The Rest of the Second Week, And Shabaton Report

Thursday: We played soccer in the morning. The Little league played by our court, and the older teams played in the Hebraica court. In the afternoon we went to Bolita Center, a mall nearby, and had a scavenger hunt. Amongst the things you need to do (everything for free): get presents for the head counselor and director. Find a Jew and teach them something you learned in camp. Get a donation for camp. Make fake Tzitzis (well, duh!) make Tfilin. Hold a baby. Get someone to tie your shoe. Get a bag. Get a shoe box. Find the weirdest thing. Teach two people the Russian song, Ochin Chislivi. (Which surprisingly is a big hit!) Get one kid dressed up. And maybe another thing or two. The kids did a great job. We all had a lot of fun.

Friday: We went to the batting cages. Every kid got two or three tokens. Each token gets you about twenty pitches. I actually managed to do ok, despite the fact that I haven’t picked up a bat in three years. When we got back to camp, we played the Traveling to Yerushalaim game. A board with 100 spaces. You roll the dice, and whichever space you fall on, you have to runaround the whole camp to find that paper. On the paper there is a question you need to answer, and then you can roll the dice again. Tveria won.

Shabbos was the Shabaton for the boys. The kids started coming by 5:15 or so. Shabbos starts 6:35. there were a total of 20 kids. My bunk was not invited, and 4 kids from the oldest bunk lost it because they ran off in the park when we went horseback riding. We prepared the Scavenger hunt for Sabbos afternoon, Mamesh the last minutes before Sabbos. Friday night we davened in the big Shul. The counselors came into Kabolas Shabbos wearing funny hats which added to the Avir. (this is all a bit of a Mahapeicho for the Shul. Because kids are unofficially not invited. So Shabbos is usually pretty dull. But the Baal Habatim at least, seamed to have liked it. Friday night meal was at Shui’s house. The kids and counselors, (and co counselors all slept there too.) the kids kept us busy trying to put them to sleep till about 2 am. Shabbos morning we came to shul about 10:30. the main minyan starts at 9, but we were making our own minyan. Our minyan had to be rushing through the parts that the kids don’t say, and singing all the parts they know. Shmulik did a on the spot Kriah. We played the count the word in the aliya game during kriya. We had ices to keep the kids going. Two Baal Habatimenjoyed helping out. By the end of Davening the kids were pretty restless. At least they made it till Shishi fine! After Davening we went up yo the Kidush. We had our own 4 tables at one end. The kids sang, and we got one of the baal habatim that is Shaich to it, to farbreng for the kids. Afterwards a few kids went back to Shui’s house to “take a nap”. Most kids stayed in the Jabad House to play a little. At 4:30 we had the scavenger hunt. For some reason the clues did not all send them to the next hint, but they had fun, and Tzfas managed to find all the hints, just not in order. Mincha we davened with the main Minyan. Shalosh Seudos was by Shui’s house. Shui told a story. And a bit before the end Shmary explained the kids what Shmayonkee is, and told them that if they Scream for it, they’ll get it. None of us had prepared for this. But we Bentched, Davened Maariv, made Havdoleh, and then we quickly put on the skit with the guy with his hands tied up, having a meeting. Thanks Shui for digging into your camp days to remember that one. The kids liked it so much that we had to quickly make up another one, where we wanted to leave Cuba for Venezuela, and only one of had papers, so the other two would be his horse. Thanks again Shui. Mostly it was Shmaya, Shmary and Me. Pretty impressive, three Americans putting on stand up comedy in Spanish! Yosale also acted in the second one. If we were willing, the kids would be very happy to see more. We decided to tell the kids to put on some skits. The parents came a bit after that to pick them up. And the end of the Shabaton, you had a bunch of tired counselors, and a bunch of happy capers. Thank You Very Much Shui and Chani for the food, and all your work, Shabbos was great! Because of the way the kids liked the Shmayonkee, we will probably make a major Kamtza Bar Kamtza skit on Tisha Beav. Today we will probably go to Hebraica again to do Mivtzoim.

Mashiaj Ya!