Captain Compost, my new friends, and Kibbutz Lotan

Once there was a big weird man named Captain Compost. He lived on Kibbutz Lotan. He was in charge of mud, the pee-pee and poop patrol, and other ways of recycling. Obviously, he is not real, but he is part of a story from Kibbutz Lotan that has become true. The people there have built their houses out of mud and straw. They compost pee-pee and poop and use all waste to water the plants and create soil. They have solar ovens. And they bring people--children, college students, and adults--to come learn about how to build and live this way. Even though the houses are mud, they are very beautiful inside and they have beautiful mosaics on the outside. How I learned all of this is because of the friend I made--Na'ama, who can speak English. She showed me around me and gave me a tour.

Then we went to the dining hall, where everybody eats every day. I loved the food. The vegetables and yogurts were really good. The yogurt was from the goats on the kibbutz.

After our tour, we went straight to the swimming pool. It felt so good because I was sooooo hot from walking and running around. It gets really hot there. It's in the Arava, which is the hottest part of the desert in Israel.

While we there, we went to a Bat Mitzvah. I got to meet more kids there, even though most of them spoke Hebrew. The next day was my birthday but we didn't have a cake. We sneaked a few pieces of cake from the Bat Mitzvah and had it the next day for my birthday. Na'ama came over. She helped my mom and Jonah make birthday cards for me secretly. My mom and Dan and Jonah gave me a t-shirt and a necklace from the kibbutz for my birthday.

Our next journey would be to Eilat.

Our adventure to Kibbutz Lotan

After putting the note to the Fedex people to give my mom her new ATM card and buying Jonah and me a snack of pita and humous for the road, we set off to Kibbutz Lotan. There were so many great things to see. The swirling of the scenes and the car made me feel really drowsy. I slept for an hour and, when I woke up, we were halfway to Mitzpeh Ramon.

Mitzpeh Ramon is a small city on the edge of a huge desert crater. When we got there, we hiked up a little part of the crater and went to catch toads that were about half an inch long and a quarter inch wide. At the same park we saw real ibex and tiptoed trying to get as close as we could to them. Then we drove to a hike that led us to an Ammonite Wall where there were fossils you could find on the ground. I found a shell fossil and I found Jonah a shell, too. The wall had really big fossilized shells stuck to it that were each about as big as two people's heads.

Then we started looking for a hotel to sleep in that night. We saw a lot of soldiers with real machine guns and we heard a lot of fighter planes. We stopped at the Field School hotel but didn't stay. Then we looked at a great hotel that served a breakfast in the morning and a dinner at night. We had a great time at dinner. Some musicians came, and Jonah and Dan and I started dancing. Dan and I started getting so wild that we accidentally bumped into a waitress. Luckily, she didn't spill anything. When we woke up we were treated to the best breakfast I had in my whole life. There were about 1000 things to choose from. There was even fresh honey from a comb, and you could pick the honey off the comb. That's when I learned about nana tea, too. All you have to do is put some steaming water, mint (nana in Hebrew), and about 2 whole teaspoons of sugar in a cup. You mix it up together and you have nana tea--mint tea, in English.

An exciting day had begun. From breakfast, we went to the llama/alpaca farm. Jonah and I got to ride a real alpaca--Dalai the llama--and then made a project with alpaca yarn. From there, we drove to the Kibbutz.

Our First Week

We're staying in apartment with a pomegranite tree in the front yard, a loquat--or sheseq--tree across the street, and an orange tree with very sour oranges next door.  We have the most beautiful flowers near us.  One smells us like a juicy grapefruit.  We have a little park near us, two doors down, and right at the corner of our street is a falafel stand, a great pizza stand,  a little cafe called "Coffee in the Garden," and a yummy fresh fruit and vegetable store.   Jonah and I love playing at the park next door and, one night, as I walked to the park alone, just to be there for five minutes, I picked loquats and ran around having fun in the park.  When I noticed I'd been out too long, I got in a real rush and feel knee first on the ground and got a gash.  I limped up to my house, cleaned it, and went to sleep.  Fortunately, it's been healing just fine.

In our first week, while we were settling in, we started acting like real tourists.  We walked and walked.  In our traveling around the city on foot, we went to a great Israeli bike and scooter store and got a great scooter.  Then, when we went to see the Old City, I could scoot there and help my mom carry groceries and other packages back on the scooter's handles.  In the Old City, I put wishes in the Wall and also went to the Arab Market, where I got a princess-like headband with gold coins hanging down and a very pretty blue skirt.  The next day, Dan, Jonah, and I had a great time at a beach in Tel Aviv, where Dan got me one of my favorite kinds of candy and Jonah got an Israeli ice cream.  

After only a week of being in Israel, we left to go to Kibbutz Lotan.  

Finally there!

As I walked  through the New York City airport, I knew to take a good look around because it would be the last I'd be seeing of the United States for two months. Boarding the airplane, we noticed we were an hour early, so Jonah, my mom, and I would have to wait one more hour.  When the plane finally took off, we had dinner, watched a little bit of "Hotel for Dogs" on the airplane screen, and then we tried to fall asleep but didn't succeed.  Except for Jonah.  He was the only one who slept the whole time.  Just when we started to fall half-asleep, for about an hour, they called out, "two hours til breakfast."  Our time, it was eight o'clock at night, even though it was starting to get light.  They didn't really serve much of a breakfast.  They only served a little bit of pizza that was way too salty.  

Yeah!  Only an hour 'til landing.  Then, everyone started clapping.  We were finally there!

new york city

Out of all the different towns, cities, and countries I've been to, I've never been to New York City (except for when I was three and I don't remember that).  We stayed at our friends, Yoni and Sheva.  As Jonah would say, we had a "poopy" great time.  We started out walking on the Brooklyn boardwalk where we had a great view of the Statue of Liberty.  

My favorite thing there was meeting some of my half-siblings--Julia and Henry (9, a month older than me), who are twins, and then Sarah (13) and Miriam (17), who are really greats actors.  Miriam's been in a movie.  But we know there are really eleven people in the donor family and probably more.  

We were in New York for five days in all, and we also did things like go to the Natural History Musueum, go to the Met and have Yoni as a tour guide, have a picnic in Central Park (and getting a gigantic thorn stuck in your foot), go to FAO Schwarz and the American Girl shop.  

These were my adventures in New York. 

P.S. We got to eat my favorite food in NY: bagels.  Those were the best bagels I've ever had.