It was the third night of the standard Birthright trip and we were staying at a new Kibbutz out in a desert area of Israel. I unfortunately cannot remember the name of this Kibbutz because I’m a schmuck. Up to this point we had been up for two straight nights boozing, partying, getting to know each other through the use of the great drinking game Kings, hiking, sightseeing, and other various activities. Not to mention a 13 hour flight from which I was still recovering from. When we got to our resting spot in the Kibbutz we were given new roommates. My new roommates were Translator, whose nickname is derived from the story I’m about to share. He was a good dude, a little quiet, but someone who was very easy to live with and get along with. My other roommate was Scalp one of the craziest fuckers I have ever met in my life, at first he reminded me of Slayer from his mannerisms and the fact that he looked and sounded just like him, but the main difference between Scalp and Slayer is that Scalp was an absolute maniac. The one event where this whole insane perception I have of Scalp came to be (in my mind at least) was when we were in Jerusalem. On the second night there the whole group was boozing hard, Scalp especially, and the guy decided to let everyone shave his head, then he went out on his own and explored the streets of Jerusalem BY HIMSELF. I will say this for Scalp though, the guy had a good heart he wasn’t a bad dude, just completely out of his mind.
Now getting back to the story…After dinner everyone settled into their new rooms. Scalp and I are down to keep the party going where as it seemed the majority of our group wanted to stay in for the night and recover from the aforementioned list of activities. However this did not discourage Scalp from trying to find something to do that night besides rest. He easily convinced Translator and myself to follow him into the night. We grab a few of our wine bottles that we had purchased from the Golan Heights Winery the day before and headed out.
We walk past one “cabin” on the Kibbutz where three men not from our group were smoking hookah. As soon as we past them they invite us onto their deck to join in the hookah. Without even discussing it Scalp ran onto the deck, grabbed a hookah hose and began smoking. Translator and I figured we might as well join them after all it was outside in the middle of the Kibbutz. The three guys were very friendly and hospitable, but they really didn’t know that much English, which is why Translator became the MVP of the night. Translator was able to speak the Hebrew/Arabic or whatever hybrid language the guys were speaking pretty damn well and was able to act has the interpreter for the evening. Quite frankly if it wasn’t for Translator, that night would have never played out the way it did.
The three guys belonged to a group of people in Israel known as the Drus. The Drus are a sect of Islamic people who live in Israel and are loyal to the country and I believe have participated in the Israeli army as well, and still maintained their Islamic beliefs and traditions. They had a one hose hookah that was hitting very well and smoothly. While smoking with them I popped open one of my wine bottles, the Drus brought out some glasses and we had an intercultural cheers with our new friends.
The Drus also had their stock of booze as well and shared it with us. After maybe an hour or two of boozing and hookah smoking, We go from the normal “getting to know you” conversation to teaching our new friends (through Translator of course) some of our favorite English words like pussy and cock, and the Drus taught us similar sophisticated words in their language as well. Every time somebody who looked like a chick walked by in the distance one of them would scream “I HAVE BIG COCK FOR YOU!!” or Scalp /I would scream out the Hebrew version of that sentence. We were all dying in laughter and proceeded to drink and smoke more as you can see.
We were running low on booze so two of the Drus went to get more booze and Scalp went with them. At first Translator and I didn’t think much of the situation but then we looked at each other as if to say, what the fuck just happened. A rule of the Birthright group was to never leave the spot where the group is staying, for obvious reasons especially alone. Scalp did not follow these rules, and got into a car with two people we had literally just met three hours ago. Translator and I continued to smoke the hookah and engage in friendly conversation with the one Dru who stayed, while thinking the whole time that Scalp may end up being either: 1) Killed 2) Kicked off of Birthright or 3) Abducted and then killed. I suppose you can blame this paranoia on the media, my own prejudices or the fact that Israel is one of the most conflict ridden areas of the world, take your pick. After what felt like an eternity later Scalp returned with the other two Drus and more fantastic liquor. Once they returned more friends from the Birthright group had gotten word from Scalp about the festivities and came by. Now the Drus were shouting “I have a big cock” to the girls of our group which I found exponentially more entertaining. The girls were cool with it after all they were getting free hookah and booze.
Towards the end of the night the communication between us and the Drus went down like this. Scalp would shout out what he thought was perfect Hebrew to the Drus but was really just drunken gibberish, Translator would try to umm…translate…what he was saying, and I would sit there and say the only Hebrew word I knew “Tov” which meant good.
Once all the booze was gone and both Scalp and one of the Drus were sufficiently shitfaced, aka passing out, we called it a night, and parted ways with our friendly hosts. That whole night really opened my eyes to the true kindness of strangers. I mean it’s not like they saved our lives while putting themselves at risk, but still these complete strangers who didn’t even speak the same language as us welcomed us into their home with open arms and a freshly packed hookah. To me that is the ultimate act of kindness.
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| Translator in action |
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| Scalp trying to speak Hebrew |
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| One hell of a night |
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