End of Lotan, Beginning of Karmiel

Our last days on Lotan were full of amazing last-minute group bonding and fun!  We had peulot, services, gifts for each other, hikes, and lots of other fun activities.  We walked out to the sand dunes in complete silence, had a ma'amod, and then walked back singing songs as loud as we could.  We had a talent show featuring the ever popular box-game, rap performance, and the story of one guy's life from ages 11 to 17.  We watched a slideshow that was artfully prepared (by me) to depict our memories.  The kibbutz group made a lip-dub for us, and we wrote twelve letters for them to open, one for every week we are apart.  Eventually, however, our group of nineteen broke into nine and ten.  Ten of us stayed on Kibbutz Lotan to work in the refet (cows), din (goats), tourism, noi (garden), kitchen, and cheese manufacturing.
The better group (the one I'm in) left for Karmiel, a city in the north of Israel.  We stepped in from the hot, dusty Arava desert into the bus and got out again in the cold and windy north.  Our flat in Karmiel is really nice, four bedrooms and two bathrooms for all nine of us (plus our floor-crashing Aussie friend).  Aside from gas and hot waters problems, it's perfect.  We have a brand-new kitchen here, wifi, an outside yard area, storage room, and an amazing heater.  We walked around the city last night (and ate some of the best yogurt ever) and today our madricha showed us two nurseries and an elementary school that we can spend our time volunteering in.  We'll visit other places tomorrow, such as a zoo and soup kitchen.  In addition, I will start work with the Magen David Adom in mid-December.  After an extensive application and interview process, I will attend a ten day course in Jerusalem and then volunteer five days a week in Karmiel with the MDA.  During our time here, we'll also take classes with a local rabbi, a Netzer representative, out madricha herself, and many others.  We'll also have a tiyul day one a week.  Around our busy schedules, we'll also need to budget, cook for ourselves, clean the flat, have asefot, and build our own community.  For now, however, we're just set on working out who needs to wash the dishes from dinner.