Hey all

I was in Israel in the June/July holidays last year touring with a youth movement. One of the activities was to spend three nights in the Israeli army and learn to be soldiers. Our bus at arrived at the army base and we were told to line up in straight rows. The weather was about 45 degrees Celsius!

I was wearing a hat and sunglasses and was immediately told to remove both of them. I stood in the line trying to listen to what the commander was instructing us to do but it was impossible to concentrate because of the intense heat. The head commander then pointed at me and I was told to go to the front door and wait while my other friends joined me.

Our group unfortunately got the head commander, who was the strictest commander on that base. She never smiled and shouted at us if we touched our hair. It was worse than a detention camp.

She then called me individually and spoke to me in Hebrew, as it is the official language of Israel. I have learnt Hebrew since Grade 1 so was able to understand what she was saying.

She asked me if I was a vegetarian. I meant to tell her that I wasn’t except for the fact that I don’t eat fish, but the sun was shining directly into my eyes, making it hard to concentrate. Because I live in South Africa I rarely get the opportunity to speak Hebrew, so I sometimes get confused between words that sound similar. What I ended up saying was that she looked as though she was pregnant. She looked at me in shock with a mean look and I suddenly realised what I had said. I quickly turned around as a smile filled my face. When I had a serious face again I turned back towards her and apologised. She was still angry and made me do a hundred push-ups though. Oh my gosh, that was so embarrassing! I didn’t speak another word of Hebrew at the army.

Have a great week and chat soon
Sim :-)