Martin Stroebel, a volunteer from the OVC Cape Town office, shares his experience with us, while volunteering in Kibbutz Bar'am.

The reason I decided to volunteer:

When I was 16 we went on a school tour to Egypt, Turkey and Israel. During the tour we stayed in a Kibbutz for 2 nights. I think it was Kibbutz Ein Gev. Our Tour Guide explained the concept of a Kibbutz and the sense of community. Ever since that day I wanted to experience the Kibbutz life. My brother went to Israel before me and voluntered in Kibbutz Bar'am in 2000. In 2009 I decided to volunteer and by coincidence ended up at the same Kibbutz as he did before. I loved it so much that 6 years later I came back and have now voluntered for another 8 months.

What I love about volunteering in the Kibbutz:

I love the sense of community and that everybody works towards the same goal. That everybody is kind of equal. You also get to meet people from all over the world and learn about each other's cultures. Kibbutz Bar'am is a very beautiful Kibbutz with lush gardens filled with the most beautiful flowers, trees, birds, bees, butterflies, etc. They have wonderful facilities like swimming pools, tennis courts, basketball courts, a big theatre/cinema that seats about 300 - 400 people where we often watch movies, a museum, petting zoo, free fast wifi all over the Kibbutz, big dining room with all 3 meals for free and the food was really good. Last but not least - THE PUB with a dance floor where we had so much fun every Tuesday and Friday. We went on amazing 1 day and 3 day trips. If you stay for about 6 months you can see most of Israel and it is all paid for by the Kibbutz. Our Volunteer Leader, Liora, arranged awesome trips like - camel riding, bedouin camps in the middle of the desert, river rafting on the Jordan River, paint balling, ranger driving, wine tasting and always with a guide that gave us all the information on the destinations in Israel with historic and religious facts. I worked in the dining room, apple packing factory, laundry services, members club and finally - my most favorite place - the Geriatric Center. Kibbutz Bar'am has this very special place called Beit Sabim (house of grandfathers\mothers). It is a nursing home for elderly people with either dissability or disease who need extra special care. I did the normal volunteer duties, but then the Kibbutz also allowed me to sit in on and assist with therapy sessions and spending more time with the residents. It changed my life. The members on the Kibbutz were very nice to me, often inviting me for dinners and drinks and I made very good friends with the young people from the Kibbutz.

Hey OVC

It’s been a long time hey, I'm sorry for only sending an email now. Things here have been so crazy, in a good way though. I hope you guys are all good.

This place is amazing! I can never thank you guys enough for making this possible. The people, the environment and the diversity around here is awesome. So my Kibbutz is Nir Yitzhak, which is 5k, near the Gaza Border. It's mostly South American people here. People are so fascinated about Xhosa that I have to speak it for them all the time. I've met so many volunteers from all over the world, some from Guatemala, Peru, China, Thailand, Portugal, India and the USA.

I was hoping I'd send this email after our trip to The Dead Sea so that I could send more pictures, but I'll send some later.

I'd like to renew my visa for another 3 months.

Have a great day,

Msimelelo

It’s not all sunshine and beach vibes. Laughter and friends. You work hard, face challenges, walk for miles without stopping, and find yourself in completely ridiculous situations (i.e.) where your accommodation falls through the floor for a weekend in Jerusalem during the busiest holidays of the year, everything is fully booked, and the beginning of shabbat is the end of public transport for the rest of the day. Stuck in the holiest of holy’s.

We just went on, adventuring through the old City, where we stumbled on the Western Wall, Rock in the dome, Church of the Holy Sepulchre and this amazingly cheap falafel stand where we met a German named Max that helped us find Sanctuary in the muslim Quarter, and could go adventure without our luggage. From there a Shop Keeper, Schmuel (I still can’t pronounce it either), heard of our little problem and gave us a room with his friends, which we befriended, and showed us the city from the local point of view. We laughed, we wandered and we felt infinite for a moment in time.

I work in a medical research facility in a Kibbutz named Lahav. There’s 450 kibbutz inhabitants, 2 Columbians, 1 Canadian and 4 South-African volunteers as well as 25 American Lone Soldiers. We all live in peace and work hard to sustain the community of Kibbutz Lahav.

If you’re ready to learn, experience and feel, come make Israel your playground, and a kibbutz your temporary home.

If you are young, fit for manual labour, eager to explore new horizons and find dozens of new friends – I highly suggest spending a few months on a Kibbutz in Israel. For any travelling soul, Israel has everything to offer – the ancient and the modern, the religious and the political, the beauty of the desert and the forest. The kibbutz offers even more – a chance to be integrated into Israeli culture, to take part in all the festivals, to make friends from all over the world and to have a home base for travelling.

In 5 months, I slept on rooftops in Jerusalem, worked on giant cranes in the date orchids, hiked through the ancient city of Petra and up Masada, rode camels, Smoked shisha in Arabic bars, floated in the dead sea, prayed at the Wailing Wall, danced at a nature party on the Sea of Galilee, drove tractors and jeeps through the desert, haggled in Turkish markets, and ate salad for breakfast in true Israeli style (just to name a few!).

There is no generic Kibbutz experience, what you do and experience is up to you – but every day there holds the potential for adventure!

I am on Kibbutz Yagur just outside of Haifa. It is one of the biggest and oldest in Israel. Fortunately we are far from the South and war in Gaza. I am with 3 other volunteers on this Kibbutz and we are the first 3 volunteers in 25 years. We live with the Ulpan, which is a school that teaches Hebrew to students from around the world. Luckily and surprisingly they are mostly my age.

I have also met incredibly kind local people and made hopefully a few lifelong friends. All in all I feel incredibly blessed and couldn’t have asked for more.

Aya from the KPC came to check on us about 2 weeks ago, which was nice. I asked her about my visa and renewing it, she says that I can renew it twice and stay in Israel for 9 months. I definitely plan on staying as long as possible.

I just wanted to tell you that I'm doing great in Israel. Just learning a new language. It's a bit tricky, but it's great to be learning it. Work is also good. I really like the people I work with.

I'm really sorry it’s taken me so long to get round to this, but I wanted to let you know about my Kibbutz experience so far. I was posted to a Kibbutz on the border of the Negev called Lahav and I work in the meat factory cutting up organs and packaging them. I am really enjoying the experience and I have made some really great friends. I have also been able to travel fairly frequently and I have been able to see the Dead Sea and I have just gotten back from a 3 night stay in Jerusalem which was incredible.

I really just want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to have this experience.

I am having such a wonderful time here and have decided to extend my stay and my visa has been approved. It has been a truly wonderful experience and I have loved meeting new people and the kibbutz I am on is a really amazing place and the Kibutzniks are very special people. I can recommend this experience to anyone who enjoys working together and wants a totally different experience. Thank you for all your help in getting me here.

I am absolutely loving it here, it was definitely the right decision to come. The kibbutz is amazing, everybody is so friendly. I work as a plumber, but right now we are getting the pool ready for summer, which is really fun.

I’m having such a great time. I’m working in a factory which produces irrigation parts. I wake up at 06:25, work from 07:00-08:00, have breakfast from 08:00-08:30, work until lunchtime, then after lunch work until 15:00, rest a bit and then hit the pool. We socialise quite a bit and on Tuesdays and Fridays we go to the pub. It’s been pretty cool so far.

I took a day’s leave with a few other volunteers and spent the morning on an awesome beach near Haifa on the Med where we had lunch and then headed to the biggest winery in Israel, which we toured and drank amazing wines. Bought a few bottles, then went into the city of Haifa (2nd biggest in Israel) and visited the High Gardens. Spectacular views and amazing gardens, really worth a visit! We ate seafood platters afterwards in the restaurant and then walked down to the beach where we spent the evening drinking our great wine and listening to good music. We caught a taxi back to the Kibbutz later, after an awesome day.

I had a truly awesome experience which I could recommend to anyone!! I met amazing people, saw amazing places and loved my work, even though it was hot and I was working in a factory.

I had no expectations and had little understanding of what a Kibbutz in Israel actually was, yet I was excited for the challenge and fun I was going to have. That was an understatement. It was the experience of a lifetime, I constantly met new and interesting people, saw new sights and dealt with challenges I never thought I could handle on my own.

The Kibbutz was filled with friendly, helpful people and I never once felt out of place or excluded. The co- workers I worked with were wonderful and took great care of me and I actually found myself crying when I had to say goodbye. I made incredible lifelong friendships, experienced new adventures (and yes they were serious adventures) and I came back home a more independent, strong and confident person.

I had good times and bad, but that's part of life and this whole experience has taught me so much, and due to that I would recommend it to everyone who wants to travel, experience new things and most of all, find yourself and who you want to be in the future. Israel is beautiful, and a great country to travel in due to the safety, public transport and the many hostels. It is expensive, so you need to budget for bus trips, eating out and travelling. Avoid the Western pubs and restaurants. If I could, I would do it all over again and hopefully I will one day.

I just arrived back from Israel a week ago and wanted to thank you so much for all your help in organizing my trip! I really had the most wonderful experience :)

Also, if any person applying to go on a kibbutz this year would like to meet up with someone who's just been or would like some advice, I'm happy to meet up with them :)

Thanks again,

I have also met incredibly kind local people and made hopefully a few lifelong friends. All in all I feel incredibly blessed and couldn’t have asked for more.