Ch. 2

When i first arrived in Israel, the only thoughts that plagued my mind were, "please God, let my luggage not be lost." As i remembered correctly, coming here for the first time with my family, we lived luggage-less for the first three days, and as anyone with a family might know, somethings can get a little tricky ie. lack of underwear, toiletries, clothes and so on. A big difference between traveling alone or with your family is the ability to afford all new items and replace the old ones. Unfortunately for me, every dollar was stressed and accounted for, as my father so usually reminded me.

Fortunately, my lovely ginger coloured suitcase and generic red one, showed their bashful faces, and with struggling grunts, and awkward positioning, i finally loaded them onto a cart and pulled them away. Breathlessly, i ran into the bathroom to change into a more religious looking dress, pushed passed the white signs with family names written on them in bold, and searched through the crowd for a face which looked familiar. I had come a bit late, and was worried my aunt had missed me, but low and behold, there she was, smiling and walking towards me, and though i could count the number of times i had seen her before on one hand, she was family, and looked like it too, so we embraced like i had known her well my whole life.

She helped grabbed my luggage and together we tried to figure out where to take a Sheruit (taxi van) back to her home in Jerusalem, but not before we exchanged Canadian dollars to Sheckles. Between the two of us, it took about half an hour to figure out the Hebrew translations on the electronic debit-like machine, and i knew Auntie Tamara's Hebrew was not going to be a skill i cold comfortably lay back on.

After what seemed like forever, we finally boarded a sheruit full of people going seperate ways, and made it safely back to Auntie Tamara's apartment. The familiarity of her neighbourhood ran up and hugged me. This i recalled, the haphazardly created tree-house, nailed together in a "Dr. Seuss-like" fashion; the religious people dressed from neck to toe; the small spaces and loud mouths. I dragged my body into her small, floor-level apartment, and opened the front door. "Surprise!" There, sitting at a carefully decorated table were 5 out of my 9 cousins, their faces big and smiling.
Behind them on a white wall, was a large and quickly scrawled poster reading, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY NETANYA!" I laughed and waved, i was over taken by the plastic cups with the blue and white napkins poking out the tops, and the large home made cake in the center of the table, but with the 9 hour time difference weighing on my shoulders, and the heaviness of sleep deprivation, i apologetically excused myself, and collapsed onto a hard bed. The flight there had killed me, and that sleep would be the best i ever had. When i woke up, i had expected it to represent the rebirth of my new life, but what it really represented was my jet-lagged bodie's inability to sleep and eat at normal times for the next 2 days.

In approximately 24 hours from that first sleep, i would start my program in Israel, and nothing, not the anticipation or excitement of the new year, would stop me from closing my eyes this time.

Ch.1

On my eighteenth birthday I boarded a plane and flew halfway across the world. I was far from everything i had known and was comfortable with, and shot directly into an entirely new environment and lifestyle. I wanted to learn more about my own cultural identity and religion.

When i made the life changing decision to take a year off right after high school to live in the country of my Heritage past, i knew i was making the decision to open my eyes to a side of my life i have never yet encountered.

I was on my way to Israel; a country full of controversy. It was a land continually watched like a hawk by the media and the world as a whole, and from the outside, many had warned me of the dangers Israel had been faced with in the past, and is faced with in the present: the first and second Lebanon war, Intifada, terrorist attacks, and present continual threat of bombing and war.

I had been to Israel three years prior, in the same summer that happened to land during the war with Hezbollah in 2006, but even then I had known the country to be beautiful and active. Israel didn't allow herself to be held back by the dangers around her. The country was riddled with white Jerusalem stone, speckled with light cream, green, olive leaves, and enrobed in an everlasting light blue sky.

I had fallen in love with the country then, when i had gone with my family of 5: mother, father, and younger brother and sister. We had staked out an apartment in downtown Jerusalem, (which i later learned was an extremely expensive area to live in), and together we had walked through the colourful and busy shook (day-time market place); it was always full of fresh fruit and vegetables; small holes in the walls represented stores, which projected out into the aisles itself. Bright scarfs and bags framed the outside streets, and the aroma of baked goods and sizzling meat embraced all who entered.

I wasn't afraid to start my new journey, not with all my memories of Israel still hovering behind me, but rather i was excited and nervous to enter this new life half alone.
When i turned 18 on a plane, above the outline of Italy and Rome, below me on a delicately placed Earth, i sat there debating more topics than whether or not i should purchase alcohol for the first time, and without knowing where the next eleven hours of my life would take me exactly, i found it extremely hard to shut my eyes.

For most fresh- out- of- high school students who chose the same path as me, usually they hope to become better versed in their Jewish education, become better acquainted with their cultural identity, and maybe become an expert in hookah smoke ring blowing, but for me, there was something a little more nerve racking to discover.

Within the small boundaries of a country my culture calls home, i knew there existed something much more binding to me than the smell of hookah on cotton, because for me, a past i wasn't very well introduced to, called the land i was visiting home. The individual i had always known as a fairy tale character, very much existed, and lived a life separate from my own; his name was Shlomi Devos and he was, is my biological father, and entirely unknown and foreign to myself, but whom i had wished to find. For the next 9 months of my life, Shlomi Devos would become my personal exploration, and i wouldn't stop searching until i found who i was looking for.

This is the journal of a girl who moved to a land she hoped to learn more about, and the start of a soul searching journey that never ends, but thus begins, the continuous search for Shlomi Devos, my biological father.