"Why do the cults get all the good real estate?" - Noam

So, long story short we left Spain and came back to Israel.

It wasn't what you would call an easy decision, but it was the one we made and now we are here. After 36 long hours of travel.

At this moment, we are still fighting the bed bugs (as the giant welts on my side attest), and I am hopeful that we will kill them all. I am simultaneously terrified that we'll accidentally spread them to Noam's parent's house. As for now, we are biding our time catching up on sleep, and then we will figure out what our plan of action is for now until early February, when we hope to return to the small village of Ezuz in the Negev Desert and work on a goat farm there. Our current plan is to continue to Wwoof and look for other possible volunteer opportunities in Israel until late April (maybe earlier maybe later, depending on if we change the plane ticket), hopefully with some solidarity or peace-building initiatives as well.




The title of this post however, "Why do cults get all the good real estate?" (Noam's impeccable observation after being at our final Spanish farm for approximately 12 hours) deserves some amusing attention and explanation:

Our last farm, although also breathtakingly beautiful (perched on top of the Mediterranean Sea with direct access to a pebble beach and terraced gardens undulating toward the sea) was actually a small community of Spanish cult-ish (?) Messianaic Christians who were hardcore pro-modern Zionists and Israeli-violence-enthusiasts believing in Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer's German New Medicine. (Also, there was yet again no toilet...not even an ecological toilet...just you, a pickaxe, and the hard earth)

[Side note> Google or Wikipedia: German New Medicine. It's a crazy following based on "5 Iron Laws of Biology" pioneered by Dr. Hamer that supposedly prove that the entirety of the current medical insitution's ideas of disease, particularly cancer, is completely wrong. It says that disease comes from emotional shock and everything can be seen through interlocking levels of our psyche, our brain, and an organ. In short, cancer is all in our head as is most disease...I was told that I just need to remember the "tragic" incident that happened to me when I was little when cats were around, stop believing in allergies because they're in my imagination, and then I would be cured of my cat allergies.]

In actuality, the people were really really nice (except for some of the moody, reticent children and what I can only describe as the older man who seemed to be the ringleader and spiritual guide of the group), but as soon as they started talking (i.e. lecturing) about anything involving politics, religion, or medicine, our views could not have been further apart. The description of the farm prior to our arrival was, of course, completely innocuous and contained nothing alluding to its ideology.

And, let's be honest, one can only take so much of preaching, conspiracy theories, (prolonged bedbugs even though you tried to treat them), and being told that you don't actually know anything about your religion or homeland (this goes for one of them speaking at Noam, not for me, although since this was a lecture in Spanish I was the only one who got the full, delightful details of the tirade) before it's time to pack up and go, no matter how nice or helpful they are in other aspects of your living situation and learning.

Add to that general mix of issues: unseasonably shitty, cold weather for Andalucia, not getting the types of learning experiences we wanted on the farms, us "hemorrhaging" money because of how expensive things were (oh Europe), the unavailability of our top-choice farms, bed bugs, and having changed locations 4 times in ~ 3 weeks, and you have the highly volatile combo leading to let's go back to Israel where there are still other desirable opps for volunteering and learning.

All in all, the situation's been rather comical. We wish we could have stayed, but it felt like it was time to leave to Spain. At least on my behalf, I can certainly say I look forward to visiting Spain's southern Costa del Sol and Costa Tropical, but hopefully next time with better times more suiting of the names!