Zis Navy base in Eilat

Arrived yesterday. Put to work quickly for the first day of Chanukah celebration, tempered by the Australian massacre. Sue and I made popcorn for soldiers and their families that were allowed to come on base. After we helped clean a very large mess. A large kitchen that was oily from the donuts, snitzel, hot dogs, hamburgers and of course falafel that was served. They were so appreciative of our help

Went to on base synagogue to daven, just one young soldier and myself .

What a work out, Sue did food service prep and serving. I along with a South Africa woman. Completely cleaned and reorganized all the fruit veggies and halav/dairy products
Shelves were quite dirty. Half way through our great organizing a trick came in. The local cadets then made a organizational mess of our hard work. We went through all produce chucking the bad stuff. No inventory management, to optimize age of produce. Lots of heavy lifting of eggplant tomatoes, squashes... Etc.

Mon night had a lovely group discussion on anti-Semitism.
Sar-el hoping to leverage sar-el to help through training and lecturing in USA and worldwide eventually.

Third day, Tues. Some observations. Navy folks are very laid back in am, not us sar-el folks. Bathrooms are weird....ratio, let's of showers 5 and only 2 toilets, lots of sinks. One toilet near the mess hall for tons of soldiers. So many little things broken, from handles, lights, curbs etc.
What gorgeous sunrise over the Jordon mounts, wish I could take pictures.

The navy boats here are relatively small, like double the size of what the USA calls a pt boat. We received a tour, they have men and women boats due to the close living quarters. We toured everything from engine room which was prstinely clean, tactical systems

Sue's roommates are all from Australia/south Africa , she finds understanding all their terms is a challenge.

No on base pictures permitted but the ones I posted are given ok to publish. Picture of some of the work we did, like organizing and cleaning giant frig....it felt like pesach.

We were given permission from the base commander for a 4 hour base leave to tour Eilat. Very touristy town. Pictures is a cappuccino made by a local barister named Ori that also works on the base..

Weds some warehouse cleaning while Sue chopped veggies. I am doing lots of lifting, I am sore and tired. I look forward to the 3 day break coming up.Read more