Chadi

I arrived at Kibbutz Yotvata in the Negev Desert of Israel, in the afternoon, on a sunny March day.  I had spent almost 48 hours traveling with a painful 18 hour layover in Heathrow Airport.  The exhaustion I felt accentuated the foreignness of my surroundings.  The landscapes that passed by the window, during the four hour bus ride from Tel Aviv, were dominated by different shades of brown and impressed a sense of dusty parchedness.  I left Canada after a harsh winter in Northern Ontario where I worked in a donut shop long enough to buy a plane ticket to Israel.  Even though it was early March when I left, it was still freezing cold in Ontario.  The snow banks, coloured black from a winter of absorbing car fumes, had a withered worn look.  I was feeling grateful for having escaped what seemed like a never ending winter and the warm dry air that brushed my face during the short walk from the bus stop to the Kibbutz administrative office was a relief. 

“Welcome” said a short unsmiling woman with a thick accent.

The office was in a steel shipping container with a desk and a few folding chairs.  Seated in one of the chairs was a blond woman who, like me, looked to be in her early twenties.  After a short introduction, I found out that Asa was from Sweden and she had arrived a few minutes before me.  The volunteer coordinator, Julia, was originally from the Netherlands but had been living on the Kibbutz for over a decade.  Asa and I were shown to our room which we would share with another volunteer, in a house that had two bedrooms and a small kitchen/living room area.  After dropping off our backpacks, Julia gave us a tour of the Kibbutz.  

“There are a few different jobs available.  You may be asked to work in the dairy factory to box yogurt and sour cream.  Or you might be doing agricultural work.  Most of the volunteers are sorting onions right now.” Julia said as she pointed to a large warehouse in the distance.

“You work Sunday to Friday, Saturday is Sabbath, our day off.” she added.

During our first meal in the dining hall, all eyes were on Asa and I.  There were about 30 volunteers and the guys were very excited by Asa since Swedish women had the reputation of being gorgeous and very free with their affection.  Asa, did not challenge the stereotype.  She was tall, blond, beautiful and by the end of her three month stay at Yotvata, she had made out with every available guy that was decently attractive.

After dinner, I went for a short walk around the volunteer compound.  The housing was made up of identical rectangular shaped plywood shacks.  The men’s housing was separated from the women’s by the dining hall.  In the middle of the men’s compound was a large courtyard with a few picnic tables and a fire pit.  A small group of people had gathered, seated in a circle on makeshift benches and five gallon buckets.  A few of them called out to me and pointed to an empty bucket to join them.  

“What do you think so far?” said a boy from South Africa who probably looked younger than his age.

“Not sure, I think I’m too jetlagged to really have an idea.” I replied.

The first person I noticed in the group was the least welcoming.  I became instantly interested by his indifference.  But what captured my attention the most was that he was sitting slightly on the edge of the group playing guitar.  As a relatively shy person, I was drawn to other musicians because I found socializing around creating music more accessible than trying to find common ground through normal conversations.  I had made the decision, before I left Canada, to sell my guitar.  I had spent two years traveling around with my acoustic and hard case when I was living in the U.K. and I wanted to travel lighter this time.  I instantly regretted this decision when I saw Chadi.  He was playing Flamengo style which was very different from the Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin covers that most dudes played.  I was too shy to talk to him that day and he didn’t make an effort, even though he periodically looked up from his guitar to give me assessing looks.

In the three months I spent at the Kibbutz, Chadi and I barely spoke.  Despite our lack of communication, he still managed to maintain my interest.  He was different from the other volunteers.  Most of whom were privileged students taking a gap year.  He was born in Panama and had spent the early part of his life there.  During his adolescence he lived in South Central L.A. until he moved to the Kibbutz where he’d been for six months.  He mostly kept to himself and the other volunteers left him alone but were quick to make up stories about why he was there and what type of person he was.  Rumours were being spread about his gang affiliations and that he had killed someone in L.A. which was apparently why he escaped to Israel.  

I had only intended on staying three months at the Kibbutz.  Near the end of my time there a few friends suggested we travel together in Jordan and Egypt.  My plan was, after a month of travel, to move on to Jerusalem where a friend had connected me to a cleaning job.  The night before I left was to be my last Friday on the Kibbutz.  Fridays were the big party night since our only day off was Saturday.  The same thing happened every Friday.  In the afternoon, we would each buy a litre or two of $5 Russian vodka from the Kibbutz store.  After dinner (the cafeteria served schnitzel every Friday for dinner), we would start the evening at the fire pit until the Kibbutz disco opened at around 9pm.  We would dance the rest of the night to tunes selected by our resident DJ until about 2am.  When we were too tired or drunk to dance anymore, we stumbled back to our houses where we made grilled cheese sandwiches and went to bed between 3-4am.  

This last Friday night went down a bit differently.  At some point, when everyone was hanging out at the fire pit, Chadi decided, for the first time, to sit down next to me and begin a conversation.  I was shocked.  Even though we lived and worked together for three months, and spent every Friday night sitting around the same fire pit, he had never made an effort to talk to me nor I with him.  For my part, I stayed away from him because I found him intimidating.  He wasn’t especially attractive (or unattractive).  It was more than physical beauty that made me curious.  He was impressively unusual.  

“So you’re leaving” He said.

“Yep” I replied.

He was quiet for a few minutes and I thought he was going to stand up and walk away.

“That’s too bad”.

Almost immediately after that statement we effortlessly started into a conversation that lasted until the wee hours of the morning.  He told me about his life in Panama.  His father had been a mercenary and when he was killed, his mother moved his two younger brothers and him to L.A. where her aunt lived.  Even though he left Panama when he was 12, and hadn’t returned since, he considered himself Panamanian rather than American.  He told me a few stories that night, many of which were tragic.  The saddest was how he saw the first girl he loved, when he was 14 years old, killed in the streets by a drive-by shooter.  He had no plans to return to L.A. even though his brothers and mom still lived there.  His mother was Jewish so he was able to claim citizenship in Israel.  He would stay at the Kibbutz until he could get full citizenship and join the Israeli army.  He didn’t communicate any loneliness but his story made it seem as though he didn’t really have anyone who cared about what happened to him. 

I shared my own sense of disconnection and inability to make a decision about my future.  He seemed to understand my fears around survival and being stuck somewhere I didn’t want to be.  We connected in our desire to live an extraordinary life and our refusal to meet expectations of what we were supposed to do that was set by anyone other than our own heart’s desire.  I didn’t necessarily understand why he wanted to join the Israeli army and I didn’t agree with his convictions around who Israel belonged to, but I could respect his desire to live according to his beliefs.  

The sun rose.  We were the only two left sitting at the fire pit.  Most had migrated to the disco hours earlier.  Neither of us made a move to leave for our own apartments.  We were both energized by the obvious connection but unsure about where to go from there.  I was leaving for the Jordanian border in less than three hours.  My bag was packed and propped against one of the corners of my bedroom.  The plan was to meet my five traveling companions at the Kibbutz office, where we had to check out, right after breakfast.  A bus leaving from the stop at the front of the Kibbutz would take us directly to the Jordanian border crossing where we could apply and receive a travel VISA on site.  

It was hard saying goodbye to the friends I had made during my time at the Kibbutz.  No matter how many times I had experienced leaving through my choice of traveling the past few years, goodbyes didn’t get easier.  I didn’t consider Chadi a friend while I was at Kibbutz Yotvata but in many ways, the connection that happened in one long evening was deeper than any other that lasted the three months I was there.  Even though we came from two very different places, we understood each other.  And, for one night, we eased the deep loneliness and isolation we both experienced in our daily lives.  

I coincidently ran into Chadi again, a couple of months later, on my last night in Israel.  I had been cleaning houses in Jerusalem for about six weeks and when I had enough money, I bought a flight to Paris to start my next adventure.  I was going out for a night of dancing with a small group of friends.  We stopped in at a fast food restaurant to grab a bite to eat before hitting the Jerusalem nightclubs.  I saw Chadi sitting at a table with a couple of friends.  I was shocked and pleased to see him there.  We were able to talk for a few minutes before both our groups of friends made their impatience known.  It felt awkward and uncomfortable to be exchanging inane pleasantries after the night of deep connection we shared.  I gave him my new email address.  We said goodbye for the last time.

I received an email from Chadi over six months later.  I spent about three months living and working in France after I left Israel.  I returned to Canada, with the intention of trying to figure out what I wanted to study and to make some serious decisions about my future.  I was living in Vancouver, working as a canvasser for Greenpeace and not feeling especially sure about my decision to settle down.  I didn’t own a computer, so I went to the neighbourhood library to check my email about once a week.  I was surprised, one day, when I opened up my Hotmail account to find a message from Chadi.  After we last saw each other in Jerusalem, he moved to Tel Aviv for a few months where he worked construction.  Two months earlier, he had finally received his Israeli citizenship.  He joined the Isreali Defense Force shortly after.  He was in Central Israel doing basic combat training.  I responded to his message with a description of what I was doing but I never heard from Chadi again.  A year later, as I learned about the soldiers who stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem and started a Palestinian uprising where many, mostly Palestinians, died, I wondered if Chadi was involved.  I recalled the connection we shared, despite coming from different places and holding oppositional world views and values,   and the night where we were able to help each other remember that we are fundamentally the same in our fears and desires and not alone.