This Jewish holiday, also known as the "Festival of Weeks", celebrates the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai and also commemorates the grain harvest in Israel. We were fortunate enough to be invited to a nurse from Rahat's house for dinner Tuesday night. She lived in Beer Sheva, only a short cab ride away from our dorms, so we all bought a few bottles of wine and were on our way. It was very exciting to get to celebrate the holiday in a real Israeli home with a families. It was Meval, her husband, three daughters, and another nurse, Meriam, and her husband. Her house was beautiful, adorned with hamsas and wall hangings, very modern yet so subtly classic. I immediately fell in love with everything about the house, the feeling of home, the family that inhabited it; it definitely made me thankful that I'd be going home in less than two weeks.
Re-Entry into America
The last few days in Israel were truly saddening, as we had made Beer Sheva our home. We had become familiar with the students and our surroundings. After class or a night out we would say to each other “Okay, it’s time to go home”. The eight other girls and I had learned to depend on each other in many ways and had gotten so close. It was a totally new experience for all of us as barely any of us knew each other well before coming on the trip. Besides the other girls, we made some other great friends along the way. It took us ten times longer than it should have to say goodbye at Logan airport back in Boston on June 10th than it probably should have.
Re-entry into American culture took about a day to settle in. The weirdest things to me were things that should not have been “weird” at all: hearing background noise in English, seeing so much greenery, seeing blondes everywhere. The hardest part, going and coming, was adjusting to the time change, which I still am not used to. Luckily I had my 21st birthday on Sunday and lots of friends to surround myself with so the sadness did not travel much farther than the airport. Though I knew I missed Israel with all my heart, one thing I learned on the trip was that anything is possible. I know that if I set my mind to it I will be able to go back to Israel one day, but I know that there are so many other countries I would also like to see. My main goal now is to be a part in global health. Though I may not be positive on what this entails or how I will get there, it is a start. I also know, after that fateful day at the maternity ward, that I want to work with pre-natal, birth, and post-birth education in women in different countries. It fascinates me so much that everyone does it differently. When I say “it” I mean everything- their health care structure, how they give birth, their traditional medicine, how they view certain aspect of life. I find the world to be fascinating and not only want, but need to be a part of it and learn as much as I can in this lifetime.
