It's Wednesday and you know what that means...

Not much going on at the moment. Life is filled with Ulpan and visiting possible volunteering locations and desperately attempting not to get lost in the city (they keep promising us a walking tour but the longer they put it off the more frustrating it becomes). We FINALLY sat down today with Chava, our sort of "Mom" here who really takes care of us but also takes care of our schedules and is the connection to the municipality of Ramla, and discussed all of the places we had seen and all of the plaes that we had as an option to volunteer at , and we discussed where we wanted to go. In the next few days we're each meeting with Chava to try and figure out how to then fit what we want to do in a workable calendar. Since I know myself well enough to know that I get very overwhelmed by new things, I have chosen not to put my eggs in too many baskets at first, but rather to focus on a few and try and work there longer, rather than a few hours one a week everywhere, as I feel more people are going for. Right now my plan is to do a after school baking club (in english) with one of my housemates, Juli, at the Ethipian center. This is already in the works and I LOVE the center. I was there the other day just hanging out and talking to some of the kids and they were just really great, lively, sweet kids, so I'm excited to bring something I love (baking) to them. PLus the center apparently is pretty short staffed so they are really excitd at the prospect of having us.

The other place I want to work is the Kadima center, which is a place for at risk kids from grades 4-8 to hang out after school so that they're not on the street. They play, do homework, get lunch, learn english...although most of them don't get exposed to english very much and try to avoid it, so having americans there is a big help. Again, I was there the other day, helping a fourth grader with her homework in english, and it was hard because she spoke NO english and I didn't speak enough hebrew to really communicate, but you do what you can, and it works out. I have to say, In only a week, I can certainly tell that my hebrew is vasly improving. It's still not great and hard to communicate, but I'm definitely going somewhere!

Today was (is? getting better in hebrew and forgetting english...) Wednesday which means the GIANT shook in Ramla. "Shook" means market, but the more general term refers to essentially a big street fair with tons of venders close together selling pretty much anything you can think of...food, clothing, tools, electronics, housewares, toys, all together in close quarters. They have one here everyday that's really good, but on Wednesdays, vendors come from all over Israel and there's a big shook, right here in the town where I live. So my housemates and I decided to check it out We get to the shook and we're walking through thinking "this looks exactly like last tuesday...." until we turned a corner and saw a ton of umbrellas that usually aren't there. There was a whole new section created on a vacant lot, a crazy maze like circus of vendors that I spent at least an hour and a half inside of and did not even touch half of it. People are screaming from all areas, different vendors have bullhorns on auto pilot blasting something about 5 shekels but I couldn't tell quite what, the walk ways are too thin and you bump into people every which way, but it's fantastic. I love this country. The shook is just an amazing part of it. You see everything here. Pick up a fresh made borekah (potato or cheese, or both, puff pastry goody) from a vendor and then go across the way to get a new sweater. Go down the way and get a GIANT bunch of bananas (for leass than 2 dollars...) and then get a chunk of cheese, some scarves...a drum. Whatever you want.

My favorite purchase at the shook today? I finally found the bars of chocolate with pop rocks that everyone keeps talking about. Let's just say that provided the evening's entertainment for the house...Also, I just discovered "Shoko b'sakeet" basically chocolate milk in a plastic bag. Think go-gurt but chocolate milk, ony the best cholocate milk EVER and on the go. It's FANTASTIC.

Also, fyi, the rest of he BR trip update is coming when I have a chance to sit down and write it all, but sadly that hasn't come yet and I would rather keep current....hope you can handle the wait!

One last thing...I got a handy dandy blog visits counter and now I can see that there are quite a few visitors! (thanks for stopping by!!!!) but i have no idea who you are :( please leave me a post just to say hi. i really, really miss my peeps in the states and would love to hear ANYTHING from ya'll. thanks.

~k