Aleph Summer 5764 (pre-camp)

Right. I'm going to try to blog now for the first of the three weeks I was away for, and possibly in a comprehensible order, as otherwise it is just confusing. Although it is confusing anyway. The way the three weeks worked were that there was one week of pre-camp, which is when the madrichim (leaders) all prepare everything for when the chanichim (participants) arrive, and two weeks with the chanichim there when we run the activities for them, etc etc. So I'll at least try to keep pre-camp and camp separate, although they are inextricably linked, so it may be hard.

Pre-camp began at 8am outside Kenton shul on Wednesday 28th August (the morning after Tisha B'Av, a 25 hour fast which ends the 9 days and the three weeks, when many people don't wash their clothes, so lots of people were up all night the night before washing their clothes and packing) and we then had to wait for a couple of hours before any coaches left (although not as long as the Aleph Chalutzi coach, which hadn't yet arrived when we left). We then had lots of fun on the three and a half hour coach journey to pre-camp, with about 24 of us (leaders, cooks and technikim, although mainly leaders). When we arrived it took a while for any of us to find our sganit (the deputy-head of machane) as there was very little signal around the site, especially for Orange, which she was on. We then had much schlepping to do, including moving everything into store cupboards, the tuck to the tuck shop, and our suitcases upstairs. Possibly my suitcase was a little too heavy, as I had two others helping me take it up the two flights of stairs to our dorm.

We soon discovered how temperamental the electricity in our dorm was, with it *rather* frequently not working, which becomes rather annoying when 15 girls want to charge their mobiles, dry their hair and straighten their hair (especially with only two electricity sockets in the entire room). I managed to go three weeks with only straightening my hair once, I think because I had a spare five or ten minutes.

Madrichim's (leaders') meetings were fun and interesting and a great laugh, what with poor spelling in the chomer (material we used for various activities and getting the theme of camp across to the chanichim (participants) during our daily session in our kvutsot (groups which were set for doing stuff about the theme of machane (camp), with each day being a different theme, in this case a different month of the year), the sneeze-ometer and three pieces of tuck.

Each day was similar but different, although I'm pretty sure it wasn't as bad as the toranim (who organise technical stuff, mainly washing up and laying of tables etc, but not the actual cooking) had it, one of whom actually told me "It's like groundhog day, except sometimes the plates are red instead of blue." For leaders of groups, it was a little more varied, as sometimes we did a round of tochniot (where we would be in groups of 2, 3 or 4 organising an activity that would last a maximum of 2 hours), or a kvutsa (explained above; we did quite a few of these each day), or a fun (an hour of fun each day, which was a competition between the different tribes, the winners won some tuck at the end of camp I think), shiurim (source based discussion-y type things, on a famous role model from the Bible) and creative chugim (an hour when we made stuff; I made birthday/new year/greetings/good luck/I miss you/welcome back/Shabbat cards with them). Both shiurim and creative chugim we prepared before camp, and so only had a small amount of time to finalise that. When preparing things (especially kvutsot), we went through all the chomer and had some great discussions about what was in there; obviously deeper than we ever would get with the chanichim, but they were still amazing discussions. After we had discussed everything with everyone, we would go away with our co (mine was the delightful Abi *waves to Abi*) and decide on what we would do in the hour in which we had to convey all these messages, which games to play and which discussions to have, and how to teach without them realising (#Education *clap* informal, and it's called hadracha-aa#) and would prepare anything that we would need to carry out that individual kvutsa (like making cards for pairs, or happy families, or a board game, or a die, or something like that), and would then return to everybody to share all of our ideas, and use them if we were short of ideas or anything like that.

We also had time when we were taught to "doughnut", when all madrichim spread themselves out so that there is a ring of chanichim about them, and so that we close to another madrich or madricha who we can pass a message on to. This is done at mealtimes, during tefila (prayer time) and also when we want everybody to be quiet so that we can explain what is happening next. We were also taught how to wake up chanichim (we had a really fun simulation, which was absolutely mad) and sessions on how to deal with various situations. We had rather late nights during pre-camp, although they became later as it went on, as we had more stuff to finish off before everybody arrived, and less time to get done in.

I'm pretty sure I made a blonde comment or two during pre-camp, as way too many came out during the three weeks, becoming more frequent as I went along. However, I'll keep them all to the camp-proper blog, as I can't remember which ones came where, except for that most of them were people's sarcasm, which I just didn't get as sarcasm, so thought they were being truthful. :S I can be rather blonde sometimes, as many can testify to.

One highlight of each day (apart from when we got tuck) that I can remember is the super sonic jets. There was an army (or RAF or something like that) base nearby, and so every day we would hear this massive noise, and all rushed to the window to point out and go "wow" as a jet would race across the sky over us. That was definitely an excitement each day, and never ceased to amaze us, I believe.

It was all very fun, but nothing strikingly funny is hitting me at this moment in time, as I write this. I'm sure they will later, and I may well blog about them at a later point, but for the moment this is all for pre-camp. Anyone who can remember anything else, wants any words explained (I tried to explain most) or just wants to chat about pre-camp, please comment. :)