MONDAY OCTOBER 6TH-BACK TO DUSTY WAREHOUSE WORK

Back to work today.  I was assigned to do warehouse organizing and cleaning at a part of the base I had never seen.  It was close to a runway.  We saw some small planes take off and we heard jets taking off from a farther away runway.  The news is reporting that there is a joint Air Force training exercise going on now in Israel with pilots and planes from ten other countries.  We aren't told where its happenning but we do notice the very loud take off of the jets, sometimes at night. 

The first warehouse space we were assigned to clean and organize was the worst I've seen.  Judge for yourself.  

Now see what it looks like after a morning's work:

 Here's Sidney Conn at the end of the morning's work.

 It was too far to walk so our "boss" Yaniv gave us a ride to the mess hall for lunch.  Outside the mess hall I met this very well fed cat.  There are many such cats enjoying the leftovers from the meals here.

After lunch we were directed to another warehouse close by where we sorted and organized such things as the vests worn by combat medics, gas mask filters, forks, knives, and spoons.  We also bundled a lot of canvas kit bags, sleeping bags and other items.  We finished before 3PM and Yaniv released us so we had a bit of a break before dinner.  It was a hot day and it was nice to have a couple of hours to sit in our air conditioned room and cool off.  I took the opportunity to do some laundry because I won't have the opportunity from the time I leave the Air Force base on Thursday and when I head home on Wednesday the 15th.  Here's a picture of our very modern laundry facilities.  As you can see by the electric 

coffee pot in the lower left, that this is the lounge.  Well, not really.  What you can't see are all the pigeon droppings from the window being open without a screen for a long time before we got here.  The dryer seems to dry the clothes in about one and one half days.

We had dinner and then had an interesting program.  Before that I stopped at the small convenience store or "sheckem" in Hebrew.  While my Hebrew could use improvement, words like "Reese"s Peanut Butter Cups" and "Snickers Bar" seem to be universally understood.  

The program this evening was a discussion about issues that are very relevant to Israel such as:  Should Israel release terrorists who are serving life terms for murder in exchange for Israeli soldiers who the terrorists have kidnapped?  or Should Israel continue to suspend bus and train operation on the Sabbath because it is a requirement of the Ultra Orthodox Jews who make up a very small minority in Israel?   and Should Israel try to do away with compulsory military service and create an all volunteer defense force?  We all had opinions on these subjects and it was interesting and enjoyable.

I'm back in my room and my roommates are sleeping so I should turn off the computer and turn out the light.