Kibbutz
Arriving in Israel, I took a bus to Tel Aviv and went to the kibbutz organization and asked to join a kibbutz… For how long they asked and I frankly said, I imagine a few months… I came this far (from Milano…). So they sent me to Kibbutz Netzer Sereni, which was an Italian kibbutz, i.e. had a percentage of Italian members who founded this kibbutz…
Here I am after having lived in big cities all my life… learning how to be a farmer… wake up at six o’clock and on to the fields, or orchards, till three in the afternoon… with only half an hour for lunch… in Italy we had two hours break, while in Greece we had a four hour siesta… Eventually I got used to it… and I made some lasting friends…
Language wise I spoke mostly English… Italian with a few… and French with others... but there were some members who spoke neither… One day I ended up pairing with Mordi, who spoke only Hebrew… we were working with the bee hives… I got suited with a mask on my face, and so did he, but his hands were gloveless… he was telling me something in Hebrew which I failed to understand… after some time my hands were itching… but I ignored it… we ended early and I went back to my room and crashed…
When I woke up, I noticed that both my hands were swollen… I saw Mordi in the dining room that evening and he laughed saying… I told you to wear gloves… at that point I decided to learn Hebrew…
Life in the kibbutz is very sheltered… sheltered from the hustle and bustle of the big city.
Life in the kibbutz is like a vacation from the preoccupations of career, money, etc.,
In the kibbutz the concept of money is lacking... if you need something you go to the store and get it, whether it is cigarettes or tubes of paint for a portrait…
The kibbutz protects you from all that…
But in the kibbutz you live with thirty to three hundred people… and these are the only people of the village… coming from the city it was very hard for me adapt to this village life…
I lasted almost two years in Netzer Sereni.
Arriving in Israel, I took a bus to Tel Aviv and went to the kibbutz organization and asked to join a kibbutz… For how long they asked and I frankly said, I imagine a few months… I came this far (from Milano…). So they sent me to Kibbutz Netzer Sereni, which was an Italian kibbutz, i.e. had a percentage of Italian members who founded this kibbutz…
Here I am after having lived in big cities all my life… learning how to be a farmer… wake up at six o’clock and on to the fields, or orchards, till three in the afternoon… with only half an hour for lunch… in Italy we had two hours break, while in Greece we had a four hour siesta… Eventually I got used to it… and I made some lasting friends…
Language wise I spoke mostly English… Italian with a few… and French with others... but there were some members who spoke neither… One day I ended up pairing with Mordi, who spoke only Hebrew… we were working with the bee hives… I got suited with a mask on my face, and so did he, but his hands were gloveless… he was telling me something in Hebrew which I failed to understand… after some time my hands were itching… but I ignored it… we ended early and I went back to my room and crashed…
When I woke up, I noticed that both my hands were swollen… I saw Mordi in the dining room that evening and he laughed saying… I told you to wear gloves… at that point I decided to learn Hebrew…
Life in the kibbutz is very sheltered… sheltered from the hustle and bustle of the big city.
Life in the kibbutz is like a vacation from the preoccupations of career, money, etc.,
In the kibbutz the concept of money is lacking... if you need something you go to the store and get it, whether it is cigarettes or tubes of paint for a portrait…
The kibbutz protects you from all that…
But in the kibbutz you live with thirty to three hundred people… and these are the only people of the village… coming from the city it was very hard for me adapt to this village life…
I lasted almost two years in Netzer Sereni.
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