i can see Jordan from where i'm sitting. cool, eh?

The Otzma girls arrived at Kibbutz Ketura yesterday, also known as Camp Shana’s Hell. We live in Gimel-3, a tiny apartment in the volunteer housing neighborhood, where Sheri and I share a room about the same size as my beloved chamber in the Allston Party Suite. Miriam and Jenn are in the other bedroom, and the four of us share one smelly bathroom and the most disgusting kitchenette you’ve ever seen. It’s a good thing we’ll be eating all of our meals in the dining hall, otherwise I simply would not eat for the next three months, which in fact appears to be the case regardless because most of the meals here are dairy.
My first task upon arrival was to write the number 664 into all of my clothes, which is my laundry cubby number and apparently identity for the length of my stay here. After that I unpacked all my crap – which appears to have multiplied with all of my frivolous shopping sprees, I might add – because we all know that I can’t sleep at night until I’ve sufficiently nested. We did have plenty of company throughout the process as the other volunteers gradually began to introduce themselves to us. Every time they would ask about our job assignments I received a condescending “Aww, have fun” or “I feel for you” in response to my placement in the cheder ochel. What is so awful about the dining room, I kept wondering? I mean, I’ve been through some shit (literally) in the last 7 months, but do I have any idea what I’m in for?
After having been on the kibbutz for barely half a day, I reported to the dining room at 0700 hours for my first day of work. I will be working there with 3 or 4 other volunteers around my age, as everyone is between the ages of 18 and 25, and all of us are from English-speaking countries (USA, Britain, and Canada for the most part). The breakfast shift mainly involved me resting my elbows on the salad cart to make sure it didn’t fly away and replacing the occasional vegetable or dip bucket as it became empty. There was no serving involved as today’s arochat boker course was none other than sticky, cement-like oatmeal at the self-serve station. Once the dining room emptied out, I wiped down the tables and swept the floor, and then returned to my cell for an hour break before the lunch shift.
Lunch was more interesting. It was a pizza meal, which unluckily enough for me was yet another item I can’t eat, but fortunately and more excitingly involved serving people so that no one would take more than the two allotted pieces at a time. Finally, I get to live up to my name, Lunch Lady Shana! I held my ground with a spatula in hand and doled out slices of mushroom, olive, onion, and regil (plain cheese, apparently) pizza to eager kibbutznikim. The first lunch shift turned into another break and then the second lunch shift, and by 4:30 my first day was finally over. Manual labor from 7:30 to 4:30, oh my! The best part is, I get to do it all over again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day. And oh yeah, the next day too, because the communist work week is Sunday to Friday. Yeah, awesome.