Shabbat

Yesterday there was a big "Ayalim Day" in the village. There were booths with food and crafts and kids activities for the families in Dimona. Normally this would be great, but since I was in my room the whole time, working on a paper and the conference, it wasn't really the best timing for me. I brought Shoko inside in case there were some kids who were afraid of dogs and he kept me company by sleeping under my desk.

After stressing on work all day, I realized that I didn't speak to anyone about Shabbat meals. Luckily, there was a meal in the Moadon and I ended up just bringing a tomato/avocado salad because that was what I had handy. Pretty standard Friday night but came just in time!

Today was very laid back. I got some much needed sleep, re-read my article for Historiography and then we finally all got together for lunch around 2. I spoke with Reut's friend from Haifa about the US. She's planning on going there for a year and wanted to know what it's like. It will be her first time outside of Israel and it was cute how she kept asking, "is that place safe?" I think some Israelis have an inborn fear of non-Jews and I explained to her that any place she would be (NY, LA...) she wouldn't really have any problems (especially since most people wouldn't even realize she's Jewish since she's Ethiopian). After Shabbat I introduced her to Craigslist. I guess we'll see how it goes.

For the rest of Shabbat, Boaz, Racheli, Reut and I played Israeli kent (4 playered card game) called Kareh Kupeh. We were pretty terrible at first, but we came back at the end, though we still lost. It was a lot of fun. The game involves secret codes that are hard enough to keep track of when playing in English, but I was able to keep up and learn a bunch of new words in the process. Go Ayalim!

Now Shabbat is finally over and I'm taking a break from outlining a paper but I guess it's time to get back to work.