A Week at Camp: Israel Day!
Today was Israel Day -- or as it's better known, Yom Yisrael (its Hebrew name). All of the multicolored decorations for the Maccabiah Games were taken down and replaced with blue and white ones (the colors of the Israeli flag). Israeli music played all day on the camp's speaker system, and miniature Israeli flags were hung from anything that stood still!
Across the camper cabins.
In the breezeway outside the dining hall.
And this chick put a flag in her ponytail!
The counselors put on a skit during lunch. This guy is playing the captain of an El Al flight.
During lunch, the campers sang HaTikvah, the Israeli national anthem, and this song:
Am Yisrael chai! Od Avinu chai!
(The people of Israel live! Our God lives!)
For dinner, we had pita bread, felafel, and hummus. I ate most of it. While in France, I got very good at forcing myself to eat foods I don't like. (Normally, though, it's not a habit I practice.) That brings me to the one complaint I have about this camp -- the food here is too darn healthy! Their idea of dessert is a piece of honey cake, which is what we had tonight. Ugh! You can imagine what a shock this is to my sugar-loving system. I love being here, but I am looking forward to some fast food and soda when I get home.
After dinner, I tagged along with a group of campers to visit the camp's chicken coops. There were several hyperactive squealing girls and one lone boy. The counselors let a few of them in the coop at a time to pet and hold the chickens. The kids enjoyed it, but I don't think the chickens did. I heard one girl yelling, "Please don't peck me, Mr. Chicken! Or Mrs. Chicken!"
You can't really see it, but the two little girls in the back are holding a chicken between them. (This is a good photo for me.) I kept wanting to say, "Good morning, Mrs. Hen," a la Return to Oz.
After that, we had evening prayer services on the grass beside the lake. After that, the staff set up a store of Israeli/Jewish merchandise in the breezeway outside the dining hall. There was stuff like miniature flags, postcards, stickers, removable tattoos, decals, etc. that you could "buy" with photocopies of Israeli money. I bought a new bumper sticker for Muse Watson; it says something like "Go Green!" on it in Hebrew, according to the 12-ish-year-old camper who translated for me. There are actually several staff members and even a few campers here from Israel. I've heard a lot of Hebrew this week, but I don't think I'm learning any! I also got a little bag of potato chips that I'm munching on right now. Long live junk food!
Once again, I'm sweaty, grimy, and exhausted at the end of a long camp day. It's time to shower, do some reading, practice the Birkat Hamazon, and go to bed. Today I finally found the camp library, where I checked out Silver Days. It's not great, but I forgot to bring a book along and I have trouble falling asleep without reading something first.
Across the camper cabins.
In the breezeway outside the dining hall.
And this chick put a flag in her ponytail!
The counselors put on a skit during lunch. This guy is playing the captain of an El Al flight.
During lunch, the campers sang HaTikvah, the Israeli national anthem, and this song:
Am Yisrael chai! Od Avinu chai!
(The people of Israel live! Our God lives!)
For dinner, we had pita bread, felafel, and hummus. I ate most of it. While in France, I got very good at forcing myself to eat foods I don't like. (Normally, though, it's not a habit I practice.) That brings me to the one complaint I have about this camp -- the food here is too darn healthy! Their idea of dessert is a piece of honey cake, which is what we had tonight. Ugh! You can imagine what a shock this is to my sugar-loving system. I love being here, but I am looking forward to some fast food and soda when I get home.
After dinner, I tagged along with a group of campers to visit the camp's chicken coops. There were several hyperactive squealing girls and one lone boy. The counselors let a few of them in the coop at a time to pet and hold the chickens. The kids enjoyed it, but I don't think the chickens did. I heard one girl yelling, "Please don't peck me, Mr. Chicken! Or Mrs. Chicken!"
You can't really see it, but the two little girls in the back are holding a chicken between them. (This is a good photo for me.) I kept wanting to say, "Good morning, Mrs. Hen," a la Return to Oz.
After that, we had evening prayer services on the grass beside the lake. After that, the staff set up a store of Israeli/Jewish merchandise in the breezeway outside the dining hall. There was stuff like miniature flags, postcards, stickers, removable tattoos, decals, etc. that you could "buy" with photocopies of Israeli money. I bought a new bumper sticker for Muse Watson; it says something like "Go Green!" on it in Hebrew, according to the 12-ish-year-old camper who translated for me. There are actually several staff members and even a few campers here from Israel. I've heard a lot of Hebrew this week, but I don't think I'm learning any! I also got a little bag of potato chips that I'm munching on right now. Long live junk food!
Once again, I'm sweaty, grimy, and exhausted at the end of a long camp day. It's time to shower, do some reading, practice the Birkat Hamazon, and go to bed. Today I finally found the camp library, where I checked out Silver Days. It's not great, but I forgot to bring a book along and I have trouble falling asleep without reading something first.