Transience

Life in Sede Boqer is rough on friendships. The problem is that it is a small, close community, so people tend to make good friends quickly. Its a bit of a survival mechanism - isolated community, strange country and culture, etc. Then people leave. The nature of the place if for people to be here for 1-4 years and then go back to their home country. Graduate school was a lot like that, but the difference is that there, all of my friends moved to other places in the same country. Here, people come from all corners of the earth, and then disappear back to those places. Tonight, another good friend, Michal, left here to return home. It is sad, but it is the nature of the place. In some cases, you know you'll never see the person again; in others, there is the hope that maybe you will. There are a few people here who I would like to meet again after we leave. Hopefully, I will have that chance one day.