Children’s Village Teen Service Trip – Day 1
By: Rachel Becker
We arrived earlier than expected this morning around 7:30 and made it through customs with no troubles. Fortunately, all twenty-three bags made it to our Tel Aviv destination and as we walked through the baggage claim terminal, Jonathan, our videographer was able to catch us on film as we loaded the bags onto the tiny bus. We rode comfortably for the next couple hours to Karmiel, where the children’s village is. I was personally amazed by the great big rolling hills with spanish tiled roof houses mounted into their sides as well as by the vegetation of the land-a combination of Palm trees, cactuses, sand, and long green grass.
Tsipy decided she was going to teach us new Hebrew words to remember such as “shalom” which means “hello” and “Ma Nishma” which means “what’s up?” Eventually we arrived in the Children’s Village, and were greeted by the women who run the village. Due to the holiday Purim, all of the children were away from their mishbactons for the holiday, so the anticipation of delivering our gifts and other donations that we prepared and collected before the trip awaits until tomorrow. Later we got a tour of the family park by Galiette and Tomar, the owners of the teen section of Karmiel, and they took us to exchange our money, and to a restaurant called Burger Burgess, where the majority of us ordered schnitzel, the Israeli version of chicken tenders. We were accompanied by Tomar’s two children who are around our age, one of which is going to visit Pittsburgh in three weeks. It was exciting to talk to someone who is just as interested in global travel and learning about different cultures as we all are. despite our exhaustion from the jet lag, we started off the trip on a positive note, and are excited to get some sleep so we will be energized for a full day of events and activities tomorrow.