Past couple weeks

I haven't posted in too long...so this will be a synopsis of the past couple weeks.

From the 11-15 we were in Ramla, doing regular volunteering and the likes...tried out a couple new places, the more religious school in the area Bar Ilan (it's kind of boring though, I don't really want to go back) and Moadonit which is an after school center for elementary school kids in need of care but can't afford other options. It's a small building with a little outside area, but they make use of the space available and we play soccer, or climb trees, or whatever the kids want and also some English work at some point. Alright, other than that it was a standard week.

Then last Friday (3/16) 7 of the 9 kids who started the program at the same time as I did moved into a HOUSE on the edge of the city and it's ENORMOUS and awesome, but kind of far away from grocery stores and the bus station...I'm going to take a video very soon (maybe today) and will post that as well.

Alright, so last week MASA (who gives us scholarships for being here, meaning the cover the program cost) had a Building Future Leaders conference in Jerusalem for the week and 400 MASA participants attended along with many staff members who were past MASA participants. And then, in this one week conference, they packed in about 6 months worth of activities. Day 1, President Shimon Peres came and spoke to us (he wakes up at 4am everyday, just FYI) along with Bibi Netanyahu (but Bibi didn't speak).And from there we went directly to this fancy hotel for an Evening Gala complete with hors d'ouevres, a 4 course meal, speeches, and a concert. Day 2 the entire group went to Neot Kdumim which's a huge outdoor park with a lot of different activity sites and we all got to do 3 in our groups. They're all designed to teach us lessons and as group bonding time. The first activity I volunteered to be the one to leave the group for 5 minutes and when I came back I had to get the other 20 people to stand on chairs and clap and holler. Except I didn't know the secret password...and on and on. We also built massive sand castles and herded sheep (which was amazing).

The next 2 days were packed with speakers and demonstrations, mostly online stuff since I chose the Networking track as my desired 'specialty' at the conference. We were introduced to a bunch of websites, heard from a lot of entrepreneurs, and did some hands on (though I don't know how they were relevant) activities.

Here's a lipdub that some of the kids participated in: http://vimeo.com/39054231

At some point there was an American stand up comedian and a performance from SHI360 (who apparently people have heard of).

Anyway, I got back from Jerusalem Thursday night and went to Allan for a lovely weekend Friday. Am now back in Ramla!