© Richard Randall

Caribbean

Sundries

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

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.

Oceania