Exodus: A day in my life, Part VI

It’s time to clean the dining hall. Hoshang and Ritesh work with me, while Pome cleans the food trolleys, and Nicole finishes washing the dishes.
 
The first thing Hoshang, Ritesh, and I do is wipe down all the tables. We then begin putting up the chairs. I like the mindless, monotonous task of putting up the chairs. It’s sort of like meditation.
 
I have my small radio. I put the headphones in my ears and set the station to Reshet Gimmel, which plays only Hebrew music. I prefer this to Reshet Bet, which periodically has songs, but generally reports on the Israeli news. Both radio stations have five minutes of news at the top of each hour.
 
When the chairs have been placed on the top of each table, Ritesh, Hoshang, and I grab a broom and begin sweeping the floor, starting at the back of the dining hall. This goes relatively quickly. This is followed by filling up a large black container full of a mixture of blue floor cleaner and water.
 
We dump the mixture on the floor. Next we scrub the mixture with our brooms. We then get squeegees and start dragging the water to the front of the dining hall, where the water is emptied into a drain, located just below where the coffee and tea is located. The process of getting the water to the drain is a little tricky as the dining hall is not level and sometimes you drag lots of water forward, but as soon as you go around a table to bring the water even further, the water has already flowed backwards. We have to do a good job in getting all the water to the drain, as we don’t want people to slip.

We then get a large white cloth and place them on the squeegees and begin mopping the floor.  At first it was difficult to mop the floor with the white cloth, but then Mirav told me you can cut a hole in the middle and slide it down the squeegee, which secures the white cloth to the squeegee.  
 
Last of all, we take down all 144 chairs. The floor of the dining hall is clean.  

It’s now time to clean the floor of the kitchen. This is easier, as the kitchen is much smaller, and we don’t have to put up and take down chairs. We also don’t have to sweep and mop. We just fill up buckets of water with the floor cleaner and dump it onto the floor. We scrub the floor with the brooms and then squeegee the water into the many drains throughout the kitchen.

I’m aware that what I’m writing is dry. You probably find it boring to read, as I find it a bit boring to write, but nonetheless I want to document what I was doing for half a year on a kibbutz in southern Israel. I’m sorry that I’m not writing about the beauty of Eretz Yisrael or the miracle of living in a Jewish state. I’m simply writing about my life. What I saw and what I did. It wasn’t exciting, but generally life isn’t exciting. If you want to experience something exciting, go to the movies.

It is now noon. Lunch will begin in a half an hour.

I drag the meat dishes, trays, and silverware to the dinning hall. I then go to the back of the kitchen and grab the lunch salads. For lunch there is humus, an eggplant spread, carrot salad, potato salad, lettuce, purple cabbage salad, tomatoes, cucumbers, and a spicy tomato like spread.

The main course is couscous, with onion, cabbage, and carrots, in a soup, which one can pour on the top of the couscous.

The dishwasher is turned on in the dishwashing room and the sink designated for the meat meals is put into place in the dishwashing room. 

It is 12:30 pm and people start coming into the dining hall. Many of the people have dirty looks on their faces when they see that couscous is the main course for lunch. They would rather have hotdogs or falafel. They should be thankful they have food to eat. I don’t care if they aren’t happy with couscous. It’s tastier than sand.

While people are eating lunch, Pome, Nicole, Ritesh, and I go to the back of the dining hall and block off six rows of tables. We begin setting them up for the Friday evening Shabbat meal. The Friday evening meal is special, so we cover the tables with tablecloths.

We start in the back of the dining hall. There are pink and red table clothes, as well as pink and red runners. We put on a red table cloths and pink runners on first row of tables. For the next row we put on pink tablecloths with red runners and so on and so on. We then put down dishes, knives, forks, and napkins.

Lunch ends at 1:30. All the dishes are cleaned.  Everyone has left. We finish setting the tables and washing the dishes at around 2:15. 

Work is over. I have a couple of hours to rest. At 4:30 I will be milking the goats.