It hadn't even been an hour since we all met and we were already off on a two day hike over the beautiful terrain of Jerusalem. We hiked a couple hours the first day, about 5 Kilometers to the Machal memorial. If you recall, I am in a program called Machal. It is a part of the Ministry of Defense and handles the process of joining the IDF if you are foreign, like me. Anyways, this memorial had the names of all of the "Machalniks" that joined the fight for Israel's independence in 1948 and had died, all the way up to present times. At the top of the memorial, a quote by Ben Gurion read: " The Machal forces were the Diaspora's most important contribution to the survival of the State of Israel. " As I read this quote, it all became real for me. I am about to be joining the long line of brave men and women who literally fought for their lives just for an idea of there becoming a Jewish state. We kept walking. We walked for roughly 3 more Kilometers and then decided to set up a camp site before it got dark. Boys sleep on the right, girls sleep on the left. The boys bathtree on the right and girls bathbush on the left. We slept in just a sleeping bag. No tents, no roof, no floor, no air conditioner, just the land of Israel beneath us and the air of Jerusalem over us. Every 30 minutes we would switch off doing Shmira or "guard duty" in pairs around the site, mainly keeping an eye out for foxes that would try to get our food. Before bed, we were divided into two groups, played one name game to start to get to know each other and shared our personal stories with our groups. We also heard from our madrichim "councelors/group leaders" briefly about who they were and what they did in the army. My madrich was named Levi, he also came from a Russian family, and moved to israel from Newton, MA! One town over from where I lived before I moved. And craziest part is, that he served in the same unit that I want to serve in. It is like someone hand picked us to be in the same program. What were the odds of all of everything lining up like that?! The first night was over and I was exhausted.
6:00 the next morning its time to wake up. I look out over my toes in front of me and see one of the guys from my group saying his morning prayers. What a sight, a gorgeous orange sunrise, a young man swaying back and forth with a bright white tallit covering his head and shoulders. I look at it for a minute and stop my thoughts to soak in the moment. Next thing I know, we are running in a square one after the other to warm up after a rough cold night of sleep. The madas "exercise" is run by the other group leader named Sam. Sam was a paratrooper in an elite unit and you could tell by the way he was built that he took fitness seriously. It would be too easy if it was just running around in a square the whole time, so every few seconds, Sam would yell something out and we would have to immediately stop running and do it. Some things are: to do a push up, lie on our back for a second, slap the ground then jump up as high as we could. After the work out, we had breakfast, a cup of mint tea and we were off for day two of hiking. This time it was 15 kilometers back to the place we were staying for the rest of the program. In army terms, a 15k hike would not be considered a lot. But it was our first real hike, and it was over 35℃ and we constantly had to stop to find shade to avoid heat stroke. A hike that should have taken about 3 hours took 6.
On the last leg of the hike, someone didn't feel well and could not carry on with the walking, so we had to break out the alunka "stretcher." The alunka never stops moving or touches the ground. Four people cary the alunka from the corners. Every 30 seconds the person on the stretcher yells HILUF "switch" and the switching procedure goes like this. The person walking in back of the stretcher taps the guy holding the back corner on the shoulder, he takes the back. The one who was carrying the back taps the front guy on the shoulder and takes the front. The guy that was carrying the front corner goes in front of the stretcher and takes the hand of the guy now carrying the front to pull them up if there is a steep hill and they need help. The last kilometer we walked like this up a steep hill. It was an intense exercise mainly because we had someones life on the line and literally in our hands. Something in my brain switched from "Wow this is painful and hard I want to stop" to "We have to keep pushing and get her to safety" We get to the end of our hike and are greeted with two big bowls of freshly cut watermelon.
For the next two and a half weeks we would wake up at the crack of dawn, (with a few exceptions) learn Hebrew and do madasim almost every day to get ready physically. In between classes, we would have lectures about the history of Israel, the politics, some IDF knowledge, and the rights of a lone soldier just to name a few. We have meals all together which mainly consisted of hummus spread on a piece of bread with some veggies and tuna if we were lucky. During this program, I finally found out for myself why everyone loves coffee. With little sleep, it is the only way to get through class after class without falling asleep. In class if we spoke english or any language other than Hebrew, we would have to do pushups. The classes were taught by the same soldiers that teach in the base where we will be learning Hebrew in basic training.
This was my Mechina (Preparation course) experience. Now my mechina is over. Next step, the real army.
Gud Shabos
August 6th 2016