The K Experience

In the summer of 1999, for a period of six weeks, I went to Israel and taught English. It was one of the best experiences that I ever had in my life, one I will never forget. I taught in two camps during the six weeks, and the second camp was in the north of Israel, in a Druze village called Horfesh. That in itself was an amazing experience, one which I only came to appreciate years after I had left, but that is a discussion for another entry.

The discussion for this entry focuses on the people in the picture. I taught in Horfesh with the seven teachers from the UK in the picture that year, (the guy on the right was a local) and we had an adventure for the two weeks we were there. We worked together, had lunch together, we lived together. We saw things that made us laugh, we heard things that made us want to scream, we were the Horfesh team. It was great.

So where did they all go? Of all of the people that I spent part of the greatest experience of my life with, i'm only in contact (facebook, if that counts) with one of them, Julie (third one from the left). Shortly after we came back to England, I saw a few of the others, phoned one or two, but kept the longest contact with Emma, (forth one from the left) who I have now lost contact with.

Isn't it funny how you lose contact with people. Are we destined to make short term friends? Is it inevitable that you will lose contact? I know it was only 6 weeks that we were in Israel, and only 2 weeks in the same camp, but I know we all felt it was special.

I am in part to blame, as I am crap at keeping in contact with people. Some of the people, Emma being one of them, did return to Horfesh the year after, to see the locals. I never did, and never had the inclination until recently. I guess I could have kept in contact better afterwards. But then again, how many of the others did?

Life goes on I guess. A lot has changed since then, I have changed, Israel has changed. It was shortly after we left Israel, that the violence started to increase, and a few years later, the British Council programme that sent us there stopped going to Israel due to safety and security reasons. Even while we were there, I remember hearing the constant bombings coming over the Lebanon border which was close to us. They weren't firing or aiming at anyone. I guess the Lebanese just wanted to remind people that they were still there.

I would love to know what the others are up to. If you're out there, give us a shout.

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Name: Email:  do not notifynotify Website: Title: UBBCode:         -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge   Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Dawn  - Israel |11-30-2008 08:41:47 I can't see from this site who you are but I will have met you cause I recognise people in your Israel pics! Ironically I'm trying to get people on facebook who shared the Israel experiences together. http://www.facebook.com/s.php?ref=search&init=q&q=british+council&sid =5792d8983074e8f70fb4b189e654fed4#/group.php?gid=37006183325&ref=mf I remember Ian from one of your camps because he went home as he missed his girlf! Hope to hear from you Dawn Reply | Quote

K |12-01-2008 18:41:03 Hi Dawn, I have joined the group. Nice to know some of us are still out there. Reply | Quote

its a mistry |03-14-2010 15:57:13 Some faces look familiar in picture. especially the long hair hippy Justin :D Reply | Quote

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