Galil Blog
Every day at Machaneh (camp) Galil is a special one, but today was Special Day! On special day, we ditch our traditional Seder Yom (schedule) for a day full of themed fun!
We started the day taking “boat” (truck) trips to the “cruise ship” (chadar ochel – dining hall) for a delicious breakfast of waffles and ice cream! Our eating was interrupted with a flash mob – Alvin and The Chipmunks and the Chippettes are here! They performed an awesome choreographed dance to Yummy by Justin Bieber, and we learned the parody song of the day. ‘Party rockers in the house tonight’ became ‘Chipmunks in the bayit tonight’, bayit meaning house in hebrew. We were then introduced to Ian, their giant duck boss who cared more about the profit than the chipmunks’ well-being. We left breakfast to attend a carnival, featuring activities such as a spa with relaxing cucumber eye masks and Orbeez-filled foot baths, a karaoke station equipped with a microphone, large speakers, and lyrics displayed on a screen, and a sock wrestling station!
After we had finished our fun here, we all went to change into bathing suits: ones we would need for the rest of the day. We mozied our way down to the breicha (pool) to have a camp-wide pool party. From the pool, we went to the basketball court to learn the Chipmunks/Chippettes dance with our kvutsot(age groups). The Bonimot knocked this one out of the park, fully commiting themselves to learn every part of the dance and performing it with so much ruach (spirit), and the Kartivimot (formerly Amelimot-Chotrimot) were a close second. Then, we performed all together at the end!
At lunch, we were eating pineapple chicken and curly fries when suddenly- pause for gasp- pirates attacked the ship! They threw us all off the ship! We entertained this idea of being stranded in the ocean by continuing the day with water-themed play on the kikar (field)! We slip-n-slided through soap, we dunk-tanked evil boss Ian, we mattress-wrestled, and we flew down the waterslide as many times as we could before we made it to land.
This is when the day took a Survivor-themed turn. We began by splitting into “tribes”, just like in the show, and we made our own buffs out of bandanas, painting them the color of our selective teams. This carried into a round robin of island activities: a climbing wall relay race, what’s in the box, a water slide race, and bobbing in sand (flour) for candies. This led to more water slide fun before we finally went to a delicious outdoor dinner of burgers!
We changed into island outfits and headed to the refet (barn) for a mesibah (party), where we found out the winner of Survivor and who won the big cash prize. The Chipmunks and Chippettes decided they didn’t need capitalism’s money, and chose to stay on the island instead of returning to the cruise. We celebrated late into the night, with fun activites beyond dancing to the music, like a yummy airheads station, a drink station, and a place to get light up ears for the party! The night ended with lime jello and great stories of the day!
