Happy Hannukah

there it is, my pride and joy. my very own hannukia. made from cardboard, paint and hot glue.

Ruth in arabic means cowshit.

this is my home, number 86, its removed from most of the other dorms, and theres hellas bike.

I havent been blogging much because im busy. I wake up at seven everymorning, to either learn hebrew, or work until 4. After that im free but ussually tired so i end up studying, or reading. Ocassionally when the weathers nice i wander up the hill to the ruins. (Right to Left ) Alex from Kentucky, Fillipo from Italy and Hella from germany watch the sunset. Beautiful

despite this computer moving desperatley slow, time is moving quite fast here.

Remember if you love me:

Ruth Eddy

Ulpan Kibbutz Tzuba

Jerusalem Hills

90870, Israel

The holy land.

Im settling in semi smoothly. Today was a beautiful day. The past few have been FREEZING! FYI everyone: jerusalem is cold! I heard that the amount of rain we have received this past week, is equal to about 3 regular winters. But alas ha yom ha shemesh zorahat (today sunshine). After hebrew six of us headed down the path, past the vineyard, past the orchard, past the 14th centuary ruins to ..... the grocery store! I brought my camera along...





if you click on the pictures they get really big, and you can sort of see the intricate landscapes in the backround, also i didnt have something else in the pomegranate picture so you can compare sizes, but ill just tell you that they were HUGE/GADOLAH! this is the land of the pomegranate in fact there are several trees on the kibbutz, im not sure if its the cleanest but i have snacked on a few, straight from the tree (also did you know they grow on trees?, they looked funny hanging i dont know how i thought they grew, i just never pictured them on a tree)

The facts:
i work 3 days a week for eight hours a day as of now doing dishes...
i learn hebrew 3 days a week for eight hours
i get saturdays off
i get 12 shekels a day to spend at the ohel on food
i live with 2 other girls (a german and an american from D.C)
out of 243 kibbutz in israel, 70 are socialist, one of those 70 is tzuba
i have 14 days to leave and still get my money
my room number is 86
my laundry number is 261
my food number is 4

Things i want:
belt
scarf
slippers
external hard drive.

i think thats the basics, if ive left something important out, ask and i will answer.

hope all you americans voted, wisely.
-Root

Rain

well, im here
the superjew sitting next to me on the plane stank, and the cab ride was a fourtune compared to the 60 rupees im used to but other than that, all is well. I dont want to say much because i dont know much, but things for now seem very mello. i have two roomates, a german i havent met and victoria, a indiana graduate from D.C. it reminds me a lot of summer camp. Thats all i really know for now, im anxious to get a aquainted with the place, but i really miss sambhavna. I know that israel will be a good experience, but had i known how amazing my month in india would have been ahead of time, i might have planned differently se la vi. Im excited to go back, and eager to give israel a chance.

I to I : India to Israel

my goodness.

blogging is hard when your having so much fun. Even now i cant resist a game of 500 rummy with dede, alizarin, victoria and victoria.

i got my nose pierced! with alizarin! it was super exciting, it was for about 75 cents and a man basically just stuck a piece of sliver in my nose twisted it up and called it a piercing.  It was actually really scary, didnt hurt that bad, i guess i just built it up a lot in my mind, and my adreneline was going crazy, needless to say i blacked out for a minute, after walking around before i was ready. I was well taken care of with some snacks, time, and water. i was totally fine after but it was just a little exciting there for a second.

Today a lady from NPR came and interviewed us, so look for a story about sambhavna, closer to december, maybe there will be some ruth sound bites. interviews galore here, its a media frenzy here.

Anyway a lot more has happened but its too late to remember the details for the story to be exciting at all.

Its crazy to be leaving ive had so much fun, and have made so many friends, i really ended up loving this clinic so much more than i ever thought i would.  I said it to the NPR lady and i really meant it when i said i wanted to come back for sure, hopefully within the next ten years.  i love it here, and i love my girls, but im excited to go, and im not sure if id be able to leave not knowing that im comming back in april.

interjection, i just got had an awesome round of rummy, i won.

anyway i suppose youll hear from me next in the land of milk and honey.

From Factory to Fame.

The past few days have been filled with the widest variety of activities.

We went to visit the UCC factory. The experience was irreplaceable. To actually see the factory, to see the tank that leaked over 40 tons of MIC that killed thousands of people, still just sitting in the grass, just crazy. Seeing a corroded pipe and knowing what it was responsible for, its hard to put all the information together, and see it in front of you. Almost nothing has been done to clean up the plant. Children play in the unknown chemicals freely and various animals come to graze on the toxic fauna. Its ridiculous.

On a Much lighter note, though a string of connections, we were asked to be extras in a bollywood film! Recreating an American library, the crew used a staircase, and hung up whats on everyones walls at home in the us, the preamble, a giant picture of JFK and ofcourse g washington a lincoln t roosevelt the ussual crew. Alizarin was walking down the stairs just infront of the actor, dede up the stairs after, and i was standing on the landing talking to my professor. who was actually not american at all, he was french, but he was white, so they used him. It was awesome, we each got 1,000 ruppees too (20 bucks)! the movie is called Rajneeti, and it comes out in april or may, so maybe well be able to see it while were still in india.

Also there is ping pong table at the clinic. last night, the three of us played for an hour, i beat alizarin and dede one after another for about 18 games. It was awesome.

We celebrated Diwali, wich we have read Obama light a ceremonial candle for. We mostly spent the day relaxing and hanging out with our volunteer family. We cooked western breakfeast for everyone (pancakes and french toast with a fruit salad), and Roopa our roomate and awesome ayurvedic doctor friend, helped us cook eggplant for dinner, it was delicious. The fireworks went off non stop, it sounded like a war with LOUD booming from all directions, and were sure there were lots of casualties, because india is so dense, and people set off these intense fireworks in their backyard with zero saftey precautions.

Its been loads of fun, and like ive said we are learning sooo much. My ticket for israel is for the 28th which is ten days, i cant believe the time has flown that fast. Im having such an amazing experience i dont want to leave, but at the same time im ready to be on my own, and on to a new adventure. I know that these girls will be having so much fun thoughout the next couple of months, and ill be sad to be away from them, and all the new friends weve made.

neighboorhood

two children from the group were making the sculpture with "children against dow chemicals"
at the movie premire. look for it close to your home, its a great movie
the clinics librarian (not pictured) invited us to her home, of many children and patterns
the kites that fill the sky come five oclock every night. these are the first to emerge

making posters for the yes men movie, that were hung up around local college campuses.

I havent written in a while but alizarin and dede my fellow bloggers have been doing a really good job of keeping it up  so check theirs out too, because obviously ive been doing the same stuff.
So weve been here officailly a week. when we first came it seemed like we would never get the hang of anything, but just today on our auto rickshaw ride home we could reckognize the route and predict his turns, and it felt like we new the way home just like in oak park. instead of going past eriks deli, we go past the concrete slab store, and rather than passing the library, we scoot past the giant green mosque, but still all these things that seemed so distant at first are finally feeling like the normal landmarks of our neighboorhood!

It seems like everyday we do something different, but its all the same becuase basically we talk to some cool people, learn some hindi here and there, eat, do some small helpfull tasks, plan art projects, and just enjoy ourselves as much as we can while learning about everything we can.

Today we are starting our sculpture of a woman in a sari, with water flowing down her into pots, from the neighboorhoods with actually contaminated water. were doing paper mache. The idea is is that the water is flowing through her, affecting her just as badly as it is the pots. (the pots are super coraded, because of the toxicity of the water) ill keep you updated.

love hearing from you all.

Sniffles

Wow, today has flown by not to mention yesterday. Im sitting in bed with minor symptoms of the flu or something, im not sure... the most bothersome of all the sniffles.  Im not too worried i think it has a lot to do with my body adjusting to a totally different schedule. Alizarin is blogging not ten feet away from me, and im sure well say a lot of the same things.  But still.

Today's run down:

• wake up at 5 am to the Muslim "call to prayer" that screams through the neighborhood
  
• embrace the cold shower
  
• eat awesome indian breakfast and chai for what amounts to be 20 cents
  
• went to the library, met the amazing librarian, and helped categorize newspaper clippings about Bhopal by subject and date.
  
• did laundry, and let it dry out in the sun, so beautiful
  
• met the cleaning lady's son, who was persistent but also very cute
  
• Lunch time! super delicious, super free, super spicy
  
• Maude, an older lady from Rhode Island who has been coming annually to the clinic agreed to show us around the city of Bhopal. We went to the new market, via autorickshaw, bought some essentials (chocolate biscuts, tp, soap, sandals, fruit) and was generally amazed by the amount of people. The best part was the ride home when our autorickshaw ran out of gas, so our driver hailed another driver, we got in his rickshaw while he pushed our first rickshaw with his foot. We were all cracking up, even the driver
  
• While reading on top of the building  we noticed one of the most beautiful sights so far.  As we scanned the horizon we noticed what seemed like hundrends of little dots swirling, looking at nearby building we realized it was children on rooftops flying kites. It was if everyone knew it was kite time, it was beautiful we vowed to make kites tomorrow.
  
• A quick nap, and then dinner. Alizarin and i went into the kitchen to help out a bit early, they have hired a cook, who is a really cute and pretty young indian lady with two little boys (who promised to help us with our kites). Curious to learn as much as we could we offered to help out, and helped make chapaties (sp?) something similar to tortillias made out of simply flour and water. She did the good stuff, and we enjoyed it!
  
• After dinner we continued to enjoy the company of our roomate, Rupa, an Ayurvedic doctor, and her Ayurvedic doctor boyfriend who also works at the clinic, and is soon leaning India for the first time to travel to the states to give a powerpoint about Ayurvedic medicine. Ayurvedic medicine is so interesting, the clinic tries to use it in conjunction with yoga as much as possible with their patients. Its using herbal and natural plants, which are grown here at the garden. It sounds like a lot of hippy bullshit, but listening to the doctor talk, show statistics, and before and after pictures, i am so curious to learn more about the healing power that can be found in nature.
  

im sure i forgot to mention a million things, but basically today was awesome, and tomorrow proves to be even better, each day is better and better. Much sniffly love. Here are some pictures from the day, i havent been taking many, but now that we have fully settled into the clinic ill be sure to take loads more pictures.

okay iunoo the pictures arent working, but ill try and get them up soon.

Planes and Trains

We have already been here about three days now. The first few we were taken in by an amazingly hospitable family. Dinoo the grandmother was even waiting for me at the airport at one in the morning after a very very delayed flight. We had fun playing with the girls Tia and Amaya, and we even got mendi (beautiful henna designs) on our hands, because the grandmother of the family was throwing a birthday party. We took an overnight train from Bombay to Bhopal. It was great the pictures above were taken from the train as we stuck our heads out the door just soaking up the beauty.  Alizarins face says it all. Everything has just been splendid so far, and just a few hours ago we arrived at the clinic. It is even more beautiful than i could have ever imagined. we have already met with the head of the clinic, and began to talk about art projects we can start with the kids. I love it here so much, the food, the toilets, the clothes. the driving, the people, its just an amazing place and i cant wait to spend more time here.

Eve's Rhino Face