Western Galilee Hospital Mural

 

Today was definitely my favorite volunteer project at the

 Western Galilee Hospital in Nahariyya.

When we got there, we met with some of the staff who told us a little bit about the hospital. It was cool to hear about how the hospital handles crisis, because they definitely have had a couple in Israel.

The hospital is SIX miles from the northern borders. This means that during the Lebanon War in 2006 and many attacks before that, this hospital literally had bombs falling around and on them. This hospital is the only in the world that has an underground hospital ready and waiting in case of an attack. In 2006 it took them an hour and a half to get every patient admitted, downstairs and into the safety. That's pretty damn good. The lower level is obviously a bomb shelter so it has blast proof doors, thick walls, and an air filtration system that can even handle a biological attack. There are connecting tunnels between the MANY underground wings, which ambulances can drive through. This allows the doctors to travel from wing to wing without having to go outside.

One of the wings underground

 

 Every employee at the hospital knows what to do if they are hit with mass casualty. They do drills often with the police and army which includes traffic control, civilian look out, getting the injured into the shelter, and knowing exactly where
 every single person should be in the hospital.

It’s hard to get the importance of this underground sanctuary through without you seeing from my bedroom window how close the hills of Lebanon are. It reminds me of when I went to Ground Zero and stood looking at where the Trade Towers use to stand, imagining what it was like for the people who were there on 9/11. It has a similar feeling here. Seeing how close we are and imagining what it would have felt like to be standing in my room, seeing rockets landing all around me.

Because of this, I was thrilled when they told us we would be doing a mural in the tunnel that leads from the Pediatric wing up stairs,
 into the shelter.

A famous children’s illustrator who pasted away recently, lived on our kibbutz his whole life. We had the opportunity to go to his house, speak with his wife, and hear their life story. His name is Shemuel Katz. He has literally painted thousands of pieces and has seen the world and made peace because of them. We decided to draw inspiration from his work and dedicate this to him also. We made huge stencils (of his easier works--remember, we are dancers) and started our mural with some of his work. I couldn't find the exact picture we used but here is some of his work.

He has dozens of books with his illustrations

And even more stunning paintings of Israel

Ours was a close second in likeness to his ;)

But I think the children will like it

The tunnel we painted was very long and has a variety of

paintings from all of us.

These are just a couple of the pictures

I pray that no one will ever have the reason to see these paintings, but if they do, I love knowing that our service and love will be there in a dark hour.