The corona needs to be infected with the corona to disappear, to be with friends is worth running fast even at the cost of an asthma attack, and on the friendship bench in the garden in Sderot you can also talk to a child who was hit by a missile and ascended to heaven.
This is the way you see reality in five first graders, who climb trees and shout around Kfar Saba Park, so that everyone will hear that they can read and jump on one leg and practice push-ups.
Through their "magic glasses" you can see that missiles are only found in Sderot and not in any other city, how candy helps to convey pain from an injection or chemotherapy treatments, or why the corona is so hard to find (because it is completely transparent).
Emma Ohana comes from Sderot, Yuval Kuliner from Ramat Hasharon, Harel Bezerno from Kibbutz Gesher Haziv, Ivri Handin from Kfar Sirkin and Shani Rokach from Rehovot.
The five of them, along with seven other children, are now participating in the "Secret Life of 5-Year-Olds" program (until next Sunday on yes docu and STINGTV).
"I live really far away, in Sderot," her mother speaks quickly.
"It's fun to live in Sderot, but sometimes there is a red color, and power outages, and it scares kids."
Is it scary just for kids?
"I do not know, but it scares me. Ido, a child from our kindergarten, is already dead. Now he is in heaven, even though I do not really know how to ascend to heaven. What does it ascend to heaven? We have a friendship bench in the kindergarten with him, because there are children left in the kindergarten he was "In it, and some went up to the school, and on the membership bench you can sit. There he is with us, even though he is not really with us."
If you were sitting with Ido on the bench, what would you want to tell him?
"I want to tell him, why did you touch the window? It is forbidden to touch the window, only from the age of 30 it is allowed. D, then a missile went into his head, and he just died and his mother got a scratch.
This is what we were told in kindergarten.
"And I would also like to tell him that you are lucky to have come to us, to the bench, because we can talk."
"Knows how to write in 'big'."
Emma Ohana, Photo: Yehuda Peretz
At the end of December, she will be 6. A small-big girl who has already been hit by the impossible reality of the residents of Sderot.
Her heart breaks when she speaks freely and in pain full of innocence about the death of the late Ido Avigal, a kindergarten friend who was killed last May by a rocket fragment that penetrated through the security window of his home during Operation Wall Guard.
He was only 5 years old.
She has a sweet voice, to her mother, and a smile that reveals two front teeth that are just beginning to grow, after the deciduous teeth have fallen out.
She is the daughter of Liron (37), director of an advertising agency, and Israel (34), who implements information systems, and a sister of Itai (7 and a half) and Ella (one year and ten months).
The charm of a girl, who just after telling how hard it is to live in the shadow of the red color alarms, will be proud that she dances hip hop and can already read.
In her eyes, fear and joy and play and pain mix together.
• • •
She licks her lips when she tells that when her father is not home and there is a red color, he brings her and her brother ice cream.
"I really like gum-flavored ice cream and smurf ice cream," she smiles.
"Once my father, who works really far away, in Tel Aviv, did not have time to arrive when he was red, so when he returned home he brought us ice cream.
"I have a security room in the house, which is a room and has everything.
There used to be a red color right after I finished showering and when my brother was just in the shower.
He had to run.
What to do, red color is not fun.
It bothers me a lot.
I would like this mess to end already. "
Mother Liron, listening from the side, wipes away a tear.
"I did not hear her mother talk about Ido," she says.
"With us she does not want to talk about it at all. After it happened she even said, 'Mom, I do not want you to talk to us about it, it's very sad to me,' and that's it.
"Apparently she does feel comfortable talking to children her age. Even though we are a very rebellious family, she just did not feel comfortable. It was a difficult case for all of us. A case that made us realize it could reach any home, and that the next escalation probably would not stay here. To be more anxious, even though we were never afraid. "
• • •
A glimpse into the world of children allows us, the adults, to look away for a moment and realize that sometimes not everything is black or white.
Sometimes, when kids want to tell about their lives, they really just want them to know they already know how to read and write, or can run far without getting tired.
"I know how to write in 'big'," says her mother, and demonstrates on an erasable board how she writes her mother, mother and father in letters and not in print.
"And I can read whole sentences," Ivri boasts.
"Knows how to read whole sentences."
Ivri Handin, Photo: Dalia Shachar
They start talking about favorite foods, and when everyone says Bamba, Shani closes his ears.
"I have a peanut allergy," she says, expertly explaining what happens if she smells or touches peanuts.
"At first I have irritation in my mouth, after that I am tired and also have difficulty breathing, after that I also vomit, and at the end I become red and swollen, then go to the hospital and inject me with a medicine that helps."
How many times have you explained all this?
"I have no idea," she laughs.
"I also have an allergy to dust, all kinds of washing powders and makeup like that of a game. I also have asthma, and after I run it's hard for me to breathe and I have an inhaler. Lucky I don't have to run and rave now.
"But want to hear something funny? I'm the best in the class at running and manage to get in front of everyone, but then I have an asthma attack. It's not worth the attack after the run, but I want to be with all the friends so I run fast."
Hebrew: "Even in my brother's class there is a girl with an allergy to fill things. She can eat almost nothing, really nothing."
Her mother: "There was a girl in kindergarten who was allergic to flour, she could not eat anything with flour, not even pizza. But they make her pizza without flour and then she can eat it."
"The allergy makes me very uncomfortable, I hate it," Shani is adamant.
"I suffer from it, and constantly have to do shots and tests, and it's not fun. But one time, when I was with Dad and Mom in the hospital after they accidentally brought me a pretzel with peanut butter instead of chocolate, my dad suddenly went back and forth with McDonald's and all sorts of fun surprises. "To make me happy. He and his mother made me very happy."
Then, quietly, she says that in the previous kindergarten she went through a boycott.
"I was told unpleasant words and it was really unpleasant for me. In the end I told the teacher, and she helped me and I was not sad and alone anymore."
"Because of the allergies, I'm not waiting in line at a hospital."
Shani Rokach, Photo: From the family album
She is a peppery girl, full of the joy of life.
Daughter of Heli (40), owner of a pension insurance agency and Tomer (40), owner of a real estate marketing company, and sister of Liam (13) and Guy (10).
"The best ambassador of allergy," her parents define it.
Indeed, the ability of expression, understanding and openness with which she talks about allergies, help to make accessible the difficult situation of a girl who comes with her own food to parties, who can not just eat like that in a restaurant or on a birthday, for fear of even opening a bamba bag there.
But the road to raising awareness for children like Shani is far from over.
"When our eldest son celebrated a bar mitzvah, we ordered a restaurant two months ago," says Tomer.
"We called the day before to make sure everything was closed, and also mentioned that we have a daughter with a peanut allergy.
"We were told there was no problem, but in the middle of the incident Shani suddenly did not feel well, and we both understood what was happening here and flew to the hospital. She received treatment on time and her condition stabilized, but because they did not keep peanuts in this incident risked her life Of our son, because we were in the hospital. "
Second: "I'm not waiting in line at the hospital at all. Because I have a life-threatening allergy they put me straight."
"I got the dog Coke after I was in the hospital," smiles Yuval with a captivating smile.
"I had leukemia, which is a type of cancer, and I asked for it at the beginning of the treatments. They brought it to me on my birthday, it was actually fun."
She is the daughter of Chen (42), a human resources manager, and Nick (42), an information systems manager, and she has two older sisters, May (8) and Shani (10), as well as her voice the bitch, whose name Yuval can not say without smiling.
At the beginning of the meeting she continued for a few more moments in her mother's enveloping embrace.
Her voice is delicate and sweet, and the brown curls that reach over her shoulders bounce from side to side with every movement of hers.
When she was 4 and a half years old, she was diagnosed with leukemia, and for seven months she underwent chemotherapy, received steroids and was hospitalized at Schneider Hospital in Petah Tikva.
"When I was in kindergarten I felt unwell, and my mother tested my fever," she says in a whisper.
"I had a high fever, so they took me to the hospital and saw that I had leukemia, that it was cancer. They did full tests for me and each time I got full shots, which hurt, but I found methods to overcome it."
What methods, for example?
"Not looking at the needle, or taking candy and eating while doing the test. Now I don't have a lot of tests."
When Harel says that someone who has cancer is supposed to be bald, Yuval is not ashamed.
"Yes, my hair fell out, and Mom and Dad took me to their bed and cleaned my whole pillow," she shares, and my heart contracts.
"I got it for my birthday."
Yuval Kuliner and the dog Cola, Photo: From the family album
"She suddenly had a lot of blue marks, we took her for blood tests at the center and there they found that the hemoglobin level was very low," says mother Chen.
"We thought they would send us to the emergency room to receive a dose of blood and everything would be fine, but the next day we were informed at the hospital that she had leukemia. From there she started a kind of routine of hospitalization and treatments."
• • •
Meanwhile at our picnic, which includes donuts, candies and lots of breaks for climbing trees or for sports games, the kids keep talking about animals.
Harel says he has two dogs, Romeo and Juliet, and Ivri shares that he has an annoying cat that scratches all the time.
"I once hid in a closet and felt something pleasant. It was our cat," he recalls.
"I stroked and stroked him, but in the end he scratched me four scratches. It angered me."
Yuval reveals to me in secret that sometimes she is really angry at the dog Cola and wants to be taken from the house, because she destroys dolls and games.
"But I half want it, because then her voice makes a cute face and I love her back and want her to stay."
Harel says he built a camp not far from home, hung a colorful hammock between two large trees and played there for many hours.
"What is a camp?"
Shani asks him, and Harel explains that the camp is like a house where he took a lot of games and was fun to play in.
"Last week I cut down the camp tree, destroyed everything," he says, "but I came with my father and we rebuilt it, with a colorful hammock and games. We moved it near the system (the system road at the edge of the kibbutz - BA)."
He is an energetic and playful boy, Harel.
He lives in Kibbutz Gesher Haziv in the Western Galilee and has five brothers: Noa (15), Hila (13), Itamar (10), Mika (9) and his younger sister Libby (3).
His mother, Hagit (44), is a full-time mother, and Aviram (44), his father, serves as a border officer in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Itamar and Harel greet the Kiddush of Shabbat, in turn.
"My father is an officer in the Cave of the Patriarchs, which is a really big place," Harel spreads both hands.
"When he started the job, a year ago, we went to a ceremony in a cave. I was sure it was a cave like that of ancient man, so dark, small, and suddenly I see a huge structure, just not like I imagined. Since then we have been in the cave several times "Keep there. I'm never scared there."
"Dad and I rebuilt the camp."
Harel Bejarano, Photo: From the family album
Beja, his parents call him, as his friends call him, and when his father is at home, he wants to spend quality time with him.
"This week he went to the center after school. A kind of community center where he does his homework," says Hagit.
"In a house of six children, when the father is almost absent, everyone takes a role. Harel is in charge. He can be a satanic, play and walk, and a moment later suddenly shower his little sister. He keeps telling me, 'Don't worry, I'm fine.' And he's really fine.
"But Aviram is also very careful to be with him. When he is at home, he is mainly with him and with my heart, he spends quality time with them."
"It's really fun to have a lot of brothers," Harel laughs, and Shani says she's the third daughter in the family, "like the cherry on the cake's whipped cream."
Ivri, who so far has not really mentioned his brother, stands up and declares: "Now I want to tell about my brothers. I have three brothers, the little Jordy (Jordan) who is almost a year old, a generation that celebrated its 4th birthday, and Harel, my big brother Not Harel next to me, another Harel, in second grade. "
"Oh, I'm your brother?"
Harel laughs next to him, and Ivri answers him: "Suddenly, you are not my brother.
"You are not 8 years old, Harel is 8 years old.
"You're not in second grade. Harel is in second grade.
"And you are not crippled, because if you were crippled you would have a treadmill. And you do not have a treadmill and Harel has.
"Now, want to see how they dance breakdance?"
Ivri likes to go to a breakdance class once a week, and twice a week for football.
His mother, Noa, owns a blog about motherhood, and Ivri explains that "she is constantly filming things and then you see and know us."
His father Lior is a lawyer.
His older brother, Harel, was born premature and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy causing him motor difficulty mainly in maintaining balance and walking, and he used a treadmill.
"We are good friends," Ivri says of his brother, but this is not the first, third, or even fifth thing he tells.
He develops in detail his sports skills, continues his love of football and does not forget his love of reading either.
"I want them to know that I can read and that I am also really good at football," he says.
"I go to class and really like to play. My brother is not really good at football, he has a treadmill, which is something that helps him walk, and he is sometimes a little slow and sometimes a little fast."
Two: "How did this happen to him?"
Ivri: "It happened to him because he was born prematurely, long before the time. We are good brothers and good friends. I also take care of him. For example, he really does not like to eat vegetables. I once told him that if he eats cucumber I will give him NIS 100, and another time "I told him he could fly with Grandma to France. But he really did not agree. I do not know why he does not like to eat vegetables."
And you like?
"I have no problem with vegetables."
Mother Noa hears her son and nods with a smile.
"Ivri sees Harel's disability, nor does he see it. It's something he's there and so part of his life, that he does not see it as much as it represents him.
"When I heard him say 'my brother is disabled', I was really fine with it. For me it means he knows and treats it in the simplest way. It's not something that makes his world dizzy. It took us a long time to say that Harel is disabled, it's not pleasant to hear the word disabled. But it's true, and to me it was most natural to describe his brother that way.It's a wonderful thing I need to learn a lot from.
"Ivri was born a year and a half after Harel, and naturally a different, special bond is formed between them. They can be together for hours. Ivri is very helpful to Harel, and Harel also knows when he has a problem. But his brother.
"Each of the children has his own identity, and they have their own dynamics, which sometimes even I bother. It is always important to me that Ivri be on his own, play football, dance and meet friends, because he is very sociable. It is important to me not to give up things because of the situation. Of his brother. "
• • •
Aside from the donuts, the hot topic on the children’s table is the corona.
During our conversation, messages arrive from the school administrations, announcing antigen tests that will be conducted again for the children at the end of the Hanukkah holiday.
"I hate the corona, fly away from here," Shani sifts, and Yuval adds, "I would send her to a crowded place, and then the corona would stick to the corona and disappear."
Understand that not everything is black and white.
Participants in "The Secret Life of 5-Year-Olds", Photo: Maya Baumel Birger
Ivri arranged with his mother to go get vaccinated.
"I hate to get vaccinated and do not like shots," he declares, "but I understand that you need to get vaccinated. It's enough already, that this corona will go from here."
What annoys you about Corona?
Emma: "It's really annoying that every time you have to put on masks and we go into solitary confinement. It's not fun. We learned a lot from the zoom because the whole class was in solitary confinement. We're already really waiting for the corona to run out. It is transparent. "
Shani: "Yeah, already really tired of it. All day we are wearing masks at school, and the teacher constantly wakes everyone who takes off the mask. All these isolations were really annoying too. On my 5th birthday there was a closure and there was no party. On Yom Kippur the whole class Mine was in isolation, except for me, because I was not in school while the sick girl was in class.So I did not need isolation, but I would rather play with my friends.
"Maybe it's funny, but I'm scared of the vaccine.
"So do not, you do not have to," Yuval lies on her stomach on the mat, resting her head on her palms.
"It's funny," says Emma Chen, "but when she says the corona is annoying, I think ours got good things out of it, because everyone was wearing masks and she was protected.
"In general, she treated leukemia in a very mature and positive way throughout, and knew how to see the positive points in everything she went through. We drew strength from her all the time and learned to look on the positive side in everything. In general, these children can teach us everything, just have to look. on them".
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