Meet me at the Crossroads

So I know I've been posting about all of my fun adventures, and I still have many more on which to report, but I also know a lot of you are wondering what I'm doing for my internship experience here.  Let me premise this with the unfortunate reality that I am not "allowed" to do therapy here because the internship is only four months long (we didn't begin until October 15th.  Most of you know that it is not ideal to start developing a relationship with a client that will inevitably be cut short.  Yes, turnover is huge in the social work field, and there is nothing to do to prevent unexpected terminations.  Short-term therapy is a possibility--this is the work I was doing in my position as a functional family therapist prior to coming to Israel--however long-term therapy seems to be the trend here.  In my case, it would be unethical to begin providing treatment knowing I am leaving.  Therefore I've had to be flexible in finding an appropriate internship with duties that will allow me to utilize my strengths as well as help me gain experience in the social work field.  


My internship coordinator, Yonit, set me up with a place called Crossroads www.crossroadsjerusalem.org which works with English-speaking at-risk youth.  The agency has a drop in center where kids can hang out, watch tv, get help with finding a job, receive therapy and/or case management, participate in cooking, art, movie night, and more.  Right now I've been working on helping the center look nicer and making some posters and such.  Here is a picture of the Pinat Chashiva (Thinking Corner) that I put up a few weeks ago.  

Thinking Corner

The blank shapes are meant for the kids to write their thoughts and feelings about loss.  Unfortunately the kids have experienced various losses in their lives, more specifically, there have been kids who were somewhat associated with the center who died of drug overdoses in the recent months.  I'm still working on getting the kids to write things on the board...

My main role at Crossroads is to help put on a Talent Show of sorts.  We're calling it Crossroads Cafe and it's going to be a coffeehouse atmosphere for the kids, community, and supporters.  Many of the kids are really talented and we hope to get enough of them who are willing to share their talent with an audience.  It's been kinda slow though thus far because our vision is still a little unclear and a lot of worries and concerns have been brought up about the reality of something like this actually happening (i.e. getting community sponsors for food, having the kids commit to participating and actually show up, etc.).

In the meantime, I've been trying to get to know some of the kids just by hanging out with them during their afternoons at the center.  This is the time I really enjoy (besides having to deal with cigarette smoke as the kids are allowed to smoke in the center).  One of my first days there a girl began talking to me about alcohol consumption (she was concerned about her habits) and I directed her to appropriate resources that she might find helpful.  Just this week I heard from a kid who was into heroin but realized if he doesn't stop soon he won't have a long future ahead of him.  

Lastly, I am supposed to help out with street outreach at some point, hopefully soon.  On Thursdays and Saturdays the social workers and volunteers go out to the streets of the center city area of Jerusalem (near Ben Yehuda Street) to provide crisis intervention to the kids who hang out in Crack Square (named Crack Square because kids are "cracked out, cracked up" not necessarily on crack).  There is a huge community of English-speaking teens who get caught up in this scene of drinking, drugs, and violence.  Crossroads social workers make themselves visible while getting to know the kids on the streets in hopes that they will eventually make their way to the center to take part in all that Crossroads has to offer.  

I'll keep you all updated on my experience at Crossroads.

Blast from the Past

The weekend before last, I finally left Jerusalem and traveled via train to Binyamina to see my friend Khen.  Khen and I met in the summer of 1998 at Camp Tel Yehudah.  We spent 2 wonderful summers together at camp and then I, along with 7 other camp friends, stayed with Khen and her family in Timrat when we were here in the Summer of 2000.  Khen and I stayed in touch a bit afterwards but sadly lost touch right before she went into the army.  Sometime in the last couple of years, Khen found me on facebook and we reconnected!  Though this is my 3rd time back in Israel since 2000, we didn't have a chance to meet up during my previous trips.  So you can imagine how excited I was when we started talking on the phone this time around and trying to plan a time to see each other!

Khen picked me up from the train station and we stopped at her apartment to put my things down.  Then we went out to a delicious lunch with her boyfriend Ami, his mom, and his sister who were visiting.  They switched on and off between speaking Hebrew and English, but I got the gist of what was said in Hebrew.  Later, we looked at Khen's photo album from our 3 summers together and reminisced of the good old days.  Later, Khen's sisters Vered and Yael came over (I had met Vered 10 years ago, but Yael had been traveling abroad then).  We had dinner and watched some movies.   

The next morning, Khen took me to Ceasarea, where we walked around and enjoyed the amazing weather.  We had a delicious lunch of sushi (and even tried a strange roll of salmon, mozarella, and avocado).  Some of the rolls had tempura around them, and Khen referred them as schnitzel sushi.  Israelis just love to bread everything here!

Me and my new boyfriend

ancient ruins in Caesarea

more ancient ruins in Caesarea

headless statue

It was so great to see Khen after all these years, though it didn't seem like it had been 10 years.  We were able to pick up right where we left off!  It was so nice to just veg out and catch up.  Thank you to Khen and Ami for letting me stay at your lovely apartment.  Hopefully I'll take a few more weekend trips to visit them and Khen can be my tour guide to other exciting places.  Oh and I should probably take some pics of Khen and me together next time.