The Theme of the Past Two Days: "Um. Cool."

Everything about the past couple days has been pretty ideal.  After Avi drove me to Be'er Sheva, I hopped a bus to Eilat that stopped at Moshav Idan. The last time I talked to Adi (the woman who runs the WWOOF site for the farm), we had set a date for my arrival but hadn't discussed the time or logistics.  So when I got dropped off, there was noone to pick me up or meet me.  Now the stop for Idan is really just one of the cement bus stops on the side of the Arava highway.  The funny thing is that it's about 5 km from Idan and in the middle of the desert and so you're standing on the side of this highway with nothing but a single building as far as the eye can see.  So this other guy got off at the stop with me and sat down and I asked him which direction Idan was so that I could start walking.  He looked at me like I was bad because it was at least 38-40 C out at this point but pointed in the general direction of Idan.  So I started to pick up my bag to go and he stopped me and said his friend was picking him up and could give me a ride to.  So we waited.  But not for long because soon we saw a guy come out of the only building in sight and sprint toward us.  "Is that your friend?"  "Nope.  But..." it was someone else he vaguely knew.  A friend of a friend who invited us in.  His name was Jonatin (Yonatin.... dunno how you spell it.  It's German) and on the way he asked me where I was going.  When I told him, he knew it well and asked me if I were going to be in the greenhouse or the dairy.  When I told him the dairy he said nonchalantly "Oh, then you will be working with my sister." Um. What? Yeah.  His sister Ruth manages the dairy and she was at home and headed back to Idan in 10 minutes so she could give me a ride directly to Adi's.  Well cool.

So I got to the house and met Adi, Ynan, and their five kids.  They're super nice and speak English really well.  They told me that they were already cleaning and preparing Shabbat dinner so I should meet the other volunteer (Haley from Austin) and relax.  Also fantastic.  So on the compound I noticed a bunch of Acacias which Ynan told me were because Adi runs an Acacia nursery and conservation program.  Um. Cool. The volunteer house is near their's on this compound next to where all of the Thai workers live.  The volunteers have their own outdoor kitchen adjacent to the "pub" which is really just a small room off of the dairy which is occasionally used as a pub.  I think the pub got more use before the five kids.  There are also three horses around and they keep the male goats up at the house until mating time.  Bunchu was there chatting with Haley when we met.  He's the Thai worker that works with the goats as opposed to the tomatoes (mostly for export).  He asked me if I liked beer and/or Pad Thai.  When I said yes, we made plans for him to come the next morning and teach us how to make homemade Pad Thai.  Um. cool.  So after an enormous and delicious Shabbat meal with the best Challah I have ever had in my life, we passed out with visions of Pad Thai dancing in our heads.

This morning we were woken up to a knocking at 8 am (yay sleeping in finally!) from Bunchu.  The first step in cooking Pad Thai, apparently is opening up a half liter each of the Thai equivalent of Coor's Lite.  Um. Cool.  It's not too early for that at all.  Then we made Pad Thai.  It was delicious.  In the course of the meal he managed in really broken English to communicate that he was going to go to Jordan.  We should come.  Um. Cool.  He said we were going to go on motorbikes.  Plural.  But really that meant that all three of us were going to get on his tiny Suzuki motorbike from 1971 and pray that it made it to Jordan without breaking down on the crazy rocky dirt road towards the border.  Haley was behind him and I rode on the front.  Super safe.  Not nerve wracking or painful at all.  (But really though it was pretty fun, all told).  So we made it to the border and found out Bunchu couldn't cross because he only had a work visa.  So instead of heading into Jordan, we stopped to chat and have breakfast with the IDF soldiers at the border.  They gave us chocolate milk, coffee, and cake and we sat around getting to know each other and exchanging facebooks for an hour or so.  Then we were going to take pictures and go.  The next thing I know, one of the soldiers is putting their gun over my shoulder.  Then Bunchu is picking them all up with one arm.  Um. Cool.

Once we left, them to go patrol the border and us to ... do whatever, Bunchu decided we would go to this spot he liked.  Down the side of this really steep hill, more of a gentle cliff than anything.  But at the bottom, were these crazy rock formations and canyons from ancient tributaries to the Jordan river.  It was gorgeous.  When we could finally tear ourselves away from the view we started to head back.  Which was all great until the tiny little motorbike that could overheated from it's three passengers leaving us stranded for a half hour while it cooled off.  Which it did, luckily.  We were the kind of hot that was so hot you couldn't sweat.  I think my body just knew that sweating wasn't going to do any good and had given up because I didn't sweat until I stepped into the AC in our place.  Then suddenly it looked like Haley and I had just gone swimming.  Which we hadn't.  Yet.  Fortunately, the moshav pool a five minute walk away solved that.  Basically.  I've learned to never say no to anything.  Even if it sounds ridiculous.  Just respond with "Um. Cool."  It works out every time.