By Isabel Atkinson, Kibbutz Ulpan

 

It wasn't what I’d bargained for. 

 

When I decided to spend five months in Israel living, working and studying on a kibbutz, I imagined myself amongst a shining, earthy community.

 

I pictured early mornings, rising with the rooster to greet the soil. In my daydreams, my body was toughened and brown from hours of labor in the sun. For a taste of rural life, the land of milk and honey appeared on the horizon as promising as ever.

  

Reality soon presented itself harsh and unforgiving, like the air conditioner that reigned over my new workplace. 

 

A communal lifestyle defines a kibbutz, with laundry included. Instead of rows of olive trees, I found myself surrounded by rows of tidy, gracefully aging...