Back to School

Today was quite the day. Our first day of school! Walking back through a high school filled with kids was about as awesome as it was uncomfortable. There Rolan and I are, wandering through the halls of Makeev Vav, feeling just as awkward as the surrounding gaggles of 14 year old students, nervous for our first day and unsure of our lesson plan. We literally had no information at all going into this, but we pulled it off swimmingly. We walked into our first class of the day and received a round of applause from the students. Being from the US is like being a celebrity. After turning on our charm and telling the students a bit about ourselves, including the fact that we were from New York and Washington, DC (no one in Israel has heard of the state of Maryland, let alone Baltimore), we were bombarded with questions. Some of my favorites include:

1. Are you boyfriend and girlfriend?
2. Do you have a girlfriend?
3. Do you have a boyfriend?
4. Do you know Justin Bieber?
5. Are you circumcised?
6. Do you know any famous people?
7. Have you ever seen Johnny Depp? (Rolan actually has; he scored major points for this)

To decompress from a very trying first day (sarcasm),  Sarah and I went for a nice, long (10 minute) jog. On our way home, we came across the most adorable, sweet, well behaved, lost, sad, helpless little puppy. The poor thing was hungry, tired, and without a collar. Since we're both bleeding hearts, we naturally couldn't walk away from this precious animal. Instead, we decided that Sarah should hang back while I sprint back to the house to get Brian, his skateboard, and some supplies for the dog. Now, let me just say that we had no intentions of keeping the dog. We just didn't want to leave it out on the street. We contacted our program director and had her reach out to animal control while we sat with the dog on the street, feeding it bologna and giving it water. 2 hours later, animal control had completely stood us up and we were all helplessly attached to the dog. To make matters worse, we even gave it a name: Kelev. Kelev means "dog" in Hebrew. Very original. Now we're screwed. The dog's currently asleep on our balcony, and we have no option but to set it free in the morning. We all have work so we can't watch after it all day, and we can't leave it out on the balcony because it's too hot. Being a bleeding heart animal lover has its major pitfalls. At least we can send Kelev on his way with a full belly and a good night's sleep.