Yesterday and today we spent the morning on Daniel's passionfruit farm in Talmei Yosef. Yesterday afternoon we cleaned apartments in Sufa. Today in the afternoon Sandy, Teresa and Nofar went to weed a family garden in Yated after months of neglect and I took Dror, Shachar and Miriam with me to care for Ben's clementine trees in Yevul.
Tomorrow morning we are going back to Yevul to pick vegetables in Shoshanna’s greenhouses early in the morning. Most of this week's group will head home for the weekend. Maybe a few will come back.
This week I invited 8, 11 came and I had to send 4 somewhere else because I didn't have room.
Next week I invited 8, two from this week might want to stay, three more boys joined up with two boys that I had invited, so if everyone shows up I'll be sleeping outside. (I did say the house wasn't big enough first thing.) I'm already finding someone to take the 5 boys and then I can move from outside to the couch.
If I had a second and third house I could fill them for the next few weeks with people who want to help. It would take me a few hours max.
I'm sending groups to a few farms each week. And then when the volunteers come back they organize more work for themselves. They find other volunteer projects to do, they cook, they clean, they arrange fun evenings at home. People see how they can help the project work and they make it work. We have private jokes. The volunteers tell me they are loving the experience and grateful for what I've done. I am still not really comprehending that I've achieved my dream of helping to activate volunteers, it seems a little unreal.
Sufa House Residents, Week of July 28
7 volunteers: Shachar, Sandy, Nofar, Miriam, Avi, Dror, Teresa
One mouse in the kitchen cabinet
A couple guests who came for a meal or to sleep on a couch for a night
Keep up the good work! Sounds like you are making the daily decision to help rebuild.