Travelogue for Israel

Richard and I visited Israel at the beginning of the 1990's. At the time we were both working at the same company. We wanted to spend more time together, and get away from the every day hassles of working life. One day we went for our usual lunchtime drink, the only difference was that we went to a pub in Camden Town as opposed to any of the pubs nearer to work. Richard said he was thinking seriously about going off to Israel to work on a Moshav. This took me a little by surprise, I thought this was going to be like any other day at work. Then he told me all about the Moshav, and said that he wanted me to go with him. Wow! I was fed up at work too, but I had not been thinking about travelling to Israel, and as for working on a Moshav ... No Thank You! At that time I had absolutely no desire to go off travelling, at all, anywhere. It��s strange how your life can change in the space of a few breaths. I looked at Richard, and as I already knew that he was going to be my husband, sooner rather than later I hoped, I said I would go to Israel with him. I hadn��t mentioned to Richard that he was the man I was going to marry, which was just as well, he probably wouldn��t have asked me to go travelling with him had he known! I went home from work that day, and told my mummy that I was going to work on a Moshav in Israel, with Richard, for a few months. To say she was surprised is a huge understatement. I think she thought I wouldn��t go through with it. I don��t think she had even met Richard at this time. Looking back, I didn��t know him that well myself. The following day we went to work as usual, spending our lunch hour at an agency that specialises in finding volunteers for Moshav and Kibbutz. Everything sounded great, all we had to do now was to check the price of the flights, just incase they were cheaper than the agency had quoted. We confirmed that the price the agency wanted for the flights was fair, and we went back there the same evening to pay our registration fee and pay for two flights to Israel. We were all set, all we had to do now was hand in our notice at work. Thankfully the period we worked our notice passed quickly. We were now free to go off and see some more of the world. We left very early one morning, in a taxi to Gatwick Airport. I was nervous and excited at the same time. I knew I was going to miss my mummy so much, but I was comforted by the thought of being able to ring her a couple of times a week from the Moshav. I didn��t really know much about the Moshav, but I had heard of a Kibbutz. The way I understood it, a Kibbutz was a communal settlement in Israel engaged in farming, with collective holding of property and earnings, group involvement in decision making, and communal rearing of children. I knew of people who had gone to stay at a Kibbutz, they all said much the same. It was a relaxed and basic lifestyle, where everyone helped each other with daily chores. No one was paid any wages as such, they were paid in food and shelter, in return for the chores, such as fruit picking or washing up etc. The agency had told us that a Moshav was similar, but different, a co-operative association of Israeli smallholders. We would live on a farm with an Israeli family, not in the family home but in separate accommodation. We would be expected to work hard on the farm, for which we would be paid a small wage, in cash. The work would vary, depending on the farm, and the time of year. We were told that we would be treated as members of the family, and as such would definitely be invited to eat an evening meal with the family in their home at least once a week, possibly more. It all sounded good to us, we were looking forward to landing at Ben Gurion Airport.

TEL AVIV

We landed safely and grabbed our luggage, then we got a taxi the 14 or so miles, to our accommodation. We stayed at Momo��s Hostel, Ben Yehuda 28, Tel Aviv. I think it had been open for about 5 years when we were there, and it is still welcoming budget travellers today. I��m guessing that it has probably changed a lot since then, we were offered a couple of bunks in a ��couples�� room. There were about 4 bunk-beds in total in the room, so sleeping space for 8 people. We saw that the other couples had all chosen to sleep on the bottom bunk, leaving their luggage up on the top bunk to help keep blankets hanging down over the bottom bunk, which gave them a lot more privacy. We did the same, and I vaguely remember it was all pretty comfortable. The people running Momo��s were very friendly, and there was a reasonably priced bar there, excellent. After putting our bags in our room, we went out for a little wander round Tel Aviv. It was lovely and warm and the streets were full of people. It felt nice and the people in the shops and cafes were pleasant. We were tired from the flight, and we had to go to the agency the following day to find out which Moshav we would be staying at, so we headed back to the bar at Momo��s. We intended to have a few beers and then an early night. As usual with us two, we got chatting to some guy in the bar and ended up drinking lots of beer. Soon enough we were all seriously drunk, I guess we should have eaten something for dinner, anyway it was now the early hours of the morning, so we went to bed. Richard and I both passed out in the dark cosy bottom bunk, but soon the peace was disturbed. There was an almighty thud, it was loud enough to wake everyone in the room. I sat up, still half asleep. I couldn��t figure out what was going on, then I realised that Richard was missing. I gently pulled back the blanket curtain, to get out of bed and go and look for him. As I lowered my feet to the floor, I trod on something, make that someone, it was Richard. He had fallen out of bed, but he was still fast asleep! I struggled to drag him back up onto our bunk, much to the annoyance of our room mates, ooops! A couple of the guys complained about the noise, apparently they had to get up at 6am for work. Good job we were not going to be staying much longer. We don��t often behave like that, we are normally very considerate, but then we don��t usually sleep in a room with 6 other people. The next morning we went to the agency, we were keen to find out where we would be living for the next couple of months. We found the agency easily and went in, it was very busy with young people, most of whom were waiting to be sent to various Kibbutz. We had to wait for quite a while before we were seen. We were both asked some questions about any skills we may have that could be useful, and how long we wanted to stay, and various other questions. It was very thorough, they wanted to place the right people at the right Moshav, especially people like us who wanted to stay for longer periods. The agency owner who was trying to place us, mentioned a farm in a place called Yesha, in the Negev Desert. She showed us on a map where it was located, and told us what type of work we would be doing. She was very honest, telling us that the work would be very hard, and that it was unbearably hot in the Negev desert. We were not afraid of hard work, and we both love the heat, the warmer the better. We told her we were happy to go there, and she began making arrangements for us. We sat down in the reception area while everything was finalised. We were both looking forward to getting to the Moshav, and for the hard work to start. Whilst we were sitting in the reception, we spoke to a couple of young guys who had just returned from a stint on a Moshav. They looked absolutely exhausted, and told a very depressing story of their time at the Moshav. They said that the work was back breaking, the family treated them terribly, and they hated it. In fact they disliked their time there so much, that they had ��done a runner�� in the early hours! Obviously, the owner of the agency was not too impressed with them,especially as they now wanted her to arrange a Kibbutz placement for them. We knew that we were off to the same Moshav, what had we let ourselves in for? The agency lady told us that we would be fine, she said these two boys were lazy! She said she wouldn��t bother sending us there if she thought we would leave as soon as the guys had. We could have changed our minds, we didn��t, we decided to go to the Moshav in Yesha. We would travel to Yesha the following morning by bus, and a member of our ��new family�� would meet us where the bus dropped us off. The bus journey was good, the bus was only about half full, and it was comfortable and air conditioned. We were seated at the back and slept for a lot of the journey. At one point I woke suddenly, as something hard had smashed into my knee, Ouch. When I managed to focus and look to see what it was, I saw the bus had collected more people, it was now full. The new passenger sitting next to me was an Israeli soldier, he was the spitting image of Sylvester Stallone. He must have been sleeping too, as it was his gun that had slipped out of his grasp and hit my knee. He realised what had happened, he didn��t apologise, he just glared at me. I was about to tell him off ....... until I noticed that the gun was loaded! I don��t think he would have shot me, but then again, I didn��t think it was normal practice for soldiers to carry loaded guns on public transport.

He sat with his finger on the trigger the whole time. Richard was still in a deep sleep, I decided to try and join him, I couldn��t sleep, so I watched the scenery pass by.

YESHA

Eventually we arrived at our destination, we were in Yesha. We stepped off of the bus expecting to see someone waiting for us, there was no one. We waited for a long time in the baking sun, there was no shade to shelter in. We decided to start walking, we saw some houses and fields of crops, so we headed in that direction. We saw a man tinkering in a garden, and asked him where our family lived. He gave us directions, and we found our family��s home. We were met at the gate by their eldest son, apparently he was supposed to meet us from the bus, I guess he didn��t feel like it. He took us inside to meet his mother, Yudit. The family��s home was a large two storey newly built house, in the style of a Mediterranean villa. The interior was light, modern and nicely furnished. We were hot and thirsty from the walk, Yudit brought a tray into the lounge and offered us some lemonade and lemon meringue pie. The lemonade was home made and deliciously sharp, perfect with the sweetness of the pie. We sat on large soft sofas in the lounge talking to Yudit, and then her husband came in, Moshe. Both Yudit and Moshe were very friendly and welcoming, they told us we could use their telephone to call our parents anytime, swim in their swimming pool, and they would like it if we ate dinner with them at the weekends. Once we had finished our drinks, they explained a little about our working hours and what we would be doing. We left their home and walked to our accommodation, it was adjacent to their house. It was a very basic one storey building, constructed with breeze blocks, the exterior was rendered, the roof was a couple of sheets of corrugated iron, on top of which stood a small water tank. The front door led straight into the open plan kitchen and dining room. It was average size, and the floor was tiled. Off of this room was a bathroom, with a shower, no bath, and two bedrooms. Our bedroom was fairly large with a double bed and not much else. The other bedroom had two single beds, and was in use. We didn��t have to work that day, as there wasn��t much of it left. We made ourselves at home and waited for the other Moshav volunteers to arrive back from work. First home was Laurent, a young man of about 18 from Switzerland. He was very friendly, and told us lots about the Moshav, Yudit, Moshe, and his life in Switzerland. He had wanted to visit Israel to experience something different. Next home was Egar, a Russian Jew, he was a sad looking man. He was in his late twenties and didn��t speak any English. He said that he had come to Israel to be with his people. It wasn��t exactly working out how he had hoped, and the situation only got worse, much worse, more of which later. Yudit had given us some basic food supplies, bread, yogurt and cheese. Laurent gave us some lovely fresh tomatoes, he had spent the day picking them. So that was our dinner taken care of. Laurent went to bed early, about 10pm, he said we all had to be up ready to start work at 7am the next morning. Richard, Egar and I sat up playing cards and drinking Vodka. I know, drinking Vodka with a Russian guy, what a clich��! The truth is we drank lots and lots of Vodka during our time at the Moshav, not because we were in the company of a Russian, but because it was unbelievably cheap. It wasn��t that much more expensive than bottled water, crazy! After a late night we were surprisingly lively the next morning, well we were so much younger then! Now I rarely rise before lunchtime, although Richard is up and about hours before me, well someone has to prepare our lunch! Laurent was finishing breakfast, we didn��t eat anything, we grabbed four two litre bottles of water and threw them in a bag. Then we all went outside where Moshe picked us up in an old Peugeot pickup van. Laurent sat in the cab with him, Egar, Richard and myself sat in the open back. The early morning air was so cold, and sitting on the hard cold metal of the wheel arches didn��t make us feel any warmer. Moshe drove like a bat out of hell, we were bouncing up and down all over the place. The land owned by the family was quite spread out and vast. We were taken quite some distance on rough bumpy tracks, then across a road to an orchard of apple trees. This was where we would be spending the next few days, picking apples. Moshe showed us which apples to pick, they had to be a certain size and colour. We were given buckets and left to it. After we had filled a couple of buckets each, Yudit arrived in the family��s fairly new four door Peugeot saloon. She looked at the apples we had emptied from our buckets into the huge crates at one end of the row of trees. She was not impressed, she told us so in no uncertain terms, I thought maybe she wasn��t a morning person! She showed us again exactly which apples we should be picking, not too big, not too small, and with a hint of red on the skins. They were green apples, can��t remember which variety, but they had a slight red tinge to them, or so Yudit said, I couldn��t see it. Once she was happy that we would only be picking the best apples from now on, she disappeared. We spent the next few days picking apples, and Yudit spent those same few days telling us that we were doing it wrong. The apples we picked were either too small, too large, too green, or just too much like apples picked by us! She was very hard to please, but we were beginning to get seriously fit, so we tried our best to ignore her nasty personality. We soon learned that no matter what we did, she didn��t like it, it wasn��t good enough. Laurent could do no wrong, he picked perfect apples, which funnily enough looked exactly like the apples we picked, I guess they would considering they were picked from the same trees! Most of the fruit trees were planted in soft sandy ground, not surprising as we were in the middle of the desert. The trees were all watered by an automatic irrigation system. We worked alongside Egar and Laurent and various other employees. As well as us volunteers, Yudit and Moshe employed lots of Palestinians. When we had been working with two of the Palestinian men for a while, they began to talk to us more. Initially they had been wary of us, but now they were very friendly and so generous. They had so little and yet they would always insist on sharing their lunch with us, often peeling some delicious prickly pears to share. With all of the fruit and vegetables we were eating we were definitely keeping healthy. Our bodies were really showing signs of change too, from walking in the deep soft sand underfoot, carrying the overflowing buckets of fruit, one in each hand, and emptying them into the large crates at the end of the aisles of trees. This was an amazing workout, and although we ended each working day completely shattered, we also felt so good. We used to work from 7am until 4pm, stopping for an hour for lunch, six days a week. Richard and I would go back to the accommodation for our lunch, Laurent and Egar usually sat in the shade of whatever field they were working in to eat. We would eat bread, cheese, and cold meats, as well as lots of the lovely sweet tomatoes grown on the farm. We were allowed to eat as much of the produce grown on the farm as we liked. There was a small grocery shop within the Moshav compound, which we were taken to the day after we arrived. Moshe gave us a lift in his van, we decided to walk back as we wanted to take our time choosing what foods to buy. When we went to pay, the store owner wouldn��t take our money, we didn��t understand why. Then he explained that no one paid for their food when they purchased it, they paid at a later date, and that Yudit would pay our bill from our wages direct to him. We signed for our food and left. We bought quite a lot on that first visit, and struggled to carry it the short distance back to the accommodation. It wasn��t because it was too heavy, but because the sun was beating down with a vengeance. After that first shop, we were not happy with the idea of eating food that we hadn��t paid for, and we went to speak to Yudit about it. She wasn��t happy when we told her that in future we would be paying for our food when we purchased it. She said it was not normal, and begrudgingly agreed to inform the shop owner. From then on we always paid for our grocery��s in cash at the time of purchase. A couple of weeks after we began this, Yudit called us into her home, she said we were spending too much on food and alcohol. She had copies of the receipts, and went through every item, telling us that we didn��t need this, and we shouldn��t have bought that! We were surprised to say the least, why did she care what we ate? It was all very weird, and nothing ever came of it. We continued to buy what we wanted. She had mentioned that we were spending practically all of the wages she was giving us, which we were, but why did she care? It wasn��t as if we were being paid that much anyway, and we had to eat. Laurent hardly spent any money at the shop, he used to eat a huge plate of tomatoes for breakfast, for lunch he would eat some bread, and then in the evening he would eat another huge plate of tomatoes. He said he was trying to save some money for when he left the Moshav.

Maybe Yudit thought we would need to do the same? I guess we did spend quite a lot of our wages on alcohol at the shop, we used to buy this sweet wine called Fantasia. It was so cheap, and it tasted similar to cider or perry, delicious. But I don��t think we bought too much food, neither of us were overweight, we weren��t greedy. We were working eight hours a day, and it was extremely hard manual work, so we needed to eat well. Anyway, there��s nothing more depressing than not being able to cook, eat, and enjoy good food. Richard and I had spent a few days picking apples, and then we were moved to picking cucumbers. The cucumbers were grown in green houses, which were situated much nearer to our accommodation. There weren��t that many cucumber plants, and after a few hours we had almost finished picking all of them. There were four of us working together, Richard, me, and two Palestinians. They didn��t seem so chatty for the first part of the day, we hoped they were okay. After lunch we found out why, they said we were working too fast, and we should slow down. They told us that if we continued to work so fast there might not be enough work for them to do tomorrow. Then they asked us how much we were getting paid an hour. We were surprised to learn that we were being paid substantially more than they were, and we were being paid peanuts. It was sad to think they were being treated so poorly. The way Yudit and Moshe spoke to them left a lot to be desired too. Richard and I agreed to work at a slower pace, it made no difference to us anyway. However fast we worked Yudit always complained about something, we couldn��t do anything right. Over the next few days we offered our Palestinian friends food, drinks, and other things, but they wouldn��t take anything from us. They worked so hard and were very proud, and funny too. We didn��t always get to work with them, we were swapped round a lot. Every morning when we were told what we would be doing that day,Yudit or Moshe would say they were going out for the day and then leave us to it. I don��t think they ever went very far, because they would come and check on us every hour or so, they didn��t trust anyone! So far we had picked apples, tomatoes, and cucumbers, now it was time for something different, flowers. Richard and I were driven to one of the furthest fields on the farm. We were taken inside a huge greenhouse, it was full of flowers, and it smelt so good. We were each given a tiny pair of cutters, and then Moshe got down on the ground to show us how to cut them correctly. We had to cut a few to show him, he said they were perfect, we couldn��t believe it, and then he left us to it. We spent hours cutting flowers, it was surprisingly hard work because we had to get so low to the ground. The flowers were growing up from the soil through sheets of plastic, which had small squares cut in them. We had to be careful not to cut these thin strips of plastic, as they would stay where they were and be reused. Yudit came to see us after lunch and went mad, she said we were working too slow! We had found these empty plastic crates which we were using as seats. She didn��t like that, she took them away, and made us sit back on the floor. We were very pleased when the days work was over. That evening Yudit brought me some mail. My mummy had sent us a letter, and some magazines, and other things. I replied to her straight away, and took the letter to Yudit, she had offered to post it for me. Maybe she wasn��t so bad after all? Unfortunately it turned out she was. When we returned home we found out that we had been sent lots of parcels that were never passed on to us, nice! I wanted to phone my mummy and asked to use the phone, Yudit had told us that we could use the phone whenever we wanted to. Surprise surprise, Yudit said that the phone line was playing up, I should leave her the number, and she would let me know when I could speak to my mummy. I never did get to speak to her, except for on one of our rare trips to a nearby town, when I used a pay phone. We were really beginning to feel like members of the family, just like the agency said we would! We could definitely see why the two guys we met at the agency did a bunk. It was not that pleasant living and working at this Moshav, Yudit and Moshe were always in bad moods. They were very busy planning the wedding of their eldest son, maybe that caused their bad moods? It was about this time that things really started to decline, Laurent had been there for quite a long time and decided to go home to Switzerland. His departure seemed to upset Yudit and Moshe, they became even more hostile toward everyone, especially Egar. Now there was just the three of us living together, we had a lot more funmoutside our working hours. Richard and Egar were great friends, they managed to communicate, with Richard speaking odd words of Russian that Egar had taught us, and he used to try and use the English we had taught him. They used to spend hours playing chess, Richard usually won, but this didn��t bother Egar he was happy having a friend. I think he was beginning to miss Russia, he had a brother who he obviously loved very much because he talked about him all the time. He had wanted to come to Israel for so long, to belong, and he was feeling let down and sad. I remember one morning we were just about to leave for work, and as we came out of our accommodation we heard lots of loud shouting. It was Moshe, he was shouting and being very aggressive, standing right up close to Egar��s face. We couldn��t understand everything that was being said, but we understood enough to know we had to do something. Richard ran over and dragged Moshe away from Egar. Poor Egar was shaking and almost in tears. I tried to calm Moshe down, he was still screaming, very obscene words in the direction of Egar. Eventually Moshe calmed down a little and got into the van, slamming his door. He shouted to Richard that we should get in the van and go to work. We told him we weren��t going anywhere with him, he needed to apologise to Egar. He said he would sort it out later, we needed to get to work. We refused to go with him, we said we would walk up the the field later. We took Egar back inside, talked to him, asked him if we could help him in any way, and made him a drink. We chatted with Egar for a long time, he said he was feeling better. A couple of hours later we all went to work. Everything seemed fine by that evening, Moshe had apologised to Egar, and was joking and laughing with him. The next few days were good, there was no more shouting or abuse, everyone seemed happier, and the hard work continued. Richard and Egar spent the evenings playing cards or chess, and drinking lots of vodka, well Richard drank lots of Vodka, Egar not so much, we questioned his Russian roots! Egar had always been quite noisy during the night, banging around in his room with one thing or another, it didn��t bother us, we didn��t take much notice. It had been a week or so since Moshe had cleared the air with Egar, and Richard and I were awoken by the most almighty thumping on our bedroom door. Obviously as we had been in a deep sleep, we were very bleary eyed. Richard jumped out of bed grabbing some clothes, thinking it would be Egar standing outside our door, maybe we had overslept? I was in the process of getting up to get dressed, Richard opened our door, it was Moshe standing there. He said he was walking past our accommodation block and he noticed the light was on in Egar��s room, and he didn��t like the look of what he saw through the net curtains at the window. Richard told me to stay where I was. Moshe let Richard go to Egar��s room in front of him. Richard knocked, no answer. Richard opened the door, and I heard him and Moshe gasp. I��ll never forget that sound. Egar was dead. He had hung himself. Richard immediately came and told me what had happened. We couldn��t believe it, we were stunned. We were both so sad. Richard shut the door of Egar��s room, and led me outside, he didn��t want me to see him, I wish Moshe had done the same for Richard. We were taken into Moshe��s house, Yudit was woken and told what had happened. We sat in their lounge whilst they fired questions at us. It was awful, we were both in shock, our friend was dead. We didn��t really feel like talking, and especially not to them. They made us tea, and we waited for the police. When the police arrived they asked us lots fo questions, in the presence of Yudit and Moshe, who never took their eyes off of us. Then the police handed some forms to Yudit, she handed them to us to sign. We looked at them, obviously they were written in Hebrew. We said we wouldn��t sign them, as we couldn��t read them, and handed them back to Yudit. She tried to frighten us into signing them, telling us that if we didn��t we would be arrested. Even if that was true, we were not about to sign something we couldn��t read. After lots of talking between Yudit, Moshe, and the police, they left. By now poor Egar��s body had been taken away. We wanted to go back to our accommodation, to be on our own. Yudit didn��t seem to want us to leave, she kept making drinks, saying we could leave soon. Hours passed, we were full to the brim with tea, we wanted to go. Finally we went back to our place, Yudit told us to come back later that evening to watch a film with them. We didn��t really feel like it, but we went anyway. We watched an old Robert Redford film with English subtitles, it didn't end until after 2am.

As we were thanking them for the evening and getting ready to leave, Yudit said that as were still upset we didn��t have to start work so early tomorrow, we could start at 8am instead of 7am! Earlier in the day she had said we could have the day off, typical! Oh well, I guess it was better to keep busy. Now that Richard and I were the only volunteers, it was time to send for replacements. A couple of days later Moshe told us we were getting new room mates, a couple, an American man and a French women. Next to our block was another block, it was unfinished but much nicer than ours. Moshe told us we could move in there if we wanted to when the new couple arrived, we said yes. Almost a week later, our new roommates arrived. They were older than we expected, Bob was in his mid to late thirties, and Marie was a little younger than him. Bob was very friendly, Marie was much quieter. Apparently Moshe told them that they could move into the nicer block too, neither of us ever did! When they first arrived we were all working together picking nectarines. Yudit had warned us not to tell them about Egar and the way he died. We didn��t at first, it��s not the kind of conversation you greet strangers with, but later when things came to a head again, we decided they needed to know. We were all more or less happy working together, which Yudit and Moshe didn��t seem to like, so they split us all up. I now had to work with Marie, whist Richard was with Bob. After a while Bob suggested that we all start work at 5am and work straight through to 1pm. We didn��t eat breakfast so we wouldn��t have to get up that early, Bob and Marie liked to eat breakfast so they got up at 4am! Moshe was fine with this new arrangement, he didn��t care as long as we all worked eight hours a day. It took us a few days to get used to the new hours, we liked it. It was so much cooler for that first hour or so, and it was nice being finished by 1pm, we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted. As we were in the middle of the desert there wasn��t that much to do, but there was a very small shopping centre about twenty minutes walk away. I say shopping centre, but it was no more than about three shops inside a huge concrete block. It was nice to see something different though, and get away from the farm. Bob had been told by Yudit that we could all have the same day off, we were allowed one a fortnight. She said we could take her car and drive to Be'er Sheva. She told us that there was a large shopping centre there and it would make a nice day out for us, we could have lunch and do some shopping. We were all looking forward to this, but as expected it never materialised. The same as Bob being told he could drive us to the Moshav grocery shop in the van, to make it easier for us to get our goods home in the searing heat, that only happened once, and then we all got told off for taking too long! As harsh as Yudit and Moshe were, we were all enjoying being on the Moshav. I guess it was nice to be away from home, and to be doing something different. We spent every evening relaxing outside the front of our accommodation block, there was a wooden bench and table to sit at. As the daylight faded, and the sky turned completely black it was filled with hundreds of stars. We didn��t get to see a sight like that too often in London, because of all of the pollution. We would sit under the blanket of stars talking and playing with the farms many dogs. Yudit and Moshe had quite a few dogs which were lovely, but not very well cared for. One in particular was a dog they said they had found running along the main road. They had rescued him and brought him home to live with them. I��m not sure of the breed, he was quite small, and he had a tangly mop of white hair. He used to spend most evenings with us when we finished work. They had another dog, an alsatian that they kept chained up as a guard dog, another large dog similar to a boxer dog, and a small terrier of some kind, he seemed to be Yudit��s favourite, he was clean and slept in their house. They didn��t seem to feed the dogs on anything more than bread and water. They would chuck whole loaves of bread out on the ground for the dogs. They were all very underweight, some of which was due to the heat, as they were always running around acting mad. One day when Richard and I came walking home from work, a tiny little ball of fluff came running up to us, we had a new puppy. He was brown and so soft and friendly, he was gorgeous, we named him Alvin. I don��t think he belonged to Yudit��s family, it was hard to know as there were so many dogs all over the Moshav. We were happy to look after him, it was good to have something to smile about again, after our recent sadness. Although we were still very sad after the death of Egar, life seemed good with Bob there. Not everything was good though, I was not a morning person when we stayed at the Moshav, I��m not much better now. I��m not bad, I just didn��t like to talk first thing in the mornings, for some reason this annoyed Marie. We didn��t get on with each other, so we agreed to be polite and nothing more, it worked for us. All four of us enjoyed the work though, we spent lots of time together, and Richard built a BBQ out of old bricks he found nearby. One evening all four of us were enjoying some delicious chicken cooked by Richard, I had made some potato salad, Marie had made some ratatouille, and Bob was helping with the cooking. We must have been having too much fun, because Moshe came round and told us that we had to put out the BBQ, and that we had ruined his bricks. Unbelievable! Oh well, we didn��t rise to it, we just carried on enjoying our dinner. The next day whilst we were out working Moshe dismantled the BBQ, and he chucked the bricks all over the ground where we had found them, that��s how precious they were! By now we had done almost everything on the farm. We had picked lots of different fruits, lots of vegetables, and cut flowers. Richard and I were interested to know what we would be doing next, it turned out to be a very cushy job. We were both sent to a shed to cut the stems of the flowers, they all had to be uniform. Bob and Marie were pulling up weeds out in the open under the boiling sun. Once we had filled several buckets with the flowers, we were told to place the buckets of flowers inside the refrigerated room within the shed. Obviously we looked forward to opening this huge cool room, although the shed was fairly cool, the air that wafted out as we opened the refrigerated room door was bliss. We weren��t naughty, we didn��t open it unnecessarily, and we closed it as soon as we had put the buckets in. However this didn��t stop Moshe from telling us off, he accused us of leaving the door open to cool ourselves down. Yudit also had a problem with us, she said we were cutting the flowers the wrong length. There were two wooden benches in the shed with various markings on them, we had to lay the flowers down and cut them at the length Yudit had shown us. We were cutting them correctly, she was just never happy. After a few days in our new easy job Yudit decided to move us again, now we were working with Bob and Marie, and our two Palestinian friends. We were stripping down all the dead leaves left behind from the tomatoes in one of the greenhouses. We weren��t allowed to use gloves, and we all ended up with blisters and nasty cuts on our hands. After that we were chopping down the dead remains of flowers that had not been suitable for sale. This greenhouse was so different now from when Richard and I had cut the flowers. There were lots of spiders crawling all over the ground. After a while we got used to them walking all over us. Alvin our little puppy always came to work with us, he loved it. Our Palestinian friends didn��t like him though, they said dogs are dirty, Alvin didn��t take it personally! Every time Alvin touched them, they used to wash themselves with plain water. They said they had to use a certain amount, I think it was seven or eight ounces. Apart from that Alvin was loved by us all, except for two of Yudit��s sons. They used to say nasty things about him and threatened to kill him. Sadly one day, they did just that, they ran him over with their quad bike. We saw them as we were walking home from a field one day. They were too far ahead of us for us to do anything, and by the time we reached them, Alvin was dead. We buried Alvin, and later that evening the boys came round to say sorry the puppy was dead, they said he had been poisoned. We told them we had seen them run him over, and they denied it, saying he was only a dog anyway! This was not the nicest family you could have hoped to stay with. We were all sad about Alvin, and Bob decided to try and help the little white rescue dog. Bob used his hair clippers and got rid of all of the poor dogs matted hair. We had tried to cut the worst of it off before, but it was so dirty and thick we didn��t really make much progress. Now with the clippers the dog looked so much better, he was washed too, and we could tell he felt so much better. Richard and I were given a job working together again in a greenhouse. We had to fill hundreds of seed trays with soil, and then plant some seeds. Yudit was very specific, telling us that the seeds cost a fortune, and we mustn��t put more than one in each pot, and to be careful not to drop any. We loved this job, it was great, we got to sit down most of the day, except for when we had to mix the huge sacks of soil with the sand.

We were not surprised when Yudit said that we were using too much soil, and then not enough soil, and then too many seeds, she was relentless in her criticism. We could take no more, we needed a proper day off, we needed to get out of Yesha. We went to Be��er Sheva or Be'er Sheva, we saw it spelt a few different ways.

BE��ER SHEVA ~ BEERSHEBA

Be��er Sheva is the largest city of the Negev desert. As Yudit had not allowed all four of us the same day off to drive to Be��er Sheva in her car, Richard and I went on our own, by bus. Thankfully the bus picked us up a couple of minutes walk from our accommodation. The bus journey passed quickly, and we were soon walking round in the shopping centre. Negev Mall, the biggest shopping centre in Be��er Sheva was great. It was no different to the shopping centres of home. There were large department stores along side smaller independent shops, selling everything from clothing, books, electronic goods, jewellery, and food. There was a popular food court which offered all of the local dishes you could want. We both ate well there, Richard had a Chicken Shawerma Sandwich, which is a warm pitta lined with hummus, marinated char grilled chicken, topped with salad, and a spicy sauce, and I had a Falafel Sandwich, which is also a warm pitta lined with hummus, stuffed with falafel balls, salad, and a spicy sauce, delicious. We are not fans of fast food, but we ate Shawerma and Falafel on more than one occasion during our Israel trip. As we were catering for ourselves at the Moshav, eating only healthy foods, it was nice to eat something different for a change. We must have looked in all of the shops at the shopping centre, but I don��t remember purchasing anything of great importance. It was just so good to be away from the Moshav, and to be wearing clean everyday clothes instead of our work wear. We left the shopping centre and went for a walk in the Old City. The Old City was a rather run down place, although there were some interesting buildings dating from the Ottoman times. Be��er Sheva is home to the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, so there were lots of students walking round the streets. Unfortunately the day passed too quickly, and it was soon time to catch another bus back to the Moshav.

YESHA

When we arrived home, Bob and Marie were interested to hear about our day off. They decided that on their next day off they would also visit the shopping centre in Be��er Sheva. Nothing much happened for a while, the four of us continued working, picking fruit or clearing the earth for planting. Most of the planning for Yudit��s and Moshe��s sons wedding was complete, and we hoped this would be reflected in their moods. It wasn��t. The next big lot of trouble was between Bob and Moshe, one day they had an almighty row. I can��t remember what started it now, something and nothing as usual with Moshe. It ended with Bob and Marie threatening to leave immediately. Yudit got involved, and Bob decided they would stay a little longer. I know that Yudit didn��t want any more volunteers leaving prematurely and complaining to the agency, maybe she should have treated her volunteers better! Every pay day Richard and I would go and see Yudit, we would agree on the hours we had worked, and she would hand over our wages. Bob and Marie did the same. After Bob had threatened to quit there was always a disagreement over the hours we had all worked. Yudit would claim we had worked less hours than we actually had. When she finally agreed that we had worked more hours, she would say she didn��t have enough money to pay us for all of the hours at that time. She claimed that she had withdrawn the exact amount of money from her bank to cover the hours she had thought we had worked, not the hours we had actually worked. Needless to say none of us were impressed with this. She always gave us the rest of the money within a day or two, but every pay day now became another battlefield. On our next day off Richard and I travelled to Be��er Sheva again, we were feeling the need to get away from the Moshav strongly now. A couple of days later the farm had some trouble when Yudit��s eldest son, who rarely worked on the farm, watered all of the seeds we had planted with the wrong hose. Instead of water he had been hosing them with herbicide, they all died. Richard and I had to replant them, which we were pleased about, it was a nice relaxing job in one of the cooler greenhouses. This was not the only problem the family faced, shortly after we had planted hundreds of new seeds and they were beginning to grow, some of the sheeting along the side of the greenhouse got ripped and some birds got in and ate practically all of the sprouting seeds. Yudit and Moshe were livid. I guess they hadn��t heard about Karma! Richard and I didn��t get any more nice jobs, we were given work that was seriously back breaking. Yudit had both of us pulling up weeds in the middle of a field. These weeds had the longest roots I have ever seen, even when we put all of our weight into it we still only managed to get the odd one up. Yudit wouldn��t let us use a shovel or fork to loosen the soil, and she gave us the thinnest gloves imaginable. Our hands were ripped to shreds, bleeding, and very sore. Richard had to have a couple of days off of work, as he had injured his back. He could hardly walk, and spent the days laying on the floor of our bedroom. When he was feeling fit again he went back to work, his hardest job yet. This time Moshe wanted some weeds removing. Richard was sent to work alone in a ��blackhouse��, a greenhouse covered with thick black cloth, used to grow tropical plants. He was told that he could not leave the greenhouse until Moshe came to get him, and I wasn��t allowed to go and speak to him either. It was over 50c/122f degrees inside when Richard started work in the morning, as the hours passed the temperature became more and more unbearable. Richard was obviously very hot doing this job, so he was drinking even more water than usual. The temperature was always 45c/113f or warmer outside in the fields, and a lot warmer inside the greenhouses, for the duration of our stay on the Moshav, and it was always very humid. Richard had been working in the sweltering conditions of the tropical plant greenhouse for a couple of hours, his clothes were literally dripping wet. He came out to cool down, Moshe saw him and went mad at him, shouting. I was working in a greenhouse opposite Richard, and I could hear Moshe shouting, I came out to see what was happening. Moshe could see that Richard was seriously hot, but he didn��t care. Richard said he needed to go back to our accommodation to clean up, and change into some dry clothes. I have never seen Richard��s skin so red, he had really worked up a sweat, he looked absolutely exhausted. Moshe shouted at Richard to get back in the greenhouse and do some work. Richard began to walk back to our room, and Moshe grabbed a shovel. I called to Richard to let him know, but before I could stop Moshe he threw the shovel at Richard. Luckily for Moshe he missed Richard, who was by now fuming. It took all of my strength to hold Richard back, I told him it wasn��t worth lowering himself to Moshe��s level. Good job we��re lovers not fighters! Although I must say I also felt like giving Moshe a damn good slap! This was the last straw, Richard took my hand and we walked back to our accommodation. Moshe came after us to apologise but we had had enough, we were leaving. Bob and Marie heard what had happened and said they were leaving too. All four of us were annoyed, we had worked so hard for this family and been treated so badly in return. It was not surprising that when Richard went to see Yudit for our wages, she didn��t quibble over the hours we had worked, and miraculously she had enough cash in the house. We wanted to leave as soon as we could, in fact we didn��t even pack most of our clothes, we just grabbed the essentials. By this time Bob had decided to stay, he said he wanted to give Moshe another chance! I think he changed his mind because they didn��t have enough money to leave. We said our good-byes. We walked up the road hoping we hadn��t already missed the bus to Jerusalem. As we stood waiting for the bus we reflected on our Moshav experience. We had lived and worked there for over 2 1/2 months. We had laughed, we cried, we made good friends, and lost a good friend. It was one of the funniest, interesting, and most awful times of our lives, and yet we are both glad we decided to try it. Even though it was not all love and laughter, I don��t think either of us would change a thing, except losing Egar. He was a wonderful character and great friend, who is greatly missed to this day. RIP Egar.

JERUSALEM

The bus journey from Yesha to Jerusalem was great. We were free! We could wear fresh clean clothes every day, and spend our time relaxing and having fun, no more back breaking work for us. We were looking forward to visiting Jerusalem, it would be nice to be a tourist for a few days before flying back home to the U.K. We took a taxi from where the bus dropped us to within the Old City walls. We wanted to stay inside the Old City if possible, we hoped to stay at the Gloria Hotel. I waited outside while Richard went in to ask if they had any vacancies, unfortunately they were full. We saw that there was another hotel across the road from the Gloria. We tried there, they had vacancies. Our new home for the next few days was the Lark Hotel, 4 Latin Patriarche Road, Jerusalem. The Lark Hotel was small with just a handful of rooms, which gave it a homely feel. Our room was clean, average in size, en-suite, and looked out over the street below. The the hotel was run by an Armenian family, and the staff were very very friendly. At the time of our stay breakfast was included. It was the same every day, pitta bread, hummus, jam, and a hard boiled egg, served with tea or coffee. The Lark restaurant next door run by the hotel, served reasonably priced traditional Armenian food. After checking in we walked out into the nearby streets. It felt quite strange seeing so many people, after the relative isolation on the Moshav. Everything felt so fast, and dirty, and noisy. But it was good to be walking, watching, and living life again. There were a couple of coffee bars nearby, we sat outside one and had a drink. Then we walked round the city a little more before heading back to the hotel. After a good nights sleep we were up and out early. We had lots to see and not much time. The next few days were spent walking, visiting places of interest, and eating. We enjoyed all the delicious food the street vendors and excellent restaurants in Jerusalem had to offer. I have always loved Jewish food, my mother was brought up eating it, and she often cooked it at home for us. At home in London we would visit markets that sold Jewish food, such as bagels, chopped liver, gefilte fish, matzah balls, lox, latkes, kugel, and halva, all absolutely delicious. Richard and I ate lots of good food in Jerusalem, we enjoyed baba ghanooj, egg and cheese pie, shawerma sandwiches, falafel, and lots of salads and yogurts. It was a real pleasure to eat foods that we hadn��t had to cook ourselves, it was nice to be waited on. We loved staying within the Old City, it was interesting walking round the different quarters, Jewish Quarter, Armenian Quarter, Christian Quarter, and the Muslim Quarter. We loved Jerusalem, it was such a lively energetic place and so diverse. As it is the holy city for three of the world��s main religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it couldn��t feel anything other than diverse, and full of vitality. We noticed that each of the different quarters really did feel like a completely separate place. We felt very welcome in all of them, without exception. We were often approached by local people who stopped us to say hello, and some of them chatted to us at length about many different subjects including their life in Jerusalem. They had interesting stories to tell us, and lots of suggestions for things we should do and see, and most importantly what and where we should eat! There are so many sights to see in Jerusalem, The Citadel (Tower of David), Temple Mount, Dome of the Rock, The Western Wall (Wailing Wall), and The Mount of Olives. It was while we were strolling along, taking in the sights of Jerusalem one afternoon, that we were stopped by a couple of elderly men. They invited us to their home for drinks, they said Richard would sit and drink tea with the men, while I stayed with the women drinking wine. Richard was convinced that this was definitely the wrong way round, he wanted the alcohol, so we politely refused! Then they offered to take us to The Mount of Olives, we were surprised that there was no catch to the invitation, they were just being friendly. We much prefer being on our own though, so we thanked them and decided to go and see The Western Wall (Wailing Wall). As it is considered the holiest shrine of the Jewish world, or the fourth holiest overall after the Holy of Holies, and the most holy place accessible to the Jewish people due to Muslim control of the Temple Mount, we didn��t want to visit Israel and not see it. As well as visiting the historic sites, we wanted to look at the markets. We enjoyed walking on the cobblestones along the narrow winding alleys, stopping every now and then to look at various stalls in the bazaars. The labyrinth of streets took us on a journey into the heart of a spectacular visual feast. Every step we took our senses were stimulated, aromas of spices, brightly coloured materials, and vendors inviting us into their shops to admire the goods and drink tea with them. We kept walking, we didn��t want to purchase anything for ourselves, we were looking for presents for our family and friends. I particularly wanted to get a Mezuzah, (a sacred parchment inscribed by hand with two portions of the Torah, stored in a protective case which is hung on the door posts of Jewish homes), for my mummy. She had always had one hanging by the door at all of our homes, but someone had recently stolen it, that��s London for you! After lots of searching we found the perfect Mezuzah for my mummys front door. I also saw a beautiful gold Mezuzah charm I couldn��t resist buying, I knew my mummy would be pleased to add it to her every growing charm bracelet. There were lots of other things we would liked to have bought, but funds were running low. In fact they were so low it was time for us to return to London. We left Jerusalem and went to Tel Aviv to arrange our flights back to the U.K.

TEL AVIV

We arrived in Tel Aviv and looked for somewhere to stay. We didn��t stay at Momo��s Hostel this time, we stayed somewhere different, but I can��t remember the name of it. I think I have blanked it out of my memory because it was horrible. I do remember that we slept in a room with about 6 other people. There was one other couple, who were very strange to say the least, I think they had been smoking too much wacky backy! The other people in the room were single travellers. Unfortunately we couldn��t sleep together, Richard was on the top bunk above a young guy, and I was sleeping under a young, dirty, smelly, hippie girl, on the other side of the room. She really did smell bad, so bad that all of the other people in the room complained about her, and tried to get her moved, some encouraged her to shower, all without success. Thankfully we weren��t going to be staying there for too long anyway. We spent most of our time in Tel Aviv trawling round the travel agents, we needed to book two flights to London. This wouldn��t normally have been a problem, but we didn��t have enough money to pay for the tickets. I had phoned my wonderful mummy, and she had given me her credit card numbers. So we went to every travel agent we saw, asking them if we could book the tickets without actually having the card with us. They all said no. We continued to look for travel agents, and finally found a very helpful young man, who after flirting with both of us for ages, agreed to book the tickets. We were going home in a couple of days. Now our tickets were booked we could relax and enjoy the rest of our time in Tel Aviv. There were a couple of modern shopping centres near to our accommodation, we spent some of our time there, enjoying the shops, air conditioning, and food. We thought about going to the camel market to buy a camel, but apparently they didn��t actually sell camels there! Just as well really, our luggage was already pretty heavy, even after leaving some of our clothes at the Moshav and some more of them at the Lark Hotel in Jerusalem. We actually left a really cool Paul Smith waistcoat, and a lovely Jean Paul Gaultier jacket at the Lark Hotel, hopefully they fitted the cleaner. We walked along the sea front inTel Aviv, we didn��t swim it looked a bit rough and busy. We sat and watched the families having fun, and ate ice creams and yogurt. The women were completely covered up even when swimming, and they seemed to struggle to stay upright with the weight of the water on their soaking wet clothes. I guess they were still able to enjoy playing with their children. Tel Aviv felt different to us this time, a completely different place to when we stayed when we first arrived in Israel all those months ago. I guess it was the culmination of us spending so much time together, our experiences on the Moshav, the death of our friend, and everything else we had done and seen. The day of our departure arrived, we got to the airport hours before we usually would, to allow for the lengthy customs queues. We were right to do so, the queues were the longest we had ever seen at an airport. It took over two hours just to check in for our flight. I guess it was good that the authorities were very thorough, we had our luggage thoroughly searched, and were asked lots of questions, as were almost all of the passengers. When we finally boarded our plane the captain made an announcement. Our take off was going to be slightly delayed, as there were two passengers still with the customs staff. When the two passengers boarded the plane we recognised them immediately. It was the strange couple who we had shared the room with at our last accommodation, obviously I wasn��t the only one who thought there were space cadets! When they walked passed our seats, we knew they had been treated to some rubber glove treatment! Thankfully the flight home to Gatwick passed peacefully. This trip to Israel turned out to be just the beginning of our travels. The months we had spent in Yesha/Israel were definitely an experience we will never forget.