Yaron's adventures in the bomb shelter - Thursday, January 15, 2009

Ann wrote:

Thursday, January 15, 2009

When Yaron got home on yesterday he was very happy to tell me all about his exciting morning. Because he lives so far away from the school, and because he is the only one from our village who attends there, he has a driver (also from our village) who takes him in a taxi each day. They were actually just approaching the school when the sirens went off. At first they thought it was just a police car, until they heard the news on the radio. They ran to bomb shelter #1, but was told it was full, so they ran to bomb shelter #2. After a few minutes they were told to go back to shelter#1 because that was where the rest of the class was. (I'm glad there weren't any more rockets flying around by then! There are obviously a few kinks in the procedure to work out!)

Once back in the correct shelter with his class, he settled down and started talking about all kinds of war history, which the kids were apparently intersted in. (He doesn't always catch on that his interests are not necessarily shared by others, but in this case his teacher said the other kids were genuinely interested.) This was fine for the first little while, but then things got more exciting.

After about twenty minutes, one of his close friends lost it and flipped out. He got hysterical and kept trying to leave, saying he wanted to go home to his parents. An hysterical child (or adult) is never fun, especially in a closed situation where you can't leave. But in this case they had an even more serious problem. This child is already over 6'6" tall, has a stocky build, and is only 14 with an emotional intelligence much younger. So basically for the rest of the time they were in the shelter, Yaron took it upon himself to calm his friend down and then to keep him that way.

All told, they were in the shelters for about two hours. Yaron, who used to panic very easily, was very proud of himself for keeping his cool the entire time. He's matured a lot the past two years. And maybe spending 6 weeks in our home bomb shelter helped a bit too? His 14th birthday is on Sunday.

When the rockets hit, the army shot artillery rounds into the area they were fired from in Lebanon, and fighter jets and attack helicopters were scrambled. We still had a lot of air activity today. Israel also filed a formal complaint with the UN. Also, soldiers from the UN and the Lebanese army also patrolled the area, which is under their control. So far this looks like an isolated incident, just like the one near near Nahariya last week.

A