Back to school

In the past 12 years it has been a struggle to get up every morning, get ready, eat breakfast and arrive in school on time. After months of being able to sleep in most of the days, this struggle has just multiplied by 17. Why 17? For a few weeks now I been living in a house together in Haifa with my the 17 members of my kwutza. We are a communa - we share our money for food and house supplies, we cook and do the dishes in teams, we get together once a week to discuss budget, activities and issues with living together. So if 18 people have to get up every morning, get ready and eat breakfast there is no chance of all of them arriving in school on time. Today is our first day in the ulpan, the standardized hebrew course, and of course we arrive late.

I am in Level 0 with four of my friends, whom I live together with, and we definitely lower the age average in our class. All of the people in our class are "olim chadashim" ("new immigrants" in hebrew), which means they are people that are in the process of doing aliyah (immigration to Israel) and nearly all of them seem over 30 years old. In general, most of the olim chadashim are Russians, but in our class we also have South Americans, Ukranians, Mexicans and even one woman from Korea. The class starts with everyone having to say "ani" and their name, which means "I am". Even though we already know that much hebrew, it is still nice to be a good student once in a while.

After one round of names and where we are from, we have to say what our status is in Israel. All the other people in the class say "ani ole chadash", but when it's my turn, I don't quite know what to say and ask the teacher how to translate "living here for a year". She turns to the board and writes the hebrew word "tajeret", which means tourist. "No, we live here for a year, we're not tourists.", replies my friend Aliza from Italy. "Yes, yes, say ani tajeret." So much for our status.

During the break I speak to a man from my class, who said he is from Serbia. I discover that he has lived in Berlin for most of his life and speaks fluent German. Ben, my friend from France, also finds a French person to speak to. Aliza befriends a woman from Brazil, because she just learned to speak Portuguese on Kibbutz Holit. After having a whole program in English, everyone is happy to find people that speak their mothertongue. The break is not over yet, so I unpack my sandwich, that someone else made for me the night before. The sandwich is marked with my name, and there is a sweet letter in my snackback. I should return the favor soon.

Back in class, the next task is to say were we live, so everyone has to translate his home address. The teacher starts laughing when she realizes that we all live in the same house, and seems to be pleased with the thought of a communa. This moment makes me realize how uncommon it is to sit in a class, of which you live with four of the people in the class. These are no classical friendships, they are more like serious relationships. Most of the olim chadashim are only with their partner, if not completely on their own. Even though it might be easier for them to cook, clean, manage the budget and arrive in class on time, they must be lonely on some level.

Yes, living in a communa can be a bitch. Washing 18 plates and tons of pots and pans by hand is no fun at all, cooking 4 kg of pasta is a heavy operation, and the two bathrooms that we have are always occupied when you want to take a shower. But we still have a whole life ahead of us to live solitarily. The communa is the perfect transition between living with your parents and living alone, and until now it has been a great experience. So even though we will probably be late for class every single day, I am glad that I can sit in a classroom with my close friends and later do the homework together in our house.