Week 1 - In the army now!

So I have seen the sunrise every day this week - but despite the fact that the base is located in the mountains and the scenery is beautiful (will take some pics later) its not so fun to be up by 530 and earlier every day. Today we got to leave base for the weekend, so we had to wake up extra early - 830 so that we could clean and make our beds in order to be released by 630.

I am on this base for the next 14 weeks - the first month is basic training, and after that is an ulpan - where I will be learning Hebrew. Everyone that is with me are foreigners who have either just made aliyah or are not Israeli, like myself. The officers and everyone only speak in Hebrew, and luckily mine is good enough to understand about 90% of what they are saying - the missing 10% I can still figure out what is going on. However, there are some people that are completely lost.

The first few days of the army they were taking it easy on us because everything was new. But after dinner on the third day things changed. The first few days they were teaching us the formations that we have to stand in. They gave us our on base uniforms - which are not as nice as the ones we wear in public. Everything we do is timed - so we have to watch our watches constantly and know whats going on - we will get 3 minutes to go clean and then have to be back outside in formation. Or we will get a 15 minute break. Never a second more. We had some classes about Israel, and the army. We also took a few Hebrew tests to see where our written, reading, and speaking levels are at. Surprisingly after not having any formal Hebrew teaching in about 15 years, I managed to pick it up quite easily.

The base is full of people from all over the world - the first group I was in called a tzevet. Of the 12 of us in the group there were 2 people from France, 2 Americans, 2 Argentinians, and one each from Panama, Holland, South Africa, England, and Russia. Just as our tzevet was starting to get the hang of things - like counting, showing up on time, making formations, and writing something similar to an attendance sheet (which has to be written every time we are given more than 7 minutes to do anything) everything got switched up and we were all given new tzevets after 2 days.

We don't get much free time. We are outside and dressed well before 6AM and its lights out between 10 and 11PM. Every day we get an hour (or sometimes one and a half) of free time, where we are given free time to use our phones, buy food, and wear something other than our army uniform. But also in this time we have to shower and get ready for bed. We get a lot of breaks throughout the day, which is good, but its not enough time to do anything substantial except go to the bathroom and sit around and talk - its not like we are actually allowed to do much else in that time anyways.

The first night before our free hour they were explaining to us about what we can and can't do and all that stuff, and also about fire drills. That should have been a hint that there was going to be a fire drill 5 minutes into our hour break, but everyone kinda forgot about that because we were excited for our free hour. So just as everyone got changed out of their uniform, naturally they had a fire drill. During a fire drill you have to have a shirt on past your shoulders and at least have a pair of shorts on; we also must wear our army boots and obviously run outside and get into formation. So this was a preface to what happened next. We were sent to bed at 10PM, and 45 minutes later while we were about 80% asleep - one of the leaders called mefakdim comes into our room and says is Alexander so and so here - silence because this person wasn't in our room. 30 seconds later he comes back and says is Alex here. My response was Alex who? - it seems that every other person on this base is either named Alex or Alexander. He said don't ask questions, is your name Alex? So obviously I say yes, to which he responds with 'Aish! Aish! Zuz! Zuz!' which translates to 'Fire! Fire! Move! Move!' So half asleep I have to jump out of the top bunk, look for my boots, which looks like everyone else's especially when the lights are out and I have to run outside while everyone else in my room is still in bed. So I'm running outside and following the guy in front of me. I get into formation with a different tzevet thinking what the heck is going on, and why am I here. There definitely had to have been a mixup because the only person to take note of where I went was the guy who was yelling at me to get out of the room. As I was standing there I heard the exact same thing I had heard in my tzevet before we were sent to bed. That tzevet was then sent to bed, and I went back to bed. When I got back to the room, the guys asked where the heck I went to which I responded that I have no idea what just happened. Day 1 and already rediculous stuff is happening ONLY TO ME!!!!

On Tuesday, the mefakedet asked for a volunteer after lunch. So I decided to volenteer........ for kitchen duty. So when I got there, I learned that kitchen duty is AWESOME. I picked up chairs for 15 minutes, then sat around for half an hour. Mopped the floor for 20 minutes, sat around for 45 minutes. threw out empty boxes for 10 minutes, sat around for 45 minutes. The lunch ladies are awesome. They just told us to sit around, and we were able to rest, and sleep if we wanted and they would call us if they needed anything. There were 2 other guys on kitchen duty - one from France and the other from Azerbaijan so we sat around and had a conversation in Hebrew, because that was the only common languge. It was also a great opportunity to rest my feet because they were killing me - 2 blisters after day one on my left heel and a huge blister on my right heel by day 2, and working on a third at the base of my baby toe. It was hard to walk, yet alone run.

That night after dinner our mefakedet said 'okay, now that you have seen a bit of the army, now we are really gonna start with the REAL army. We then spent the next 2 hours running in the dark down a huge hill at 10-15 second intervals and stopping each time in formation. At the bottom of the hill we stood at attention for about an hour while they talked to us and gave us tags identifying what group we were in. After that we ran back up the hill again in 10-15 second intervals.

On Tuesday we were assigned to new tzevets, and now I'm with a bunch of people who don't know how to do anything. They don't count the time left, and therefore are always late. Also none of them know how to write up one of these attendance sheets. I am pretty much forced to do everything so we don't get into trouble. After lunch, the mefakedet decided to send me kitchen duty for my second time. Not only was it a relief that I was able to get off my feet again cuz they were hurting even more than the day before, but I got an extra satisfaction knowing that kitchen duty means that I was doing a good job, and that my tzevet would be screwed without me and would most definitely be running, pushups and situps all day long. I did 8 hours of kitchen duty, and maybe an hour and 15 minutes of work. Once my duty was done it was our free hour and a half off and then bedtime. My entire tzevet was exhausted from running, pushups and situps as I expected :-D

Because I know whats going on and actually doing things properly, I can't seem to get in trouble. When the fools in my group were cracking jokes and doing funny stuff I was laughing and while others got in trouble for laughing and misbehaving I didn't. One example was that myself and worst person in our group were sitting together on the ground while we were discussing something as a group. I was sitting in a very relaxed position and so was he. The mefakedet told him to sit upright, to which he pointed out that he was sitting in the exact same position as me, yet still the mefakedet told him not to talk back and to sit properly while I sat and chuckled and not got in trouble.

Can you believe they gave me a gun??? Well - they did! We only got them towards the end of the week this week, but we got long M16s. No ammo this week, but we had to carry our gun around everywhere. In the army if you lose your gun, its 7 years in jail. You take it to the shower, and sleep with it and take it EVERYWHERE you go. We only get the guns on base though, so I have to turn it in before I go home for the weekend. Aside from our gun, the other thing we have to have on us at all times (aside from our free hour) is our canteen. So a gun in one hand and canteen in the other - everywhere I go.

On tap for next week:
Aside from the usual - early mornings, running, situps, pushup, cleaning and all the non fun stuff, we get to practice shooting on Monday.
Secondly I get to see the doctor on Sunday to try and get my profile raised so I can do Nahal. I have to be at the doctor at 10AM in Tzfat - which is probably at least 4 hours away then I have to get to base. That should be an adventure in itself. I'm estimating at least 7 different bus and or train transfers.