Just Around The Corner

It's been more than a week since my last blog writing and I could suggest a lot of reasons why it's been so long but what does it actually matter?? What's important is that I'm back at the keyboard. I just got back from D.C. a week ago (it seems to be a lot longer) where I had my laptop ripped off in the middle of the Pentagon City mall. It was pretty depressing and I was so down that I walked back to my hotel, a two mile walk in over 100 degree weather. The truth of the matter is that it happened at the end of the day and I had finished most of my work. Everything was backed up and it was kinda nice to be "unconnected" for a few days.


Upon my return the whole staff went to visit at three kibbutzim which have Garin Tzabar programs and to see how they handle things by them. It was an eye opener and we got a lot of good tips. We also were able to compare our facilities to others and I think that we're doing okay. On Sunday we hosted here on the kibbutz a seminar for all the Garin Tzabar 2010 staffs in Israel. We met up with the two soldiers whom will be working with us, Dana and Yifah. I am sure that it will be mutually enjoyable experience with them. Leah has left the staff and we have added on Elad Zuntz, a Ben Meshek (Kibbutz born) who just recently was discharged from his service in the armored corps, the Seventh Brigade (where my son Shachar presently serves). I really feel that we have a great staff!!!


We are going into high gear as far as preparations go. We are remodeling the men's quarters and they should be finished by the middle of next week. We will fix up the woman's rooms and maybe even have new curtains made. There will probably be a number of things that we will do only after the Garin's arrival. It's money time and it's hard to believe that it will just be another two weeks. I hope that we can keep the mistakes that we make to a minimum and that they will be reversible.


We are finishing off most of the plans for the arrival and the first week. The first week will probably be the most hectic and confusing since a good part of it will be dealing with beaurocracy. One example is that we will have to go to Beer Sheva to take care of the primary immigration issues even though we are located in the middle of Israel and not in the south. The reason for this is that they have set up a special VIP treatment there for Tzabar members so we will try to add other activities to the bus trip to Beer Sheva to make it more interesting. The truth is that it may turn out to be better in the end.


Well that's it for now. Hopefully I'll be writing again soon. We will send by e-mail and by facebook some info about the first days sometime next week.