Home Is Wherever I'm With You

After two months after leaving the States and moving to Israel, my dear friends Efrat and Sarai came to visit us in Kiryat Shemona. Efrat leans down to then-three-and-a-half-year-old Dahnya and asks, "How do you like your new home?" No answer.

"Dahnya, can you understand the abstract concept of the word 'home'?" Silence. Dahnya looks deep in thought. She then looks up into Efrat's shining face, "No".

"Oh, oh, I'm Coming Hoooome. Home is Wherever I'm With You." And so, we seek a new home, a new resting ground to lay our heads down in, and feel like we (even for the moment) belong there. I guess that is how the true nomads feel, always resettling down in the next "home", but always knowing that "home" is just where they are, together, with each. And so it is with us, home is where we are, together. Here's a couple of videos that show that process for us...

Read More

Who Can Sense Revelation in the Wind?

And here is the first glimpse, in the pouring rain, of the home that will change us forever. Little did we know that these two rooms, those mosquito nets, that river, the dining hall, the nothingness all day, the school our kids attended and we volunteered in, the community of friends we'd make, the six of us (our family +Adir) would create unimaginable magic that forever, forever will be in our hearts.
It's a quick short soaking wet glimpse into a world unfolding before our eyes.

"Who can sense revelation in the wind?" (Princess Bride)

Read More

The Holy Land: Our Favorite Family Things to Do

 

Israel is a tiny, complicated, precious country, and the only one we call home. She boasts God-kissed mountains, arid deserts, breath-taking waterfalls, and world-famous beaches; more patents, scientists, published books, and inventions per capita than any other nation in the world; world-renown and internationally critical historical, archeological, and religious sites. . Israelis are strong-willed, stubborn, out-spoken, warm-hearted, and intense people. Israelis are always-ready to tell you how to raise your child, open his home up to a perfect strangers, and laugh at the sometimes harder shades of life.  With mandatory military service (3 years for boys; a year and eight months for girls) shaping its people's character, Israelis and Israel is a constant foil of soft and hard, bitter and sweet, surreal and mundane. 

These are our top family things to do around Israel. 

Read More

Glimpses into a Rancher's Life.

Life on the ranch in La Lucha de la Tigra, Costa Rica and in neighboring Florencia allowed us to experience so much we had never touched or tasted before. From hitchhiking on the back of an open trucks, to rainforest exhibitions by kindly neighbors, to working on the farm to fishing to volunteering, to getting really bored... Here's a smattersborge(?) of some of that precious, crazy, new life.

Read More

How It Feels Not To Feel Guilty

Last night officially ended the Jewish High Holy Days. It's a string of four holidays strung over the period of a month. Besides the Holy of Days in which (if you're a good Jew) you fast for your sins; the rest of the holidays are filled with celebrating, eating, reflecting, appreciation. All of that cleansing and  renewal is just behind us and besides the bananas browning and the rains starting earlier in the day, nothing indicates to me the passage of time, of a new year. It's September so my kids are 'supposed' to be starting another school year. I'm 'supposed' to be entering my soul and reflecting on what I feel guilty about, and I come out blank. My mind and soul are blank; I am totally at rest; I don't feel guilty about anything at all.

Read More

The US in Twelve Minutes

Life is not a dress rehearsal. We believe that this is our one and only shot at life, and nothing guarantees that we'll even be around tomorrow. Hence, when we set out for this nomadic family world dream; we also hoped for a smaller USA RV dream. We found a Cruise America deal for only $12 a night! Unreal! 
We loved experiencing the desert, snow, mountains, rivers, new friends, and (best of all) hearing our kids speak in English! This entry depicts that journey.
Below,  we posted an amazing 12 min video of this RV Trip.

Read More

Peaceful Days

Part of peaceful days for a nomadic family is not being nomadic. When we settle down in a place for  while, we reap the rewards of routine and inner calmness. We've found the quiet spot in Alto Boquete, Panama in the little cabana the size of our living room back home. It is here that we have the time to look at clouds, dance around in rain ponchos, invest in our family's health, and cut coconuts reflectively. Just normal, every day great family material- be it in our own backyard, or half way across the world.

Read More

Saying Yes To Something Else

Last night, we had the most magical Sabbath Dinner to date on our journeys. Barbara and Mort opened their home by the river to us, and filled our stomachs and hearts with love. As we entered their home, every one of my senses were fired up and filled simultaneously.

Read More

Glass Jars

I’m alone with Volcan Baru, a coconut, and my first glass jar. Back home, drinking water out of glass jars was a real joy for me. One of those simple things that made me so happy. I’d take a jar and go outside, with the sun and the air tickling my water and glistening on the jar’s translucent beauty. Just holding a cool glass jar in my hands is quite a spiritual thing for me. It’s mine. I love being alone, to write, with a glass jar. 

Read More

Jesus Talk

We’ve had a lot of ‘Jesus Talk’ since our day in San Ramon, Costa Rica.  And for a family of Jews, ‘Jesus Talk’ is pretty exciting.

Read More

La Lucha School

Volunteering in the rural school of La Lucha de la Tigra, Costa Rica changed our lives. We were welcomed and loved whole-heartedly by an entire community. We spent whole days in the school, after schools at friends' houses, and many weekends with overnight company, mostly Ever. Our kids marched into classrooms in which neither the teacher nor the students could speak a word they could understand. As an ad hoc English teacher on the road throughout Latin America, the rewards of teaching has  ALWAYS been watching my kids gain friends from it.

Read More

Free Rainforest Exhibition

en route with my son's new best friend Ever

We know many who have paid $100 a person for a day in the rainforest. WE DID IT FOR FREE!!! So cool, and just one example of what is available to you when you are a nomadic family:  travel slowly, live with the locals, and get to experience EVERY TOURIST ATTRACTION IMAGINABLE for free! We've had so far over a dozen such experiences. This exhibition was led by our neighbor Oscar who took us for a four-hour exhibition through rain forest, fields, and valleys. We went with my son's new best friend Ever. I still can't seem to write about  Ever too much.

Read More

Best Friends, Cowboy Gatherings, & Pineapples

"Oracio es me mejor amigo"(orazi is my best friend) Ever (the boy's name) says, as he hugs my boy.Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good. My motherly heart is overflowth. The rest of our day pales in comparison, it's just details compared to that. But, it's still worth sharing cuz it was amazing. We spent our day 100% with the locals of La Lucha celebrating a country fair!!!!

Read More

Costa Rican Shabbat

As a nomadic family, we are honored, when (once in a while) we get to share magical moments with our new friends. Here, on the ranch in La Lucha de la Tigra, Costa Rica we had so many magical sharing of cultures.

Read More

Stay or Go

When you are a nomadic family scaling the globe, you have total freedom to decide each and every next step. Very cool, and, at the same time, very over-whelming. These two videos reflect our confusion and how we're trying to wade our way out of it.

Read More

What I've Learned This Week- June, La Lucha de La Tigre, Costa Rica

As a nomadic family living on a remote ranch in Costa Rica, we discovered new and marvelous things. In this entry, I want to share 11 surprising and wondrous insights from our lives here.

Read More

Sonia and Don Jose Ramon

Living on a secluded ranch, off a dirt road in La Lucha de la Tigra Costa Rica was our first nomadic family Latin American immersion. We dedicate this entry to all the magic and love that Don Jose Ramon and Sonia brought to our lives in those weeks.

Read More

Joy in the Simple Things

I know I'm the mom, but Ithink they are just amazing. My kids refuse to be bored. Life as a nomadic family has allowed them to become even more inventive, creative, imaginative, and full of light. Watch this collection of videos from our slow-paced life on the ranch; and their magic, as they wait at a bus stop,create marvelous worlds out of boredom, and learn to enjoy hanging out with their parents, and themselves.

Read More

Life and Death on the Ranch

Our days on the ranch in the La Lucha De La Tigra, Costa Rica were like no other. We learned to work the land, to know its animals; to pick, dig, lasso, milk, fish, fix, create, ride, explore and observe. Things that only happened because we lived there, with the locals, very quietly in an unrushed and open sort of way for 42 marvelous days.Such gifts for a nomadic family!

Read More

Volunteering and Sharing Cultures

In La Lucha de la Tigra, Costa Rica and its neighboring town Florencia; we were blessed to share our lives with others. We got to teach English and a Clean Your Soul class to the adults, English in the local school, and share precious moments with the senior citizens. We gave a few gifts and got so many, many more. This collection of video and pictures reflects a few moments from that magic.

Read More