Camp this week was good (and crazy) overall. I do like my kids, but there are a few who are challenging and causing some problems. We went to the pool on Wednesday which is definitely my favorite day. It's a lot of fun to play around with the kids, and also a great day for getting some color.
On Wednesday, it was my co-counselor, Paz's birthday, so a group of about 15 of us went to Beer Sheva for the night. Beer Sheva is the closet major city (also the capital of the Negev desert) and it's about 45 minutes by bus. It costs about 3 dollars to get there by bus, and the busses run a couple an hour - very convenient. Once we got there, we walked around and went into some stores, and then we all went bowling! We all had a good time - and then after, we went to eat dinner at an Italian restaurant. The night was a lot of fun, and it was cool to be able to see another city in Israel.
Thursday was the last day of camp for the week, and then after relaxing for the afternoon, most of the Israeli counselors and all of the American counselors went on a bus to Masada. We got there around 9 pm and watched a sound and light show, which explained the history of Masada with lights and sounds and speaking. Then, we went to a bedouin tent right nearby to hang out for the night. I helped make some pita for the group which we ate with hummos and this Israeli cheese. We also drank this tea that is really popular here - it has nanna leaves in it, which is very similar to mint leaves. We hung out for a little but then went to sleep because we were waking up at 4:30 to hike Masada to watch the sunrise.
So...a few hours later, at 4:30 we woke up and tried to energize ourselves to hike up the mountain. There are 2 sides to Masada...we did the Roman Ramp which takes about 10 minutes to hike up (the other side is much more difficult and longer-the Snake Path - which I did the last time in Israel). There were a TON of birthright people hiking as well so it was pretty crowded. We made it up around 5:15 or so and watched the sunrise...pretty amazing. We got to explore the top of Masada (where people actually used to live a long time ago) and then a couple of us decided to hike down the snake path (vs. taking the cable car down). We quickly went to see the Masada museum, and then we were back on the bus to go to the Dead Sea! The Jewish agency paid for all of us to hang out at a hotel for the day. So, we got to eat breakfast and lunch at the hotel (which was really good!) and use the pool. The Dead Sea is really cool to see - it was so hot and the water was like a jacuzzi. The whole day was relaxing and a lot of fun. We got back in time for Shabbat and then went to all of our host family's houses for dinner - great as always.
Now it is Shabbat, which is definitely a great day. Everyone really spends the day relaxing and sleeping. We went to the pool after waking up late and soon are going out to dinner!
Coming up this week is Tesha Beav...which I have been learning more about. There are a lot of people here who observe the day and basically, in the 9 days leading up to it, you are not allowed to "be happy"---really just you can't eat meat and go swimming are the ones that impact people here the most. A bunch of my kids didn't come to camp when we went to the pool this week because of the restrictions. There are a good amount of people who have been observing this -it has been something new that I didn't really know about before this trip.
This week is the last week of camp already (so crazy!). It should be a good week though...and then next weekend, we are going to Tel Aviv!
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