Dinner with the Refet

Another super late post. Original date: June 8, 2010. Post date July 10, 2010. Sorry, kiddos!

So, as I feel I've made pretty clear, I really LOVED working at the refet. The guys were awesome, the cows were cute (except for when they didn't want to move. You try convincing a half ton animal to move when it doesn't want to...), and while the hours were less than ideal, I grew to love 4am as a serene time where I got to enjoy the world with out the distractions of everyone else. The air felt cleaner, and it gives you a nice space to just think. Well, at least for the the 3 minute bike ride to work before I heard "MIIIIHAAAAL!" as Aviad liked to scream upon my arrival. He enjoyed pronouncing my name "like an American" and would intentionally spell it מיחל everyday in the milking journal (the misspelling should make sense to those Israeli readers). And yes, we had a journal that we wrote in after every milking - how much milk did we get, any problems, who worked, any births, etc.

One of the perks of working at the refet was that they all liked each other, and we were a small enough group that we could get together whenever we wanted. I'd run into the whole gang at the pub and my boss would order one of the guys to buy me a shot of whiskey, despite my pleading for a different liquor. We'd all meet up for breakfast some mornings, or my boss would invite us for a dinner at his place (actually just had one last week to celebrate end of ulpan/graduation for the seniors). But other perks extended to Israel as a whole. The cow community across the nation knows one another, and apparently the event like the one I'm about to mention is not uncommon.

Ambar, the Israeli pioneer of mass producing cow meal, which had previously be produced individually at each refet, had its 50 year celebration, and invited all of it's customers to a dinner and concert. That included our kibbutz! The dinner was buffet style, and turned into quite the clusterfuck. My boss waited in line for 45 minutes and didn't even reach the food! Fortunately, the rest of us had arrived early and had already gone through seconds before the masses showed up.
The show involved a famous comedian (who I didn't know) as the MC, some funny songs and dances from the big bosses, and finally a concert from Yehudit Ravitz, a very famous singer, that I actually was familiar with, thanks to my parents :) They projected videos and graphics on the huge grain stacks. It was pretty cool!

One funny joke from the comedian for the Hebrew readers:
אמבר. אמבר. מה זה אמבר? זה נשמע כמו חברה עורך דין. ואז הבנתי. אין מצב בשר רעב.

Translated it means: Ambar. Ambar. What's Ambar? It sounds like a lawyer company. And then I understood. No Way Meat Hungry.
But it's funny because the first letter of each word in "No Way Meat Hungry" spells out Ambar... or maybe it's just lost in translation :-P

Anyways, here are some photos from the event.