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This machaneh looks at Revolutionaries, and how the chanichim can change the world! They look at such people such as Nelson Mandella and Martin Luthor King, as well as of course going into the Jewish aspect of this. Throughout machaneh they will enjoy different fun, yet educational peulot (activities) around this interesting theme.
Tuesday 31st July: Tiyul (Day 1)
Today the bus set off pretty much on time, and through the bus journey spirits were high and all the chanichim were singing on the bus. They arrived in Ashby-de-la-Zouche- the town where they will be around for the next 4 days doing tiyul - at about 4.00 this afternoon, bang on time.
When they got off the bus they were spolit into their kvutsot (groups) which they were all happy with. There are about 12 chanichim (participants) in each group wtih 3 or 4 leaders in each group.
For the next few days the chinachim will be on "tiyul" (literally meaning a hike). Here they are with their kvutsah walking from one campsite to the next, and camping out in tents with only their kvutsa. The days are usually filled with bumping into other kvutsot where they usually have"singing matches" between them as to who can sing the loudest. The groups are responsibile for buying their own food and cooking for themselves - a time that the chanichim absolutely love.
I left them at 16.00, where all groups were walking to their campsites for the night, and are going be be playing get to know you games and writing kvutsah songs. All were extremely high spirited.
You will be glad to know the weather was beuatiful today with sunshine and was even quite warm too!
Tonight they are looking forward to spending their first night together as a kvutsah.
Wednesday 1st August Tiyul (Day 2)
Today was the first proper day of tiyul for the kvutsot and they had great fun and achieved huge amounts. They all navigated their way successfully to main site, which was a huge achievement - the majority of the time having someone from the group leading the way with the map!!!
Some groups had bbq's for dinner, which was described as delicious.
Thankfully they hav had yet another great day of weather with the sun shining down, and everyone having to wear hats and drink lots of water!
Spirits are high, as are there singing voices, and everyone is happy and dandy!
Thursday 2nd August Tiyul (Day 3)
Today was another fun day of tiyuling with again beatiful weather. The men in charge of the weather sure did scare us that it was going to be awful weather for camp, but thankfully it is holding out - lets hope it keeps it up till the end of camp.
Today a few groups went swimming, whilst another group had a party as it was their final night on tiyul.
Most groups enjoyed hot chocolate around a camp fire whilst singing songs, most with a guitar! All are looking forward to meeting everyone else on Main Site tomorrow.
Friday 3rd August Tiyul and Mainsite (Day 4)
Today was the kids last day of tiyul. Whilst all sad, they were excited to be meeting up with everyone at main site.
The groups all got to mainsite at a staggerred stage, and were of course met by huge amounts of songs and ruach (literally meaning spirit - means lots of songs and chants), from the other groups (apart from the 1st group of course!).
The leaders say the noise these kids produce is incredible and everyone is singing so loudly they reckon their voices will be lost within the next 24 hours!
They all then had a huge games session with all 60 chanichim, followed by putting up the tents at main site - lets hope they stay standing for the next week! This was followed by Mifkad... Mifkad is where all the chanichim stand in a chet (similar to the army) in their groups, and they all sing their songs in the morning. There is obviously internal competition as to who is the loudest...
They then went into a yummy dinner of mexican food, followed by an intro peulah where they met all the leaders for camp - which they are in now.
This will be followed by a (no doubt lengthy) bed process...
Great day all around.
Saturday 4th August Mainsite (Day 5)
Today they had a lovely little Shabbat lie in, which was greatfully received after a long tiyul. They then got up to a lovely Shabbat service, filled with songs, poems and different readings, which the chanichim found very meaningful and created a lovely Shabbat atmosphere.
Next they went into group time, where they started to plan MYOD. MYOD is short for Make Your Own Day (or in hebrew, "who else"). This is where the chanichim get experience (with the help of the leaders) to plan their own day. They spend time in their groups planning what they are going to do for a session on that special day, and then run activities for all the other chanichim (participants) on the camp. Its a bit of hard work for the chanichim, but extremely rewarding, and they always love it as they get to do what they want on that day!
After lunch they had a peulah (activity) relating to the parsha. This weeks parsha tells us about Moses telling the people to remember where they came from. As a result, the chanichim did a great peulah on a crystal maze theme relating to the parsha, which they all found good fun.
Afterwards they had some relaxing chugim, where they got to choose one activity to do from a range of Army chug, Dance Chug, Handennis (a made up game that is basically hand tennis I am told!), Relaxation chug and a few more. Everyone went to the activity they wanted to do – active or chilled, and had a fun with their friends and leaders.
After dinner (Fish fingers with mashed potato, spaghetii hoops and ice cream) they had a Cultural Judaism Peulah on a Big Brother theme, before heading to bed.
Sunday 5th August Mainsite (Day 6)
This morning they got into their routine of WUMBA. (Wake Up, Mifkad, Breakfast, Avodah). Mifkad is where all the chanichim stand in a chet (similar to the army) in their groups, and they all sing their songs in the morning. There is obviously internal competition as to who is the loudest... also a good way to wake them up! Avodah is hebrew for "work" and is meant for tidying up.
They then started off the day with a peulah about “What is a Revolution?”. Here they split into different groups where they were all a different tribe. They had to make up their own ritual song, dance and chant before coming up against the other tribe in order to take over “Zulu land”. Great fun for all, and it also taught them a valuable lesson.
After lunch their next peulah looked at “Why Revolution?”, where they got into their “bus’s” and went on a journey along different stories looking at what possible reasons there are to revolt.
Before dinner of hot dogs and chips, they had a big fun carnival activity which consisted of lots of different stalls from Apple Bobbing, to Hair Make Up, to a funky photo booth, to shaving the balloon, donught eating pie throwing, and the list just goes on. This was great fun, and after that some people relaxed in the sun (sun tan lotioned up!), and others had a game of football.
Then they got into their groups to do some more MYOD planning, which also usually comes with a bit of snack food!
Their last peulah before the night was over was about different ways to Revolt and looking at why the non violent ways may be slightly better! Don’t worry, the method of this was not beating up the chanichim to show they that it doesn’t get anywhere, it was rather more civilized than that!
Monday 6th August Mainsite (Day 7)
Today, after WUMBA, they had a peulah relating to Effective Revolution. This took the form of a cup game (actually, two massive cup games), where they split up into groups and can only communicate to each other by passing messages to one another in a cup via a complex pully system… it really showed them the frustrations of communication, yet had great fun passing silly messages to one another!
After a filling lunch of pizza they looked at Feminine revolution, and how it has progressed. This took the form of an auction (don’t worry, fake money). Next was some more chocolate fun time in their groups to plan for MYOD, followed by a peulah about Zionism as a revolution, which obviously brought Israel into the equation. This took the form of a massive massive treasure hunt which had the chanichim running all over the place.
Dinner tonight was a pasta bake, which was going to be followed by a fun Murder Mystery… will they solve it?
Tuesday 7th August Mainsite (Day 8)
This morning was the special day out for the whole group! The whole machaneh got on a huge jumbo 80 seater coach and went on their way to ALTON TOWERS!
When there, the chanichim were split into groups of 5 or 6, each group having 2 leaders. The groups were a very complicated procedure, as we had to split them up into groups of their friends, coupled with working out who likes fast / scary rides, against those who do not like these rides.
Nonetheless, they all did their own thing in the small groups, went on loads and loads of rides, and came back absolutely exhausted but having had an amazingly fun day.
They got back to the site at 7.00 were they chilled and relaxed until dinner was ready. Dinner was one of the leaders special pasta bakes which included lots of honey – it went down extremely well.
After this they will be heading into a fun Murder Mystery before collapsing into their sleeping bags!
Tomorrow is MYOD (Make Your Own Day) which they are extremely excited about.
Wednesday 8th August Mainsite (Day 9)
Today for the chanichim was MYOD! MYOD is short for Make Your Own Day (or in hebrew, "who else"). This is where the chanichim get experience (with the help of the leaders) to plan their own day. They spend time in their groups planning what they are going to do for a session on that special day, and then run activities for all the other chanichim (participants) on the camp. Its a bit of hard work for the chanichim, but extremely rewarding, and they always love it as they get to do what they want on that day!
After WUMBA, they first had a peulah by the madrichim which was looking at Habonim Dror as a revolution, where they looked at kibbutzim, and Habo Dror as a counter culture. This worked with lots of different stalls from milking cows to making chalot! Very varied and different.
After their lunch of Scrambled Eggs, MYOD fully got started. I wont lie to you when I say that we don’t have full details of what went on. However I was told that each kvutsa (group) got given a different theme each. The themes were Fairtrade, Environment, Slaves, and Assylum Seekers. I have the methods that each group came up with in order to educate the rest of the camp about their issue, but unfortunately not sure what matches up with what. One group had a massive capture the flag game (sound like asylum seekers to me), whilst another group chose an obstacle / assault course (sounds like fair-trade to me), yet another one had a big games show (a standard environment peulah me thinks), and the last one was apparently very good where they turned the chader ochel (dining room) into a big slave ship and made everyone queue up in lines and gave them only a slice of bread each and some water. Nonetheless, when they came outside they had a barbeque waiting for them to feed them well! I think we can safely assume this was the method for the slavery group!
They are now all enjoying some hot chocolate sitting around a camp fire singing a song session!
Thursday 9th August Mainsite (Day 10)
This morning, after the usual WUMBA ofarim started with a peulah on personal revolution. Here they did the Cell game, where they all sat in pairs and had questions sheets with different discussion points. The chanichim took on this task really seriously, and got a lot out of it. At the end of the peulah they all went outside, dipped their hand in paint, and put their own hand print on the sheet, together with a signuate of their name as a commitment to undertake a personal revolution.
Next was lunch, and then a Darfur peulah. Here they sat in a dark room, lit only by candles, and the leaders did some readings. They all came outside and hand some discussions on the issue and then they all wrote a letter which will be forwarded to their local MP trying to rally him to address the situation.
They then had a fun session which generally involved a home made water slide and a lot of water fights, before having a last night treat of take away pizza for dinner.
They then went into their sikkum peulah (conclusion), which will be followed by their Messibat Sium (Final party) where those who want to perform ziggim (skits) and they will no doubt have a very late night as this is apparently the “cool” thing to do on the last night!
Friday 10th August Mainsite (Day 11)
Today was the last day at camp, and of course was a sad day for all! After a bit of cleaning up, they had one last final LOUD mifkad, before saying their teary goodbyes to their new friends!
Everyone has said they are definately coming back next year - wicked!
Click here to see photos of Ofarim - Set 1!
Click here to see photos of Ofarim - Set 2!
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