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Aliyah to Carmiel!
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2.8.2006
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Interestingly enough, the aliyah to Israel continues, even in times such as these. The following was written by the Woodward family who has recently moved to Karmiel from their home in South Africa. The following is a recounting of their most recent experiences in their new home.
"We flew out from South Africa on 8 July 2006 on an overnight flight to Israel. We landed at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv at about 5AM SA time which is six in the morning Israeli time. We were taken through to the immigration department where they loaded all the relevant information they needed from us straight into the computer. Much to our surprise, we were issued a joint temporary ID document and our first lot of money straight away. From there they took us to collect our luggage and through customs. Once that was all complete they organized us a taxi and we left on our first trip in Israel. All this took only about 2 hours as we were on our way just before 08h00 Israeli time.
The taxi trip was both exciting and a bit of a nightmare, as we were seeing a new country for the first time as well as experiencing a new style of driving, i.e. driving on the right side of the road and drivers that are a lot worse than you find in the good old SA. The traffic in Tel Aviv is just as you might find in Johannesburg, and we were stuck in it. When we did eventually get to leaving Tel Aviv (we had to pick up a young lady in the centre and drop her off at a kibbutz just outside Tel Aviv), we would settle down to a lot of traffic, but with a changing scenery as we traveled.
Even though Karmiel is only about 160 km's from Tel Aviv we only arrived at around 11h30.We were shown to our new home (1 bedroom flatlet ) and with the help of a couple of youngsters that were outside we got all our luggage up to our flat on the 2nd floor. When Brenda took one look at all this, she just sat down and cried. This was due to a combination of the size of the flat, tiredness as we had not been able to sleep on the plane, and the heat we endured from Tel Aviv to Karmiel. It is a lot cooler in Karmiel.
After she had had a short nap we went down to meet Ziona who is the director of the absorption centre in Karmiel. From the time we landed in Israel, we have come across people who care. It does not matter where you go; the Jewish people stick together and always care about each other.
We had only 3 days to discover our city, which we have not fully discovered. We walked everywhere and we were truly amazed at the little shops and all the things that you can buy here.
We could not wait; we had our first Falafel with the wonderful tasty radishes that are served here. We are totally hooked on the radishes. The hummus is fantastic, and we cannot go a day without eating it with something.
Well our first experience was on Wednesday, 12 July, when after 2 days of paperwork and government departments we decided we were now able to catch the bus to the shopping centre ourselves. We had hardly arrived at the shopping centre when the first Katyushas hit. Coming from South Africa, we are really green, and had no idea what happened. Everyone was running and shouting, and when you are in new country you don't speak the language, worse you had no idea the danger you were in. Well finally, someone told us to evacuate. We then heard that a bomb had fallen in the shopping centre 1 minute away. That was really nerve wrecking. Well we got a bus to stop and pick us up to go, which felt like the longest bus trip of my life for about 1 km only.
Since the 12 July, all we have basically known is the Mercaz Klita, and the bomb shelter. We spend a lot of time in the latter. On the 22 July, we experienced something horrific. At about 16h30, we were sitting and watching TV like normal in our flatlet, and Brenda heard a Katyusha land, she immediately commented we must move and before we all had the chance the second one landed. I just shouted at them to lie down and pushed them into the bedroom. The third Katyusha landed 10m from our bedroom window, the emotional anxiety, stress and fear cannot be described. The blast was extremely loud, and landed in the road, hurting people in two cars and destroying the cars. Our building on the side of the road did not have a window that was not broken. The security guard's car was parked on the side of the building lost it's back window. We only thank G-d that no one in our building was hurt.
The next day friends of ours phoned from Ra'anana and asked us to come and spend time there. We went for a week. Ra'anana is incredibly hot and if you don't enjoy the heat then you will be very uncomfortable there, and will find yourself in an air-conditioned building or room most of the time.
We got back to Karmiel on 28 July, and we were hardly back 30 minutes and we were back in the bomb shelters periodically. Our experience here can truly be described as a baptism of fire.
We are looking forward to this war ending so that our life can start and our daughter Kaeleigh who is 14 can start school. She has been very bored and the centre that we are at and does not have anyone who speaks English, so she has been very lonely. She is dying to start school and make new friends.
Although this has been quite an unstable start for us, we are still determined to stay in Israel and make it our home."
Tony, Brenda and Kaeleigh Woodward.
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