Pessach, onions, and contact.

After a whirlwind trip to Tel-Aviv complete with excessive amounts of food, horseradish, and bad television, we're back at Yotvata. Greeting us was what has been our daily grind most recently: working in an onion factory. Mainly, we are stationed at a conveyor belt, separating rocks and rotten onions out, and cutting stems that may still be attached. Our fingers are stained, bruised, sliced open, and smell perpetually like a combination of dirt and onions that have softened underneath desert heat. Factory work begins at seven a.m. and ends at four p.m., and we are provided three breaks with coffee, fresh fruit, and cookies. We do not complain, except secretly to each other in the dead of night. Previously, we had been working in the mango fields, fumigating and preparing the trees for the season. Our first day, our supervisor Etan, an eighteen year-old "shin-shin" (before entering the army, one may choose to do a year of national service, often on a kibbutz, though how 'shin-shin' derives from this we've still yet to find out), informed us that we were not to walk or pee about 10 yards from where we worked, for that area was no longer Israel. Jordan taunted us while we folded and sorted nets which surround the mango trees with its wadis, until the border patrol passed. At times, we'd hear firing. More on all this later. For now, the main purpose of this post- our address and phone number on the kibbutz.

Jaclin M.G.F/Gwendolyn M.A.
c/o Kibbutz Yotvata
D.N. Eilat
88820 Israel

+97286357288 - the phone is shared by volunteers, so arrange a time if possible to call, or ask for one of us if you call without alerting us.

After moving twice and surrendering our blood to Yotvata's factory, we're adjusting.