I need fffftt fffftt fffftt

This week flew by really fast. At least that's what our heroic children said, who today complete a whole week at school. Every day they get up at 6:00 AM and learn from 7:00 to 15:15. The days are long for them and they still aren't really learning. Partly because they hardly understand the language and also because their classes keep getting canceled. A ceremony, a soccer tournament, an exhibition, a quiz they are exempt from, or just a teacher busy with other things that releases them from class. Yesterday we did homework with Michael for the first time. He came home and said he had homework for tomorrow but didn’t know what exactly. After thorough questioning, we understood that he needed to gather material for preparing a poster in class with two friends on the topic of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. They received a page in English with the guidelines. He translated his part of the assignment on the computer and wrote in his notebook the enigmatic translation: find a reading text about the plague and write about theme identification and political organizations. He left the guidelines page in English in class and we had to work with that... So we discovered quite a few anecdotes about the Black Death. For instance, that the word isolation in English comes from the Spanish word 40 (from Latin), because it was customary to enter isolation for 40 days, during which people would drink urine and smear feces on their bodies to protect themselves from the disease, and of course, Europeans blamed the Jews for spreading the disease. He spent hours on texts we found online, formulated sentences in Hebrew and translated them together with Yoala into English. After extensive research on the disease, in the morning he woke up sick and stayed home... with Mati we discovered that in Mathematics they are learning material from 9th grade. So I opened Beni Goren online (my password still works) and started teaching him. Meanwhile, for two days now, he has been sitting for an hour every day solving exercises, which he didn’t do back home except for the day before the test... Ofri also came excited with homework - a worksheet on the number 6. It's surprising how he goes to kindergarten every day eagerly, even though he understands nothing. All three of them are so committed to the goal of integrating into this new place, without complaining or getting angry at us for bringing them here. It's incredible, moving, and mostly a big relief.

On Wednesday, there was a ceremony marking the school's 80th anniversary. Parents were invited. An emotional, funny, and absurd ceremony. A stage with 40 choir students and 30 orchestra players, an audience of 200 students and about 200 Colombian parents, mostly Christians who have no connection to Judaism or Israel, sending their children to a school named Theodoro-Herzog, where Hebrew is taught, the playgrounds are named after cities in Israel, and signs with Israeli holidays are scattered around the yard. We began mingling with the Jewish mafia of the school - met the insurance agent who was arranged for us, the partner of the broker with whom Yoala communicates from Israel (and her son is in Ofri's kindergarten), the head of the Jewish community who is supposed to ensure we get a 15% discount on school tuition, the cantor, and the law professor from Hebrew who immigrated with his Colombian wife to Medellin. Then the ceremony began. A few speeches in Spanish, the orchestra starts playing and the choir sings in Hebrew: Hatikvah, Hevenu Shalom Alechem, Small Gifts, all in beautiful and elaborate arrangements. After two months of estrangement, where the language is one of the biggest barriers to communication and a sense of belonging, suddenly out of nowhere it came and overwhelmed us. I tried to resist and cling to cynicism, but I couldn't, I took out my camera and shot with teary eyes.

In the midst of the family effort to create a routine, we have been trying for weeks to inflate the various basketballs we have in our luggage. Lots of balls and no pump. A few times we've walked into stores looking for a pump, Yoala is always the one who approaches the sellers, I have no idea what she asks. A few days ago, I found myself alone in a store looking around for a pump.

hola senor, puedo ayuderle?

aaaammmm - I need a.....ffftt ffftt ffftt for bicycle......

the most awkward it can be....the saleswoman didn't fall on the floor laughing like we did at home in the evening when I told everyone that I asked for fffftt fffftt fffftt to inflate the tires (because I didn’t even know how to say ball), she just pointed me to a bike shop nearby, which was closed. The next day, Mati returned from school with an inflated ball. Dad says:

infladora

The bureaucracies continue. Yesterday we signed a lease for a house, today we are opening a bank account. But mostly we are waiting to start getting to know this crazy city, and not just through the malls, supermarkets, and bowling alleys. Today we take the first step - Yoala and I are going to a performance in Yarkon Park, our first date night since we arrived. 

See you next week