A Letter From An Unhappy Camper

Hi. I’m a camper in Gan Israel Caracas Venezuela. All of you probably know me, so I don’t want to say my name.

Every day I come to camp about 9 a clock, I don’t come with any of the noisy buses, I like going by car better. When I get there, one of the Madrichim or Shmulik takes me to the boy’s camp. Since I usually get there before the la Florida bus, I go to the soccer court to play a little bit, or just walk around, until camp starts.

That’s where the trouble starts. Every day all the kids beat me up. The hit me they push me and they even kick me. HARD. They don’t think it bothers me, and I make sure that they don’t see me cry. But they don’t stop. The truth is that sometimes the madrichim stop them, if the kids don’t listen, sometimes the madrichim pick me up make sure the other campers can’t hit me any more. During Davening and breakfast nobody bothers me. Sometimes afterwards they do, sometimes not. But also a lot of times on the trips, when the other kids get bored they start hitting me again. And also when the kids hit me, they think it’s funny. They don’t think about me at all. They’re heartless, they argue over who hit me, and what I did when they hit me. But they don’t even think for a second a bout how I feel. All the kids do it, not always at the same time, but at some point or another they all beat me up. Even the counselors hit me sometimes. But I like the Americans better; they don’t hit me so much.

I try not to think about the bad parts and only the good. But its very hard. I was even thinking about not coming back to camp any more, but I was told to give it one more time. But this year was the same as the others. I’m never coming back! And that’s final!


Yours Truly,
The Soccer Ball


(An Article I Wrote for this weeks newsletter, will be translated by one of the Shuchats)