Black and Blue

Well it's been a significantly large amount of time since the last update and for that i really do apologise. I think however (what a terrible apology if i go straight away to justify myself), that you'll understand.

The last time i wrote i believe was just before the first week of Hagnam. I have absolutly no idea what that is in english, in hebrew too i'm fairly clueless...so helpful stuff really... Well anyway, it means that we do guarding and cleaning duties for a week. It means alot of not sleeping, a lot of cleaning stuff that really doesn't make sense to clean and a lot of being cranky. That week in particular was horrible. It was the week when Israel decided to become freezing, rainy and push people over strength windy. Not such great fun if people are getting hypothermia (see, i'm not just whinging), you're having to wake up in your small amount of sleep to fix the tent which is falling down on you (in the freezing rain) and well anyway, i think you get the picture.
 The funniest cleaning duty that i did, which at the time i assure you i was not laughing: Sweeping leaves off the road and putting them in the bin. Lodgical i guess....NO. not when it's 65km/h wind and freezing ice cold rain. Please tell me the lodgic behind sweeping up leaves in that. In fact i clearly remember ranting about the stupidness of the task (in hebrew, BOO YE) at the time.

Luckily i wasn't there the whole time because i went to pick Daddy up from the airport. They were rather nice to me and even let me leave the wednesday afternoon because Daddy's flight arrived early thursday morning. Was incredible to see Daddy, unfortunately the weather was a bit horrible but we were tough cookies and walked around in the cold rain regardless.

Daddy and i didn't get up to too much that weekend. Did a large amount of walking around Tel Aviv and an even bigger amount of drinking coffee, which is always very funny because coffee makes me CRAZY.


The following army week was one of the best i've had so far. Called Shavua Prat (or personal week) It's aimed to teach us how to storm an area alone. Not something we'd ever actually do (being alone that is), but it's the start to learning how to do with groups. It was hard because of the commands i had to learn. But such incredible fun. You're running forward, stopping behind rocks, rolling and covering your team with fire. We did it a couple of times without fire just yelling ASH ASH ASH (fire fire fire) and then it was my turn to do it for real. Suddenly the sky opens up and its storming. First we put on our halfas (basically a pant and top waterproof uniform to put over the normal one) and then i'm doing my drill. I can confirm that everything is a million times more fun when it's muddy and rainy. I surprisingly even hit most targets (13/15).

Dana and Stela, two of my favourite girls.

The next week we were in Shetach (field) again, i swear we are never on base, we live in the field. Which is surprisingly excellent. I'm glad i enjoy camping, lucky with that one. The best part of that week however was that they made us a campfire.


Unfortunately i can't remember anything significant about the rest of that week, could be because it was quite a long time ago and well my memory isn't very good. So let's just use imagination and say i did lots of crazy hard stuff... super soldier and that.


That weekend i went to meet Daddy in Jerusalem. I'm not sure why but i always think that i don't like Jerusalem. Well aparrently i do like it quite a lot, it's beautiful. We were staying on the Mount of Olives which is in the Christian Quarter and the view was phenominal. Spent the weekend walking around the Old City, walked ontop of the city wall, walked underneath the Western wall we did it ALL. Oh yes, funny moment when Dad and i were posing for a self photo i may have jumped up and ripped my jeans extremelly hardcore in the crotch. Which left me walking around the religious areas with  a large hole in my jeans crotch. Funny stuff.

and this picutre caused my a crotch rip.

The next week much of the same, guarding, learning, and then i made a mistake. They needed a volunteer to close Shabbat. Generally this is not needed as people have to stay for punishment, but this week my Machlaka was well behaved (relatively) and so when they needed a volunteer i was quick enough to put myself up-guilty conscience i think.

But then, but then, we got given our Pakal's. A pakal is the position in the troop.There are many many positions; sharp shooter, section commander, Matol (matol is an addition to the regular Micro Tavour which lets you shoot grenades as well), Mag (the Machine Automatic Gun), Negev (a light Machine gun), Field medic, communications (remember that radio i was talking about a while back, yep). Anyway, the point is i got given the Negev, WOOOOO,. But wait, not all good. I got given the negev and then got told that to be it i would have to move classes. Well i responded not well at all. You all know i'm sure that when i'm tired i cry. Tired Louise hears this news and doesn't react well. I cried alot. In fact i had a day where i just didn't stop. Tough tough me. A cute moment was when i was summoned to talk to my commander while she was doing gate duty(checking cars etc), as i said previously i couldn't stop crying. So i'm there saying that i would give up my Negev position to be in the class. That there was no way i would leave the class. As i'm saying this and crying she says Louise stop crying because i want to cry too, i really don't want you to leave the class. Her eyes are all teary and she hugs me (totally not normal at all for a commander to do that). Ultimately i still don't know what's happening with the whole class situation, but i did the week of training anyway. Which brings us up to last week.


First of all i'm given my new Gun, 7.4kg of it. Yep. I don't think anything will ever be heavy to me again. The week consisted of us running around in very little time frames, one of the commanders that took the Negevistim group told us she didn't believe in minutes. So everything was 50 seconds, 10 seconds. Impossible time frames essentially.
 It was an incredible week, hard but great. Learning everything new because with the Negev everything is different.  One of the coolest things though is the night lens we use. It's one eyed but exactly like in the movies. Everything is green but like day light. You can see very clearly.
We shot distances from 25m to 300 on single and of course automatic. But really the best thing we did was lighting up the night sky. I shall explain; the negev uses green and red bullets. Green are regular and red are for the middle and the end of the chain, so that you know where you are (there's an order of course). We shot red bullets at night and it was incredible. Like fireworks. A small part of me considered where the hell the bullets land...i mean the Negev fires up to 1000m. Who knows!


The last night they told us were were going home, of course after all was packed up and organised they decided to tell us that no, infact we were going to stay that night as well. Oh how everyone got grumpy. Seriously seriously grumpy.  The commanders did redeem themselves however, bought us a bunch of junkfood drinks and would you believe it even a packet of cigarettes.


The week ended spectacularly with them letting us leave thursday afternoon. This did mean however that i went back on public transport after a week in the field, without showering. And that photo is before i'd cleaned the gun. After cleaning i was completely black. Infact my hands are still significantly blackened (and it's saturday night).


Anyway, since we got off thursday afternoon it meant that i could finally go rockclimbing for free in Tel Aviv. Incredible fun even when you're 10000000% tired.


And well that brings us up to now. To a bruised, blackened and increasingly strong Louise.


Next time hopefully won't be too far away, though we are closing shabbat again. OH forgot to mention, on thursday i got off base after 20 days. Yep closed 20 days on base. Bummer.


All my love,