Week in Review - February 1-6

CAARI Activities

Another outstanding week – weather wise and CAARI wise! We had four days of community service this week, working at 4 elementary schools and two rehabilitation hospitals. Both the students and patients are so grateful to CAARI for our assistance.
Marion and Paul Silberman worked at one of the schools and said this about their experience, “It's great to be welcomed by a warm smile and have your work appreciated and valued. That is what we have experienced in the CAARI community service program. We have been working in schools with small groups of children and helping them with their English. We converse with them, play games, help them with their schoolwork, and reinforce the work done in class. What a delight it is to see how responsive the children are. They love coming to us and we love coming to Israel to do this very valued and appreciated volunteering. We highly recommend it.”
This week the Bercovs, from Edmonton, Canada, joined the program this week. They have been tutoring for the past 3- 4 years at the Balfour school. So…you can imagine the kind of welcome they received from the students. We also have 9 others join - some veterans and some new CAARI participants from Canada and the USA. WELCOME to our CAARI Family!
The weather has been great for us – warm and sunny! Of course, the Israelis aren’t happy as there has been not much rain. We imagine that they are going to have quite a tough summer coping with a water shortage. In the afternoons we have had some interesting tours, a visit to the Oppenheimer Diamond Museum – one of Israel’s leading industries - a tour of the Tel Aviv Art Museum, a winery tour followed by dinner, a visit to Chaim Weizman’s (first president of Israel) home in Rehovot and our terrific day outdoors in the JNF forest! A journalist spoke on the Impact on the 2nd Lebanon War!

So…family and friends, you can see that we are very busy and enjoying our CAARI experience.
Warmest Regards,
The CAARI Clan!

My Volunteer Experience

Anice Stark – Notes from Golumb School
First impressions are not always the best. I usually don’t volunteer in the schools, but this year I decided to help out in the Golumb School, school located in a lower economic Tel Aviv neighborhood. The principal, Irma and the English teacher, Shlomit greeted me on the first day. They were friendly and courteous. They started me off the students who were good in English. What a variety of backgrounds, Filipino, Russian, Ukrainian, Ethiopian and Israeli! For the most part these students spoke fairly well and could read even better.
We practice speaking and I get to learn about the lives of many of the students. Some told me about their families – the Filipino girl comes from a single parent family, her father passed away. Her grandmother is living with them and they may return to the Philippines.

One of the girls, from the Ukraine, told me her grandmother speaks Yiddish, which surprised me. One young boy, a twin, told me his twin brother didn’t speak English very well. Subsequently, I learned his brother spoke quite well – guess a little sibling rivalry!
We work in the teacher’s lounge, which can be very noisy, especially the first thing in the morning. But, there is a shortage of classrooms so we are grateful to have this space. The first few days we were mostly ignored by the other teachers, but as time has gone by, they have began to acknowledge us. And…now we feel part of the faculty.
As a volunteer and not teachers we have to find ways to communicate with the students especially when we are not working with school books. We talk about the days of the week, the months of year, the weather, parts of the body and the family. The alphabet works well too!
I work with two other CAARI volunteers. Each day we exchange our experiences with the other CAARI participants. My favorite stories is about one young boy who confided in me that he has a girlfriend and another girl want to be his girlfriend. Oy – the trials of youth!! He didn’t know what to do and wanted some suggestions. I said that the tell the second girl that he already had a girlfriend and that she could be his friend. He seemed to be satisfied.
As I write this, we have one more day to assist in the schools. It has been a very satisfying and fulfilling experience. I will remember the children and I hope they will remember all the volunteers from both Canada and the USA.
Anice Stark