What to do with the little ones… Karmiel for kids?

So we thought we would give the Olive Festival another go.  Thinking perhaps we had misread the advertising, we trotted off to Park Hamishpacha today for what was supposed to be a day of Kids Activities.  We thought it would be a nice place to take a walk and see street performances or whatever other shabbat-friendly activities they had on offer.  The park was lovely, they have a covered play area (gymboree thingy) for kids and lots of other fun stuff but still no sign of an olive festival.  My friend asked an official who sent us to Park Hagalil, another beautiful park with lovely flowers but all they had was a few people picking olives and some music.  No sign of any kids activities.  This is after a full page ad in Haaretz, (this alone must have cost them thousands of shekels) plus a website.  I am an ex-fundraiser so I know what these things cost.  All for nothing!  There was apparantly some sort of fair last week but a friend reported it was poorly attended and she barely broke even on her stall.  I am really shocked – why would anyone spend so much money advertising such a small event??? Now we are wondering if this is part of some huge advertising scheme to get people to move to this town.  Well they got me, I thought it looked like fun.

Husband did manage to bring home 2 handpicked olives though, and he is currently busying himself in the kitchen experimenting with an ageold picklin method.  We wish him good luck.

Apart from the beautiful parks in the town, there isn’t much on offer for small children.  No story time at the library, no rhyme time at the coffee shop, no local mummy groups, no jewish mummy groups at the shul, not even any overpriced babyyoga or babysigning for yummy mummies.  Certainly nothing subsidised by the government like you get in London.  The only thing we have found is weekly baby groups at the Matnas (community centre) which are incredibly expensive and I have no idea how anyone earning the average israeli wage is supposed to afford them.  And another stroke of genius – all the activities for kids over 1 are in the evening!!! Outside of the major cities, Israel is still very much living in its socialist mentality of children being sent off to daycare as early as possible, and it’s assumed that any child over 1 will only be able to attend an activity with a parent after 5pm  (terrible time to do anything with kids – or adults even, I have taken Jojo along a few times and despite the facilitator being a very bouncy bubbly lady, you can still see mummys and kids yawning away).

My philosophy on these things has always been that if you can’t find what you need locally, do it yourself.  So this is how I have found myself  in the position of having a group of random mummys and babies turning up to my house this wednesday morning for Music Babies (or Shirim V’kef / שירים וכייף as we have named it in hebrew).  I had several friends who were interested but I have also been picking up women in the local parks and (occasionally) on the street.  If they have a pram, I lynched them.  I have planned what I  hope will be a fun session for all, although it’s a bit of a challenge as olim and Israelis have very different expectations for such things (and lets hope they all understand my accent).  I think it will be great fun for Jojo and just what the community needs but Husband is, of course very concerned about his posh stereo equipment and our brand new rug.

I have informed him that with little boys around it’s really not a good idea to get too attached to anything.  Especially something shiny with twiddly knobs on it.