Kibbutz Life

So, after some unexpected goading from my relatives, I realized that I had not yet posted any pictures of where I live.  I suppose a brief description is first in order.  I live on a kibbutz (suburban Israeli communal town) called Ramat Yochanan, which is located on the outskirts of a city called Kiryat Ata.  Its about 20 minutes from Haifa by car, and we can actually see the city lights from the road that leads to the Kibbutz.  Kibbutzim (Kibbutzeses) generally have an income-generating industry and the people all pay into a central bank and have the money divided up according to a person's needs.  IE: a family with 6 children would receive more funds and larger, or nicer, accomodations than, say, a 28 year old single guy.  There are certain benefits to this lifestyle though.  Generally, the kibbutz gives you free meals, provides cars, has leisure activities, supermarkets with reduced prices, post offices, banks, and in the case of Ramat Yochanan, a health care center and nursing home.

In the case of Ramat Yochanan, their "income generator" is an orchard, a dairy farm, and a multi-national plastics company called Palram.  Palram has a factory on the kibbutz, a factory in China, a factory in Allentown, PA, and one somewhere in Europe.  They are the largest supplier of plastic sheets to Home Depot, and they pretty much built China's olympic stadium.  Ramat Yochanan (the kibbutz) owns 78% of Palram, and is the second "richest" kibbutz in Israel.  The other being Magan Michael- which is on the sea, and therefore decidedly better (and harder to get into) than Ramat Yochanan.

Anyway..here's some pictures:


This is my room..its actually cleaner than normal in this picture


gated community

This is the health clinic

We have a school that teaches elementary through high school

This is a kibbutznik's house

The whole place is basically a giant park

We've got the dairy farm- and we sell all the milk, none of it is used on the kibbutz for some reason.

Tennis courts and basketball courts too

This is the dining hall, or Hadar Ochel, there is a resident artist that did the mural

There is a pub that is open on Thursdays and Fridays

This is the outside of the Ulpan rooms

We also have a covered, olympic-sized, swimming pool. Its currently drained of water due to a prior water festival that involved geese and ducks in the pool.

This is where we have bonfires and such

This is the grapefruit orchard

Cool view of the mountains. To the right of this ridge is Mt. Carmel
...and for the last entry on this blog post...there's the safety aspect of the kibbutz. Below is a video of the Ulpan bunker. I've never seen a bunker that was in use as a bunker until I came here, so until I hear a siren or explosion, I think its a cool place.