Life in Jerusalem

Some of you have requested this post - and so I will try to oblige. Here's the question - What in the world do we do with our time over here?  Here's my attempt at an answer:

You'll notice that it's taken me 9 weeks to try to come up with a coherent response to this question.  As it turns out, we had no predictable schedule for the first 8 weeks here. Actually, the only thing that I could predict with remarkable accuracy, was that we would be at the Wolfson Medical Clinic every Sunday morning between 8 and 9 for the walk-in hour.  Let me take pause for a moment to give a shout out to the Wolfson Medical Clinic for being completely BRILLIANT.  They have a walk-in hour every single morning. You just show up and see a doctor - no wait, no nurse, no messy bureaucracy.  It's clearly the best invention since sliced bread as far as I'm concerned.

With that said, our schedule did start in earnest one week ago. And so, with an entire week of predictable life behind us, I will now tell you all about our weekly schedule.  Our day begins at O'Dark:30 as  Mr. Noam wakes each morning just before 6am.  Once he stirs, Racheli is quick to get dressed and get her day started as well.  Hadara grumps out of bed and is dressed by around 7 and breakfast is served.  Racheli leaves for school with our next door neighbor, Lia, each morning by around 7:30. They walk to school (together with a parent) together each day, chatting all the way.  Some mornings, Hadara joins them and is dropped off at her friend Ruth's house in exchange for Ruth's big sister, Chava, who joins Lia and Racheli on their walk.  Hadara then goes to school with Ruth.  Other mornings, Debra takes Hadara and Noam both to their respective schools.  Hadara skips to the gate each morning.  Noam is received as if he's Norm from Cheers.  Every morning when he shows up, all the teachers call out, "NOAM!!!"  and he scuttles in with a smile. It's really very sweet.

Once the children are at their three separate programs which are no where near each other, Don and I get to work.  So far, I only have to be on-site at Mandel Jerusalem Fellows one and a half days/week and the other days are spent doing site visits, reading, writing, and researching [the savvy reader will understand that to mean doing laundry, shopping for groceries, dealing with repairs, cleaning the house, and attempting to get my work done after nightfall]. So far, Don only has to be on site one day a week. His other days are spent doing site visits, reading, writing, and researching [the savvy reader will understand that to mean doing site visits, reading, writing, and researching].

Two days a week, the kids come home at 4pm. Three days a week, they come home at 1:30/1:45. And on Fridays, Hadara and Racheli finish by noon, though Noam has no school.  When we remember which day which child is supposed to be picked up at which time, one of us usually makes it there and we have a fun walk home.  Racheli's favorite days so far are Sundays (when she has Self  Defense class) and Tuesdays (when she takes a dance class).  She describes school and first grade as "boring."  Hadara says that she loves school (where she is the oldest in her class and is the king of the castle) and Noam still goes with a smile on his face.

The weather has just started to shift and I bought umbrellas for the girls today in anticipation of the puddle jumping which will soon be upon us.

The best part of living in Jerusalem so far has been breathing fresh air again.  Our windows are open all day and all night. The kids play outside every day before and after school. We spend time at the park on a regular basis. And I love to sit outside in the evenings with a cup of tea and a husband with a smile on his face.