School ends this week. But it’s so much more than that. For the past five months, I’ve been in Intensive Kita Alef at Ulpan Gordon in Tel Aviv. 8:15 am – 12:50 pm, Sunday through Thursday. Ulpan is intensive language school that teaches adult immigrants like me the basics of reading, writing and speaking Hebrew, while simultaneously introducing us to Israeli history and culture.
I remember being so nervous before class started, knowing how radically my life was going to change. I remembered most of the Hebrew print alphabet, but knew nothing else – not the cursive alphabet, squat vocabulary, zip grammar.
Our teacher couldn’t have been any nicer. BUT WHAT THE EFF WAS SHE SAYING?
I swear, it was like the wah-WAH-wah-WAH-wah-wa-wa-Wahhh that Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang heard when their teacher talked to them. And some of my classmates had to be ringers! Especially the Russians; mouths like machine guns – spraying indiscriminate Hebrew all over the classroom. They really gave me some good tools to hate on myself.
If I wasn’t the student with the most natural ability, I might have been the hardest working. I missed just five days the entire course. And even though my teacher heaped sadistic amounts of homework upon us, I did most of it pretty much every night. I was kinda fearless, too. Whenever Teach asked us who wanted to read, my hand went straight up. The way I figured it, the clock was always ticking on this amazing, free tutoring Israel was giving me. I wanted to make the most of it, and if that meant siphoning as much teacher attention away from you as I could, so be it.
Fast-forward to now, and I can really speak Hebrew. Suckily, maybe – but I can use the language to get stuff I need, and sometimes I can express myself, too. More importantly, I formed some my best Israeli friendships in ulpan. The ‘Boot Camp’ comparison is a good one, and the peeps you go through that with, well you get kinda tight. Sometimes I felt as though I was in some ritzy United Nations school – I made friends with people from France, England, South Africa, Czech Republic and Hungary. Ain’t I fancy! (Scott, there’s nothing fancy about us Brits! -Ashley)
It was kind of funny, how the classroom was a bit of a revolving door. Even into the last month of the course, there’d be a new student or two each week, while others would drop out, or go into the army, or (sniff) leave Israel. Actually I should say while others got knocked up or hitched! We’ve had four students from our class get pregnant or give birth, and three others get married or engaged. What they hell are they putting in those 10 shekel sandwiches for sale at hafsaka anyway?
If you have a black soul like I do, an intensive ulpan class is majorly fertile ground for ripping on people. If I wasn’t going to hell already, with the help of my BFF whom I sat next to everyday, I earned a first class ticket. In sub-zero decibel levels, she and I privately found fault with everybody – from the Muppets and Low Talkers to the Snobs and Brown Nosers. Ah, the simple pleasures of being time-warped to fifth grade again.
And now it’s almost over. Suddenly I’ll have my mornings and afternoons back. I’ll still be working full-time and continuing my writing projects, but maybe now I’ll actually find time to date or get my ass to the beach. The déjà vu’s a little haunting, though, this feeling of how my life is going to radically change again. I’m continuing with Kita Bet, but the non-intensive class doesn’t start until February. And you only ever have one First Kita. Bye, Alef – we had a moment, didn’t we?