Last week, I spent about 7 days at Kibbutz Neot Smadar. Neot Smadar is special. It takes its inspiration from the idea that people can work and live together for the good of everyone. This bond has allowed the Kibbutz endure for over 20 years. Before arriving I had many preconceived notions about the Kibbutz ---it being a quasi-cult, the awkwardness of eating in silence and the weird people I would be meeting. For the most part these stereotypes remain but I do have a respect for the idea that they espouse.
A typical day began at 5:45am, where I would groggily wake up, put on the warmest clothes I could find (the desert gets really cold at night and really hot in the day, making it nearly impossible to pack for). I would then quickly brush my teeth and sleepily walk in the dark to the mess hall. Upon arriving, I would pour myself a stiff cup of coffee and sit down with the rest of the community for a 20 minute meditation. The meditation is supposed to give you an appreciation for the new day, which it did. After meditation, we would be assigned our morning duties. I worked in different places including the kitchen, garden, winery and weeding.
At 8:30am, breakfast would be served. Fresh, organic vegetables (tomatoes, celery, carrots, lettuce, cabbage), goat cheese, two types of homemade bread (white and brown) and the best apricot jam in the world. Meals are conducted in silence, which also takes some time to get used to, especially for a new volunteer who is just starting to meet people.
After breakfast, work continues until about 12 noon, where we take a break and eat gigantic pomelos (a cross between a grape fruit and orange, but better than both of them!). At about 1pm, a chime was heard throughout the kibbutz indicated that it was time for lunch. We would pack up our stuff and head over to the dining hall. Lunch is usually some soup, or beans and lots of veggies (it's a vegetarian kibbutz with fish twice a week). After lunch, there was a kibbutz-wide meeting to determine what needed to happen in the afternoon. Sometimes I would be asked to clean, other times I would be asked to work in specialized projects, like the water pipe project. At about 5pm, we would finish working and have 2 hours to relax before dinner. Dinner would be soup, vegetables, and beans (you can see the pattern, can't you?). I became so desperate for meat, that I started to fantasize about killing the chickens on the kibbutz and roasting them on a spic. It even got to the point that got excited for fish and I hate fish.
Most of the nights I would pass out at 8pm due to pure exhaustion, which made socializing kind of an issue.
The kibbutz doesn't celebrate Shabbat in any normal way; instead, they have a dance circle where they all dress in white to choreographed music! It was an interesting transitory experience!
On Saturday I had the opportunity to go exploring. The Kibbutz is huge and has much to offer including a man-made pond where you can swim and a man-made "lake" with an island in the centre accessible my paddle boat.
Overall, the experience was a good one, although it strikes me as somewhat oxymoronic that a kibbutz which preaches sustainable practises and tries to eat locally and organically, would be located on a land that is not easily habitable and which needs to be irrigated with a lot of water just to make it habitable. Sounds pretty counterintuitive. Also the constant barrage of gunfire and bomb explosions (we were 5km from an army base) made for a strange experience. We would talk about loving our neighbours, going back to what we need in life, mainly relationships and humility, and then we would hear bombs exploding which would literally shake the trailer park homes in the area.
For pictures, see: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2049833&id=164200005&l=46903b0a1a
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