#votice

sew-much-to-do: a visual collection of sewing tutorials/patterns, knitting, diy, crafts, recipes, etc.

So where did we leave off?  Let’s see…oh that’s right, I remember now.  It was just about a year ago that my Dad showed up in Ramat HaSharon and we hopped on a bus headed as far north as we could go.  After a night or two with his old kibbutznik friend on  Kibbutz Naot Mordechai we caught a ride up into the Golan Heights and began our trek.  The Golan Heights is a mountain range separating Israel from Syria which Israel annexed to give itself a little bit of a tactical advantage (apparently it wasn’t very fun for the farmers down below having the Syrians lobbing mortars from time to time).  We hit the Israel-Syria border and then head downhill through a Druish village and stop in for a quick visit in the crusader castle Nimrod where I meet my old high school friend Alon in the parking lot.  Small fucking world.  The details have escaped me now but use your vivid imagination to fill in five days of treking through hills, fields, and highways along the Israel-Lebanon border to eventually end up in the mystic town of Zfat.  From there we hop on a bus to Akra where we take it easy in a really cool hotel built right into the old city walls.   At this point we find our adventurers back in Ramat HaSharon.  My Dad heads home the next day and I have around a week left.  I still have some notes I jotted down on my phone about that time so I’ll just go ahead and post them raw: "Tlv art, porter sons, dancing camel, yafo.  Musuem is closed.  Fuck.  Porter is too.  Need sahde and a bathroom bad.  Headed towards Allenby, maybe a cafe?  Bathroom at habima, musuem there closed.  Sit down to gather myself on Rothschild and get a text from Noa.  She lives down the street, meet up for brunch.  Invites me to spend the night cuz ever yom Kippur is a party in Tlv.  Really really want to but promised the Katz I’d be home for dinner before cars stop running.  Last bus is at 3 so head home early.  Hopefully I can find a way into town tomorrow, maybe bike?  Dinner then Dexter.  Borrow a bike the next morning after lots of warnings about the heat.  At first nothing seems different.  As I leave the quiet streets through something is definitely amiss.  Bigger and bigger streets but no cars.  More and more groups of kids on bikes.  Soon I’m on a 6 lane street with bikes going the wrong way, trikes going down freeway on-ramps.  It is very humid but I’m grinning.  Finally back on a bike and with a whole empty city at my disposal.  Would be 28 days later if it weren’t for all the people out on bikes.  Ride all the way down the beach to yafo then back up to meet Noa.  Joint and backgammon with her friend Zach and head back around 5.  More Dexter.  Musuem is closed Sunday so not sure what to do with myself.  Lounge til noon then doreet drops me off at herzilya beach.  Really nice, walk 4 miles home around 5ish.  Mac n cheese, platoon, and Dreamhack for the rest of the night.  Last day in Israel, walk to the store to get bread for Doreet.  Also get iced coffee and a croissant while reading GoT.  I’m pacing myself because I want it to last my flight home but it’s addictive.  Art musuem is great, 3 hours wasn’t enough.  A lithograph of Zapata spoke to me, I would’ve bought a print if I could’ve.  Also Canadian photographer Jeff Wall.  Happy hour at dancing camel: American pale ale and eve blonde.  Finally some ales and decent ones at that.  Zeppelin Beatles Doors Lou reed.  Walking through the streets of tel aviv listening to Elliot Smith and a light drizzle.  This city truly comes to life as the sun sets.  Almost makes me wish I was staying." After a long hot three months I’m back in Irvine for a brief three days before headed north yet again to Portland.  Ten perfect pouring days in Portland.  I was received like a rock star, got to see all my closest friends, and lazed around that wet city that I love so much.  I stayed up all night to beat The Last of Us, drank fine microbrews around town, and pedaled my heart out on borrowed bikes.  Those ten days were plenty to make me doubt my next move.  I was just so comfortable and happy back in Portland that it seemed silly to be moving away again.  Fortunately, ten days of building anxiety and relative social isolation in Irvine was enough to get me psyched on the Prague idea again. As for Prague, I don’t really know what to tell you.  How do I sum up a year in a paragraph?  I’ve tried to write this part over and over again but there’s no way to do it any sort of justice.  Prague (the city, the experience, the people) was amazing.  The city is affordable, charming, and happening.  The winter was rough and I was miserable at times but the people I met helped me pull through.  I owe such a debt to the friends I made in Prague.  When describing my living conditions to a friend back home he remarked that it sounded kind of like a commune.  It was kind of like a commune and its hard to imagine I’ll ever be in such a unique, effortless, or loving community again.  That’s really all I can say for now.  Maybe as I travel I’ll have more time to process and perhaps even put down some of my experiences in words.   And now finally we find ourselves smack dab in the present.  Stepping off bus 134102 in Votice I scan the main square for Mia.  I spot a small asian woman who I’m betting is her, swing my pack around my shoulders, and head over.  She waves and asks if I’m Nate.  Sure am.  Is she Mia?  Sure is.  My pack goes in the back of the pick-up and we’re off towards Mia’s farm Statek Otradovice.  Mia begins explaining to me on the short ride that I am one of eight volunteers currently, that she and her husband moved to the Czech Republic fifteen years ago and spent the first eight in Prague before headed here.  I can tell right away that she’s Californian from her accent so I ask her where from.  She’s from Newport and most of her family lives in Irvine.  Small fucking world. As we drive she asks me about my previous farm experiences and what kind of work I’m comfortable doing.  We pass two small ponds and Mia waves to a man operating a weed-wacker.  “He’s making room for the new beehives.  You might be helping with that.”  We pull up along side a long yellow two story building and pass through a large gate on foot which opens up into a beautiful courtyard lined with flowers and herbs.  I’m introduced to her daughter, a Korean volunteer named Sonya, and an American volunteer named Leah who are doing chores in the courtyard.   First things first we put my bag down in my room which I’m sharing with an Irish volunteer.  Expecting something similar to the corrugated tin shanty town of Kibbutz Eilot I’m shocked to find myself housed along with the other eight volunteers in a beautiful yellow building which lines the western end of the compound.  Fresh sheets, hardwood floors, a lofty ceiling, two full bathrooms, a big screen TV, a playstation, composting, recycling, and a view of the sprawling Czech country side are all part of the deal.   Mia takes me back outside to complete the tour.  I say hi to a few more American volunteers, I meet three of the twenty farm cats, I tour the herb garden, the drying room, the preserves room, the laundry room, the pig and goat pens, and the chicken coops.  The entire time Mia hasn’t stopped talking about what will be expected of me and what I can expect in return. Work starts at eight each morning and we work until one in the afternoon.  We work five days a week with two full free days.  Breakfast and lunch are on our own (with food provided fresh from the farm) and dinner is eaten communally each night with everyone taking turns cooking.  If we want to eat fish, she adds, then we have to catch it from the ponds.  Each morning our job for the day is assigned.  Maintenance, garden work, canning and preserving, kitchen work, feeding the animals, and setting up the bee hives are the main projects right now.  I’m very pleased to hear about the variety of work I’ll get a chance to do and also to hear that I won’t just be dusting the desert for two weeks. It’s just about one now so my timing’s perfect.  I’ve missed work entirely for the day and the volunteers start making their way back to the living area for lunch.  I can tell immediately that this is no Kibbutz Eilot and I mean that in the best possible way.  Everyone here is happy and smiling.  They don’t want to leave.  The work is fun and satisfying.  By now I’ve met all of the volunteers except two who are traveling on their day off.  Everyone is just about my age except for an older American man.  Dressed in overalls and sporting a big toothy smile with a country drawl he’s straight out of a movie.  “Yup one got me good there huh?” he ask/tells/laughs while pointing to a swelling bee sting just under his left eye. I sit down for lunch with Sam and Leah and chat about the farm, where they’ve been traveling recently and where they’re going to travel next.  Mia comes with a list of groceries for the farm and hands Sam her keys.  They’re all headed into town to grab supplies and for a chance of scenery.  They invite me along but I opt to stay in to unpack my stuff, start a load of laundry, and of course begin typing this all up. After a brief afternoon nap (it’s not easy work having goodbye parties) I go out to hang up my laundry.  I notice a strange sensation while doing so and look down to see a fluffy grey kitten licking my toes.  S/he sticks around while I finish up and then follows me as far as the pig pens before getting scared.  To be fair, the pigs are kind of scary.  I head out the gate and through the plum and apple orchard towards the ponds to see if I can see any fish.  I circle around looking for a good place to cast off from but no sign of anything except bugs, chickens, and blackberries so I go ahead and eat some berries.  I head up the dirt road for about thirty minutes, taking in the scenery and picking the occasional blackberry and raspberry.  There’s also apples, cherries, and the kind of plum you use for slivo.  The only downside is I step through some nettle which stings up my feet a bit so next time I’ll have to wear real shoes.  The landscape is very reminiscent of Oregon or Washington.  Rolling green hills densely wooded with fields cleared out in between. I run into a couple volunteers playing with a handful of (seven week old) kittens back inside the farm and learn that dinner tonight is lasagna.  They also confirm that there definitely are fish in the ponds because my Irish roommate cooked one of them last week.  My new goal is to catch a fish and cook it before I go. I know it’s a little too soon to be making judgements but I gotta say, I like this place.  

Votives floating in canning jars