Gadna

This week the ulpan went to Gadna. It is a 5 day army training camp that is really meant for 16 year old kids to give them an idea of what they will be getting into in the army. For the people in our group joining the army, they also got to see what was coming, and for those not going, it let us take a small look into something that is a big part of the culture here (Everyone goes to the army when they are 18, boys for 3 years, girls for 2 years).

It was a really, really interesting experience. When you first get there you meet your mefakedet, commander, and get uniforms that you have to wear all week. As soon as you change out of your own clothes, line up and start answering, "ken hamefakedet", "yes commander," everything changes. Even though you know you will only be there for a week, you lose a little bit of your own attitude. I give in easily to any kind of authority but even for those people that don't normally, they (pretty much) fell right in line.

My tsevet, team, was all of the girls in the ulpan. That was challenge number one: be with each other all day and all night (literally) and not kill each other. As a group we learned about guns, talked about the army and Israel and what they mean, wars, urban warfare, power...we did a lot of touchy feely talking for the army. We also did some physical activities, had a day in the field were we learned different ways to crawl and walk quietly, had some tekas, ceremonies, like flag raising in the morning.

We did all these things in army style of course. In order to get places the mefakedet would show us a place 20 meters away and give us a certain amount of time to get there. You run there, make two lines, all while counting down in Hebrew and when you got to echad, one, stand at attention and shout, "hakshev hamefakedet!", "attention commander!"  Then we would move 20 more meters, until we got all the way to the place. It was hard sometimes to remember to answer with ken or lo hamefakedet or to say hakshev hamefakedet before speaking. Very quickly though you got used to standing at attention and found yourself doing it even when you were standing casually during breaks.  And of course, if you do something wrong they correct you and make you say it again or make you do push ups.

The last day of Gadna we all got to shoot guns. It was my first time even holding a real gun. I was really excited to try it but a little nervous too. I wasn't sure how it was going to feel about it, either really pumped up or kind of freaked out. Hearing the first shot around me and then pulling the trigger for the first time myself was really intense, but after a couple more it was fun.

Before we got on the bus, our mefakedet sat down with us and told us her name and stopped being our commander and became a normal person. She was 19! I knew she was younger than me but 19? I just ran around for and was nervous to get yelled at by this kid all week? It was really fun to see her laugh and smile and be a little nervous with us.

Like I said, it was an interesting experience. For me the army is a mystery and I have always been curious about what it's really like (not that this is exactly what it's like, but it's closer than I've gotten so far). Its fun to see how you will respond and behave in this kind of situation.