Camp YavnehCamp Yavneh
July 17, 2018

Arayot Blog – End of First Month!

Author - Camp Yavneh

Shalom L’kulam!

It was quite the fun filled week here in Arayot. We started the week off with a normal day at camp, but soon transformed into an amazing peulat erev. The whole entire aydah drove to Camp Tel Noar to compete in various sports and activities. All the campers made or reconnected with friends from Tel Noar and showed amazing yachas tov. Many of them traded shirts with the Tel Noar campers, and even Bil traded shirts and was forced to wear a Tel Noar shirt for a whole day!

On Tuesday, we spent half the day in camp practicing for Zimriyah on Wednesday and Ketzev on Thursday. The practices were amazing and Arayot was clearly ready for the upcoming performances. For the second part of the day, we went to go see Incredibles II! We basically had a whole theater to ourselves to enjoy the movie. The movie was, in fact, incredible.

Wednesday was the day that we were all waiting for, Zimriyah. Everybody woke up excited and ready to start the day. We listened to past years’ Zim songs all day to pump us up. We had a normal morning of swim, kitah, and chug, but then we had shortened peulot in the afternoon to prepare. With our Zim braids in and our shirts on, we finally walked down to mifkad. We ate a delicious dinner of lo mein, and then we were ready to begin. We went to the tennis courts and the madrichim led the chanichim in various pump ups. Once Zimriyah actually began, the chanichim sang beautifully and had an incredible amount of ruach and yachas tov. So much so that we ended up tying for first place with Kerem!! Once everybody left to get ice cream, we joined Kerem in a circle to sing a special tune of Rad Hayom and then proceeded to get ice cream for ourselves! It was truly a magical day!

We woke up early on Thursday because we had Ketzev! We loaded the buses and were off to Chelsea to perform at the old age home! We performed seamlessly and the residents clearly loved it, some were even dancing and singing along! We then had an opportunity to shmooze with the residents; we talked about everything from the performance to favorite sports teams! It was incredible to watch each chanich engage with the residents even if it was out of his or her comfort zone. After we had a quick lunch at the courtyard of the nursing home, we loaded the bus and were off to Treetop Adventures! We were greeted by an enthusiastic staff member who was very excited that we were a Jewish camp because she was also Jewish. Once we learned how to use the equipment, we were sent up into the trees! Many of the chanichim chose the harder courses and made them look easy even if they were a little bit afraid. Once we all finished our courses, we loaded the bus once again and headed to Hebrew College to perform for some parents and friends. Thank you everybody who made it out to Hebrew College and who watched it on Facebook Live! The campers were so proud of themselves and the madrichim could not be any more proud of them!

After a busy, busy week, we were finally able to relax during Shabbat. Although it was sad that it was the last Shabbat of first month, we made sure to make this Shabbat the best one yet filled with tons of ruach!

On Sunday, we got to sleep in a bit and then take a two-hour long bus ride to Mount Monadnock! After we applied copious amounts of sunscreen and bug spray, we were ready to head off into the wilderness. Although many of us are not necessarily expert hikers, everybody made it up the mountain and was relieved to see the beautiful view of what seemed to be all of New Hampshire. After we admired the view for a bit and ate lunch, we headed back down the mountain. When we arrived back to camp, we had a short shower hour and then ate a delicious barbecue dinner. For our peulat erev, Kerem planned a super creative peulah for us called Erev Emergency. Every Kerem had a strange “illness” and the chanichim had to work together to diagnose the patient, come up with a back story, and then try to cure them. All the chanichim were super engaged and involved!

Although first month is coming to a close, we are looking forward to the next few days we have left of the month and reminiscing about everything that happened. We had such a fun month and we can’t wait to see everybody back for Leviim 19!

Bahava,

Shira and the rest of tzevet Arayot