Galil Blog
Shabbat shalom Galil families. Usually to start off Shabbat, chanichimot (campers) are given a chance to reenergize after the long week, however, with the nitzanimot (buds [of a blossom]), who are here for the Taste of Galil five day program we offer, woke up early in the morning to walk along the creek and skip stones with some other early birds at machaneh (camp). When they were ready, they, along with the other chanichimot, walked over to the chadar ochel (dining hall) for Saturday morning donuts! With their tummies full, everyone broke off to go to different activities run by the bogrimot (graduates)—our oldest chanichimot—to really mark the start of the day. The most popular activity was ultimate frisbee. Chanichimot had a blast throwing the disc and diving to get it before it hit the ground. Then, to round out the short morning, we ran chuggim ritzinim (serious interest groups), which is a time we spend learning about important topics that madrichimot (counselors) are passionate about. It was very impressive to see how chanichimot were able to grapple with the new ideas being presented to them. This was particularly evident in the chug Hegemonic Masculinity, which presented different ideas about how there are certain types of masculinity that are excepted in society and others that are not. Also, the MBIers (who we mentioned in the last blog post) ran a chug discussing MBI and its importance to the movement of Habonim Dror North America.
Moving into the latter of the day, for lunch, the chanichimot had the Galil Shabbat classic of pita, hummus, and Israeli salad. Then, while everyone cleaned up, the nitzanimot had a wacky time making slime and preparing an act for Musicale! The rest of machaneh had a great time with the madatz (CITs) during this. Today’s theme that the madatz ran for us was RECESS GAMES. All of machaneh had a blast playing knockout, four-square, and hopscotch. To cool off, the chanichimot were given a chance to float around the pool before washing off for musicale. At musicale, all of machaneh was given a chance to perform musical acts in a sort of talent show format. Then, finally, we went to dinner to gorge on burritos!
To sikkum (wrap up) Shabbat, we had a beautiful Kumzitz and Havdallah to reflect on the week that has passed and welcome in the coming week before blazing the trail to the medurah (bonefire) pit. Medurah was run similarly to musicale, however, for this, chanichimot are given a chance to perform any sort of act. A special surprise was an act called Gorilla (not guerrilla) Warfare, where the performers freestyle a story about being attacked by a gorilla. The reason this act was special is that it was brought to us from Gesher’s medurah. Gesher is a Habonim Dror North America machaneh located in Ontario, Canada, so it was very nice to see inter-machaneh traditions being born. And finally, to cap off the week, we had glida (ice cream) back at the chadar ochel before going to bed.
One last time, Shabbat Shalom, Amos