What happened to Sunday?

Sunday was the first official day of the Boneh program. My kvutzah (Kvutzat Poreh) started off the day with Socialist Zionism at 8:30am in the Moadon (Literally: club-house\hang-out place). It was fairly interesting (even if it did feel like they were trying to brainwash us). The material that we read had several spelling mistakes in it... I feel like Socialist Zionism may be my least favorite class.

Our next class was Hadracha with Brando, one of our madrichim for Boneh. Side Note: Brando is from Australia, and tends to shorten the names of most things -- hence "Brando" from Brandon. The English language does not have a direct translation for the word "Hadracha"; according to our Israeli madricha, Noga, Hadracha implies a mix of guidance, counseling, and education. We covered leadership, what makes someone a good leader, goals and how to achieve them.

Afterwards, we had a hafsacha (lit.- break) and then lunch. After lunch, we gathered in the parking lot with water, sunscreen, hats, closed toe-shoes, and long pants since it was Kvutzat Poreh's once-a-week work time. We were driven about a mile and a half a way and instructed how to pick the peppers used to make paprika. We all got stuck in thorns, covered in dirt and dust, and very sweaty during our four hour work detail. Each of us picked about 3 burlap-sack- fulls of the peppers.

Afterwards, Theo, Myself, Bram, Lonny, and Jeremy all went to the calbo (kibbutz store) and got a bunch of food for the entire kvutza. A new tradition was created: after work, we all pig out on the snacks that we never would normally get on kibbutz. Thankfully, it only happens once a week!

After dinner, we had a speaker who tlaked to us about what it means to be Jewish and how Judaisim collectively is Zionist and maintains Israel as its center focus. I was tired and afterwards went to bed (9:20pm).