From Friends to Family
With all the free time imposed by the holidays at the beginning of the year, us fellows began to plan our own activities. Inspired by the group days, participants from Tel Aviv, Ramla, Rahat, Nazareth and Beit Shean organized different trips around Israel. For Sukkot, we took this opportunity to plan a trip to Tiberius for a weekend. Having only known each other for a short period of time, we all came together and spent the weekend by the beach, explored the city and spent a day at Israel’s floating water park on the Sea of Galilee, Aqua Kef. 
After getting to know one another even more, this prompted the peripheral cities to plan a trip up north together. Fellows from Rahat and Ramla met up with those in Nazareth and Beith Shean for the weekend. We started with a shabbat dinner Friday night, followed by exploring the city of Haifa. The following day we hiked Mount Precipice and were able to meet students studying nearby at the University of Haifa. The next morning we were given a walking tour of the Beit Shean National Park and ended the day at the Gan HaShlosha National Park otherwise known as the Sachne. It was beautiful and we swam in the springs and enjoyed a nice picnic near a waterfall.
Another fun weekend trip the fellows planned was heading down South to Be’er Sheva. We used the weekend to celebrate the American tradition of Halloween by bringing a piece of home to us, (and teaching our fellows from the UK and Canada all about it.) We all dressed up in costumes and had an opportunity to meet all the MITF fellows from Be’er Sheva as well as their coordinators from Israel Outdoors. They showed us around their city, we ate at a local falafel shop, and hung out in a coffee shop/park. We learned more about our fellows working in Rahat with the Bedouin community and they taught us some Arabic that they’ve been learning.
We have been having an amazing time getting to know each other and are excited to continue planning events together.
Check back soon to hear about our MITF+ Fellows and their upcoming fun adventures for Chanukah.
From your lovely fellows in Ramla,
// Marielle and Michaela
