We started our day at the Rebecca Sieff Centre visiting the new therapeutic garden that we had spent two days preparing.
We listened to the director of a Wizo Shelter and a social worker told us how the shelter works taking in women who come from abusive marriages where their and their children’s lives are at risk. They come in as an emergency from areas outside the city. They are given legal advice are taught how to overcome their lack of self esteem, and given the tools they need to get their lives back on track.
We then spent a lovely couple of hours with the 4yr olds preparing for Lag B’Omer with arts and crafts activities.
The next big challenge……..Jewish women plastering a wall! No we actually were taught how to and accomplished plastering an outside wall successfully.
Some of us continued painting the murals while others built a Taboon which is an outside oven. To build the Taboon, as we had no building materials, we, yes we Jewish girls, picked up handfuls of powdery, dry earth, placed it into a bucket, added plaster and mixed by hand with water until it was a muddy, wet mix. This we used to build a pile of random stones into an oven. Tomorrow, we bake pitta in it!!
We then travelled to Holon to the Museum of Darkness. In this amazing place we were guided around in the pitch black – no watches, no phones, no glasses- by a blind or partially sighted guide.
Each of us was given a cane and we were guided through a park, beach, market, busy street and a working cafeteria. In each place we had to wind our way through streets, up and down steps and negotiate life as a blind person.
We are learning to appreciate everything we have in life however big or small.
Next stop Nachalat Yehuda – a residential youth village – in Rishon le Zion. This school houses 400 11-18 year olds who owing to their personal circumstances are unable to live at home.
We arrived to the dining hall to be greeted by all the students cheering our arrival. This was so overwhelming that most of us ended up sobbing!
We were then entertained by the phenomenal dancers and singers who are students at Nachalat Yehuda.
The children showed us around their rooms and we chatted to them. The affection of the children towards the director of the village was overwhelming.
We then returned to Beit Heuss to chat over a glass of wine and chocolate about what an amazing day we have had.