Sweating profusely, and getting lost.

OY!
So it's day six of our excursion, and there's a mutual feeling among the group that we've established an attachment to this land in an extremely short period of time. Today was no different in reinforcing that feeling. Only today, we were sweatier, had more blisters, and WEIRD tan lines, to the point that they might be described as artistic. Credit that to the first century garbs we were rocking. The above were accomplished by a long, hard day of working in Nazareth Village. We were creating roofs for 1st century replica homes, and we created them exactly how they would've been in the 1st century. I was a mud maker. Complete with original mud making anthems. Stephen, Josh, and I mixed dirt, with water, lime, straw, ash, and repetitive mixing motions to create a beautiful holding concoction! We hope it does the job, holding the fort for years to come. The group got a lot done, and learned a whole lot about how things were done in Jesus' time. Word.

In the evening, we were entrusted to walking back to our inn by ourselves. A group of about 5 of us decided to go check out a music store we had heard about. It was supposedly just up main street, only a little way down past the road to our inn. We walked for about half an hour, and realized that the shop was a little further than anticipated. Shoot. SO! Three of the group decided they would rather just go back, and relax, and see the music store later. The two who were left, one of which was me, might be described as a little less fortunate in the judgment department. So we kept walking, and never found the store. I'm not the most directionally inclined boy on the block, so I was counting on intuition, and help from Stephen, my counterpart, to direct us home. That didn't work out for us. So we got lost.

Some people (and I am now officially one of them) believe that the best traveling experiences are the ones that aren't planned. The ones that you're probably extremely angry, or afraid during the time, and happy in a few hours. Well those people are all right. When we were mid way through getting lost, we ran in to four, ten to twelve year old boys rocking a soccer ball against some concrete. We started talking to their parents, and what happened between that, and the following is lost in amnesia. I found myself in the middle of two goal posts, with multiple young boys kicking soccer balls at me as hard as they could. I was drafted as the goalie, and if I don't say so myself, I was awesome. So I started using the little Arabic I knew to get a game going, and it became a standard 2 on 2. I was paired with the 7 year old, against the two 12 year olds. So we started playing. Goals were scored, emotions ran high, and there were a few debatable calls from the 5 year old boy with the lollipop. Handballs were permitted to everyone except for me, and violence was borderline encouraged. But it was all in good fun! Within about 5 minutes there were about 8 boys playing with me. It was an epic soccer game in the middle of the road, complete with adorable boys smiling and laughing, and a Canadian boy who was acting like he knew what was going on. Those kids were absolutely awesome. It was most definitely one of the highlights of my trip, and helped re-establish that feeling of connection to the land of Israel/Palestine that I mentioned earlier.

One thing I forgot to mention was that midway through the game Stephen said he was going to head back. I said that's fine, I could find my way. I was midway through the Israel/Palestine elementary school world cup. Give me a break. LEAVE!? So when I was done, I started to wonder aimlessly. I asked a few villagers where to go, and they all gave me a similar idea, but that idea consisted of pointing abstractly up, and north. So I abstractly wandered in that direction. When I was starting to get a little weary of being incompetent, Derek Alton, another member of the Yella group came running out of nowhere yelling, "DAN! Where's the soccer game? I heard you're playing soccer with villagers?" I told him I had, but I wanted to leave time to get back before supper. I felt bad for Derek, but good for me. I played it cool, and inconspicuously let Derek take the lead, and we were home in three minutes. Supper on time. Something no Mennonite ever takes lightly. Ever.

So that was the day in the life of the Yella group, on day 6 of the excursion, and I really hope that this trip continues to stay as incredible as it has been so far. I realize this blog entry is probably too long, but it's really the bare minimum description of a day here. If I were to fully describe all the stories, and feelings of the day, you'd develop a phobia of everything blog. So we all say hi to everyone from the other side of the sphere, and we hope everything is going well over in Canada, even though no matter what kind of weather you're getting, it sucks compared to ours. HAHA! PEACE

--Daniel Kruger
Photos by Megan Kelly