Voluntourism: Sar-El and the IDF

Gain by losing.

Let’s face it, we lose things every day. we lose socks in the laundry, money from our pockets and hours from our lives. What if by voluntarily giving up these things, in effect losing them, we could gain so much more in return?

I just lost three weeks in Israel. And in return, I gained amazing friends, new skills, and a pretty cool scar on my back. Ok, so maybe not everyone thinks the last one is cool. Story as follows…

Before this, Israel was never really high on my radar. Little did I know, with a little help from LLWorldTour.com, it was about to get a big upgrade. Lisa Lubin, the amazing woman from LL World Tour, wrote an article on Voluntourism. That was all I needed. I contacted Sar-El, the organization that coordinates volunteers for the IDF and bought a plane ticket.

I was warned that coming from Turkey and Morocco, I might be asked a few extra questions on my way into Israel. This is basically how it went.

Guard: Why are you coming to Israel?

Me: To volunteer with Sar-El.

Guard: Oh, cool. Do you know where they are putting you?

Me: Nope.

Guard: ok. have fun. *stamp*

Not much to it.

I skated through baggage claim, and met my contact Pamela in the terminal at Ben Gurion, and checked in. She told me a little bit about the program, I paid her the equivalent of $90 USD for my room and board for the two weeks we had agreed on, and wondered what to do with the next 6 hours until our bus left for the base I was to be stationed on: Beit Lid, a paratrooper base.

My first itinerary item was to find a cel phone chip; I have problems with payphones. This meant going into Tel-Aviv because there are no cel phone company stores left in Ben-Gurion airport. No sweat; this is fast and easy. Grab the train outside the arrivals terminal to HaShalom station for Azrieli Mall. It costs 14 sheckles and at least 50% of the populace speaks enough English to give you directions; never fear.

This was a mall like any other in the USA, aside from the fact that half the signs were written in Hebrew and half the 20 year olds were carrying assault rifles.

After some searching, I found the only company to sell pre-paid simcards is CellCom, and they hooked me up with a number.

Sunday evening approached and I returned to the airport to catch a bus with volunteers from around the world out to our base. Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Hungary, Canada, USA; people seemed to come from everywhere! On this bus we also got to meet our Madrichot, the IDF members assigned to help our merry band integrate  the IDF; Lee and Romi.

That night we loaded into our army barracks. My roommate Aaron was alternately obsessed with smelling his passport and overjoyed to finally be here for the event that he had spent so long waiting for. We chose our bunks from the metal framework and racked out.

Not everyone got such nice sleeping accommodations.

The following Monday morning, we arose and had our first-of-many flag raising ceremony, picked up our snappy new uniforms, and got to work.

The next first week was hot, sweaty, dirty, very rewarding work. We emptied old warehouses, tore things apart, painted, built shelving and organized all manner of military kit. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have fun doing it; far from it! We had a blast talking to soldiers, teachers, officers, logistics workers and each other. The officers Alon and Rami were brilliant; truly good men with great hearts. The logistics staff were hilarious, making sure we were well caffeinated and always smiling.

Every night our Madrichot had an activity for us following dinner. Often these were lectures, guest speakers, games, or activities with the soldiers. The hard work that went in to these evenings was apparent and I made sure to tell the organizers every night how much I appreciated to effort. I know that being in the military can be a thankless job sometimes, so it’s good to take the accolades where you can get them.

The meals are all provided on the base, and the food is great. The cooks there really put their hearts into it, and you can tell. Everything from humus to schnitzel and a million vegetables in between. When we were there, someone was rather fond of cucumbers.

The weekend for the volunteers starts on Thursday afternoon, when we all jump on a bus and head back to Tel Aviv for the weekend. On the weekend, the volunteers have the option of staying at an IDF hostel, Beit Oded, in the city free of charge. It is right next to the beach and a movie theater and provides rudimentary meals and housing for the volunteers. As opposed to the base, the food in Beit Oded is enough to keep you alive; little else. One thing they don’t tell you ahead of time is that everyone  who stays there has to clean up the bathrooms, rooms and everything before heading back to “work” the next Sunday morning. There is also a 12 midnight curfew. It is basic; you get what you pay for. It is exactly what you would expect of an Army hostel.

The second week, we were all a little more accustomed to the routine. The work was still hot and sweaty, but we were faster and more coordinated so it flew by. Ours was the first Sar-El group that the paratroopers at Beit-Lid had ever had and they weren’t quite sure what to do with us, so sometimes we found ourselves with nothing to do since we finished the days worth of work before the day was half over. The IDF officers didn’t want to work the volunteers too hard, but many of the volunteers came to do just that: work hard.

There was a good deal of self regulation among the group as a whole. The ones who tired quickly took more break time, leaving the ones who wanted to work… well, working.

Tuesday meant we took an entire day off from life in the service and put on civvies, civilian clothes, to go and visit a nearby city, Zichron, and see some of the history of the area and visit a refugee camp from WWII.

Not being Jewish myself, nearly everything I saw and heard was some form of revelation. I didn’t know about the origins of the language, the important events in the country’s history, or even important founding members of the government, so I constantly needed to be filled in by someone nearby.

One of the highlights of the week was a paratrooper named Lior. Not only was he just about the coolest soldier we met, but he showed us the workings of the m4 assault rifle, made us coffee and chai in a trench in a field over a small fire and under a starry sky.

At the end of the second week, I was supposed to be done with my initial commitment to Sar-El. That didn’t happen.

The sense of purpose and family I was developing with the people at the base and on my team was having a bonding effect. I wanted to stay and finish out the third week on the base with my group; each group only stays at a base for 3 weeks. I asked the Madrichot and the program coordinator if I could stick around and they quickly agreed I should stay.

Rarely in life is someone given the  truth of themselves. It engenders a strength, understanding, and humility that draws people like a magnet. Doron was one of these people. Doron spent a great many years in the IDF, eventually stepping back from the line to become a trainer for the next generation. We volunteers were beyond privileged to have met him while we were there, not once, but several times as he made special trips to come and speak to us.

The third week was (surprise) more sweaty dirty work. The logistics officers had become more accustomed to our pace and were finding all manner of jobs for us to do. Unfortunately, as I said before, they weren’t fully prepared for us and sometimes they didn’t have the gear we needed to safely and effectively perform the work, so we had to find something else to do; like Krav Maga.

One afternoon in the final week of our engagement with the IDF, our Madrichot told us we were going to take a field trip. We all piled on to a bus, with the usual assortment of machine guns and handbags. After several hours of beautiful terrain, Lior informed us that we had arrived at his Kibbutz.

A Kibbutz is something I had only read about, and even then, I thought they had ceased to exist some time ago. They are something of a socialist living agreement between the people there and they do all manner of things for one another. They had horses, chickens, cows, a factory, a dairy, cars, a pool, and schools. We cooked pita over an open fire and played guitar and ate until will into the night before we had to rock back to the base.

As luck would have it, the final night of our three week engagement at Beit-Lid would also be the first night of Hanuka. I personally had never seen anything Hanuka related outside of a store front or television program which meant I knew 0.1% of what was involved.

The Tsanchanim put on a giant Hanuka dinner and invited we volunteers to come and be a part of it. It was awesome! We had tons of food, people wouldn’t stop handing out presents, I heard a Hanuka song and prayer for the first time in my life; but not the last. Everyone was having so much fun it was hard to believe that it was such a religious event. Most religious things I had been to previously have been a little dry and heavy on the boring. This was anything but…

I even got to show off a short video I made to thank our hosts.

Eventually, the night had to end, and everyone went to work cleaning up and putting away the party we had enjoyed all night. Embraces, handshakes, and non-stop goodbyes ate up most of the late night hours and the next morning. I had to promise Alon at least a dozen times that I would come and stay with his family when I came back.

Finally retiring our brown uniforms and donning our civilian clothes for a final time, we hopped our last bus and ate up the miles back to the city and my last weekend with my friends in Tel Aviv.

There are times, when I am away from life as I know it, that I realize how truly fortunate I am to have nothing. In place of my own life, I get to pick up other peoples lives, their responsibilities at times, and carry them for a while to see how it feels.

Giving up my life as I have, I get these chances to walk a mile in a pair of shoes that I didn’t know existed. I have the true pleasure of working and playing with wonderful souls on every portion of this planet and it does nothing but enrich my life and allow me to feel closer to the world as a whole.

While we may not all be able to drop our lives in a storage locker and go, we can find opportunities like this closer to home with all manner of volunteering; I’ve helped at hospitals for children, animal shelters, with the Boy Scouts and even churches I am not affiliated with. We can even make the plan and leave home specifically to do something like this. These are ways that we can multiply the rewards we receive for or efforts. It’s worth the time; so take it, and lose it.