbyes.

Picking strawberries 

But although it was our last week of teaching in the Al Mutanabi School, it wasn’t the last day of our internship here. Aisha invited us to go to the agriculture school where she works. We followed her through the whole school day and participated with the activities. Yesterday a kindergarten class from another village came to visit the school. The children got a tour of the school where they got to know all the animals and plants on the school grounds. They went and pick strawberries and got to look at the turkeys, chickens and rabbits in the school.  Afterwards they watched a movie about the environment and had a talk with Aisha about how we should treat it.

Making flowers in kindergarden

After her work day at the agriculture school, Aisha also teaches art class at several kindergartens.
She always makes things from renewable materials or clay. The children really love her.  When she enters the room, everybody is happy to see here and she also loves all the children of the kindergarten schools she goes to, you can see this on her face.  

Most people would think that is the end of her work day, but it isn’t. After the kindergarten class, Aisha also teaches a workshop making clay bowls with teenagers in the local youth organization. So as you just read, our last day of our internship was a pretty busy one.  

For our last day here we went and visited the school one last time. And for the rest of the day we are cleaning the house, packing our bags and saying goodbye to our friends here in Tamra. And Tonight, of course, we are going to go and eat falafel. 

So See you guys soon
Gerlinde 

Starting our final week

Every nice story has to come to an end and ours is no different. Even though we have been dreading this moment to come, our last week here in Israel has arrived. We are trying to make it fun though!

For our last time English corner we decided to start a special project. Normally we work around speaking and spoken interaction by doing fun activities and little games, but this time we wanted to go big. We took some of the students from 8^th and 9^th grade and made a whole project around four of the most famous English stories: Rome & Juliet, Charlie & the chocolate factory, Arabian nights and Alice in Wonderland. The assignment was simple: we gave them a very short version of the story and its background, a big piece of paper and all the equipment and help they could want, but the ideas had to come from them.

 

The results were overwhelming! The students were very positive and started some very nice things on the papers! They used a lot of different materials, from paint and markers, to cut out pictures from magazines and drawing, it was so fun!

 
Sunday we will finish up the collages and present them in fun ways.

What else have we done/are we going to do this final week?

 
Well, yesterday we went to the beach in Haifa! I know, just like a bunch of tourists, but we deserved the break to get our weekend going! 

Sunday we will probably be teaching our last day and finishing up English corner, which will be quite sad to say goodbye to everyone! 

Monday it's a holiday here, so there’s no school! We will go to Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee to visit everything there and maybe have a little swim. Let’s see if we can walk on the water, I read somewhere it’s a fun activity.

Tuesday we will visiting Agricultural school. This is a special type of school where our Israeli mommy, Aisha, works. It teaches children everything about, you guessed it, agriculture and how to take care of the environment.

 
Wednesday we will be enjoying our last day by doing some cleaning and packing our bags, because Thursday is the day of our return. We will be leaving Tamra quite early in the morning to make sure we get to the airport on time. For anyone who wants to wait for us at the airport, 19.50 our flight lands! Hope to see you all there!

Yalla bye!

Our trip to Jerusalem!

God, what a weekend!

As some of you might already know, we went on a trip to Jerusalem last weekend. So please, take a seat, because I have a lot to tell  ;) .

Friday

We started our trip on Friday. Katharina and Susanne, the two German girls, joined us to Jerusalem as well. We got up quite early to catch our bus at 9 a.m. To go from Tamra to Jerusalem, we had to go to the city of Haifa first. In Haifa we took the bus straight to Jerusalem.

After being on the bus for more than three hours, we finally arriverd in the Holy City! We were so exicted. First, we checked in at our hostel. But after that, we quickly went into the city to get a feel for the athmosphere. Jerusalem is devided in four quarters: a Jewish quarter, an Armenian quarter, a Christian quarter and a Muslim quarter. We went to the Jewish quarter first to visit the Western Wall. After we went through a checkpoint (safety first here in Israel!), we finally saw the most holy place of Judaism. It was so awesome to visit this place. We said some prayers when we stood in front of the wall and put our letters we had written to God into the wall. It was such a sereen athmosphere and an expierence to see all the religious people pray. After we visited the Western Wall, we wanted to go to the Muslim quarter, but it was already closed because the Muslims wanted to pray. So we went back to the Western Wall, to experience the start of the sjabbat, the holy day of the Jewish people. All the Muslims behind the wall started to shout 'Allah', because they were praying as well and they were trying to offend the Jewish people.

Team Israel at the Western Wall

Gerlinde touching the Western Wall

Saturday

The first thing we did on Saterday was going to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This is the Church that is build on the place where Jesus was crucified. Christians also believe that Jesus was buried here. We got there quite early in the morning (about nine o'clock), but it was crazy how many people wanted to visit this church. If someone ever again says to me that people no longer believe in Jesus Christ, I'll send them to this place. We saw people crying, almost fainting, when they were touching the gravestone of Jesus. We also stood in the line for more than half an hour to touch the place where people believe Jesus' had been crucified. It was both an awesome and crazy experience to visit this church.

Gerlinde touching the gravestone of Jesus Christ

After this, we went on a tour with a local guide. His name was Jariv and he was very entertaining. He explained us a lot about the history of Jerusalem and took us to some nice places. 

Yariv, coolest guide ever!

The Church of Nativity

We also went to Bethlehem on Saturday. To go to Bethlehem from Jerusalem is not so difficult. Except if you listen to Joachim, who claimed that we had arrived in Bethlehem, while the city was still a little bit away! (still love you, Joachim, no worries :D ). We took a cab instead, straight to the Church of Nativity. This is the church that's build on the place where Maria gave birth to Jesus. We wanted to visit the crib of Jesus, but the queue was so long! People waited for four (!) hours to touch Jesus crib and to see the 'exact' place where Maria gave birth to him. But no worries, we are clever, so we got in touch with a local guide who let us pass the queue immediately for only 10 NIS (2 euros). We saw Jesus' crib without waiting. That was a nice expierence as well. 

When we got back in the hostel, we went to sleep quite early, because we had to get up at 2 p.m.

Jesus' crib

Sunday

This day started way to early! We had booked a tour with our hostel to do three tings: climbing up Masada (to watch a beautiful sunrise), visiting Ein Gedi (a nature park) and floating in the Dead Sea. So we left the hostel at 3 p.m., straight to Masada. To climb up Masada, it takes about 45 minutes. But boy, I have never expierenced such an exhausting workout as climbing up this mountain. It was so steep! 45 minutes of pure horror. But when we - finally - got up, the sunrise we saw was breathtaking. It made you forget about the exhausting climb. Israel's nature is beautiful.

Sunrise at Masada

We climbed that mountain!

After Masada, we went for a refreshing swim in the waterfalls of Ein Gedi. Again, a beautiful piece of Israel's nature.
Lastly, after Ein Gedi, we went floating on the dead sea (highlight of the day !!!). It was such a fun experience! I recommand it to everybody! It's one of the coolest things I have ever done in my live. We also rubbed mud on our bodies, because the mud of the Dead Sea claims to be good for your skin. 

Selfie at Ein Gedi

Floating in the Dead Sea

Joachim rubbed his body with mud of the Dead Sea

So, that was about it. I have so much to tell, but I don't want to make it too boring ;). If you have any questions about our trip to Jerusalem, please feel free to leave a comment! If you want to, you can also watch our little movie we made about our trip. Because footage says a hell lot more than one thousand words, right ;).

Thanks for reading !

Nathalie 

(This blog was written by Nathalie but posted by Joachim because of some technical problems with the video)

Communication is more than words

During our stay here we have certainly learned that communication is not only speaking the language of the people surrounding us. We don’t speak the official languages of Israel (Hebrew and Arabic) and sometimes this creates situations that are a bit more difficult. But in most situations English is enough to understand each other. English is a required subject in school, so the children here learn it from a young age. We notice this when we are walking through the city of Tamra, because a lot of children and young people talk to us and ask all kind of questions. But what about the people that don’t speak any English at all? Well with these people it’s a whole kind of different communication.

Aicha and the boys 

In the few weeks we have been staying here in Tamra, we have had the opportunity to participate in a workshop working with clay for people with disabilities. The women we are staying with, Aisha, has several passions. Helping others is one of them and working with clay as an artist is another one. She combines these two several times a week when she teaches workshops working with clay. Twice a week she goes to a home for young men with disabilities in Tamra.

We got the opportunity to participate in these workshops. This is a very fun experience, but not always so easy, because most of the young men who live in the home only speak Arabic. The only Arabic we know is marhaba (welcome), choekran (thank you) and a few other words. And although it has proven to be very handy to know a few words, it is not enough to have a fluent conversation. We were lucky that Aisha is there to translate when it was necessary. It is not always possible to translate everything. So during the workshops we had to express ourselves with a lot of gestures and pointing at things. This was sometimes very hard but nevertheless a great experience. The boys were very friendly and we noticed that they enjoyed working together just as much as we did. In the workshop Aisha makes all kinds of clay pots and bowls with the boys. Aisha then decorates and bakes these. Afterwards she sells these and the profit goes to the home.   

Next week we are definitely going back, it is not only a fun experience. But it is also very calming to work with the clay.

Gerlinde 

Getting used to the swing of things!

Hey guys!

We are really getting used to the swing of things here in Israel now! We are loving the teaching here and the fun experiences we have in the English corner, but there is also so much more to tell.

First of all, Thursday we had a sports day with our students. It was a very fun competition in a lot of different sports in which all classes competed to become the winner. Joachim and Nathalie joined one of the ninth graders to achieve victory, for which they got a stylish pink T-shirt, but unfortunately they just fell short.
Thursday was also a very special day for another reason: rain! For the first time during our stay here in Israel we had rain and when it rains here, it means business! Almost immediately the streets were flooded and there was a very big lightning- and thunderstorm, which give a very nice view, because from our house we can watch the ocean. It really caught us of guard though, because we weren’t prepared for rain here! Aisha told us afterwards that it was very extraordinary for this kind of weather to happen at this time of year. It was so bad that in Eilat, in the very south, a lot of hotels were flooded, a real disaster!

A beautiful traditional wedding!

During the week, we were treated to one of the most impressive things you can see in Tamra, a wedding! We were so overwhelmed by the beauty of it all! Everyone dancing and having fun, the bride and the groom happy together, it was so cool!

Artwork by Ahmed Canaan

Yesterday we went on a trip with a famous local artist called Ahmed Canaan. He makes a lot of works in and around Tamra, but also all over the world, he even had some people in Belgium buying his works! He has a lot of interesting themes in his works, because he works about Israel, religion and so much more. We also had a very nice dinner in the house of Malike, a family member of his, which was insanely good! I think that we will have gained 10 kilograms by the time we get back home!

The last thing I want to tell you about is mother’s day. Of course it was a bit sad to have to celebrate this so far away from our real moms, but luckily we have a very nice mommy here in Israel that helps us with everything. To celebrate, we bought her a little gift and had a nice walk through the mountains during sunset, it was such a beautiful sight! One of these days we will plant a nectarine tree together, which will henceforth be known as ‘The Belgian Fruit tree’, as to make our little mark on this piece of heaven on earth, but that will be for another time! Bye!

-          Joachim