My First Summer at Tavor
Last
month Amy F., age 11, responded to a request for articles about
summer camps from the JUF News. We just were notified that although
a Camp Tavor article will be in the December issue, that they were
unfortunately unable to print Amy's article. We liked what she
wrote so much however that we wanted to share it with you. Thank
you Amy!
Camp Tavor is so amazing. This past summer was my first time there, and it quickly felt like home. Camp Tavor makes you feel like you can be yourself, and connect with other Jewish kids. I really felt like I could be totally un-self-conscious. For instance, I brought along a jingly belly-dancing belt with me to camp. One day, my friend and I declared "wear things on your head day." She wore a tie on her head, and I wore the jingly belt. I walked around for about half a day like that, and I felt totally not self-conscious.
At the beginning of the session, you pick a job you want to do for the whole time you are there. There are things like working in the vegetable garden, taking care of some farm animals, trail blazing, and much more. When I was there, my job was taking care of the animals. There were 2 sheep, 2 goats, and 11 chickens. The goats' names were Angel and Cody. Cody had some way of making holes in the fence with his horns, so sometimes we would see a random goat walking around camp. It was really funny. The sheep's names were Annabelle and Rambo.
Annabelle was a brown-gray sheep with short curly hair and an incredibly low "baa". When the sheep first came to camp, Annabelle walked out, and did her baa thing. Literally everyone there jumped, we were SO startled. But eventually we got used to it and just laughed whenever she made a baa sound. Annabelle was also Rambo's mother. Rambo was the complete opposite of his mom. He was shy, with thick black hair and a high- pitched baa that you would totally expect out of a sheep. It was like a perfect baa. The chickens didn't really do much except poop...a lot, although there was one chicken, the ugliest of them all, that could actually fly over the fence and visit our friends in the Gan, or garden.
Every Friday night, we celebrate Shabbat. We would all shower, get dressed up in the nicest clothes we brought, and help each other do hair, and get ready. We would then go down to dinner and have a special Shabbat dinner with challah, and usually chicken, mashed potatoes and beans. It was really good; all the food at Tavor is good. After dinner we would all walk up "Shabbat hill" and people would be playing music and having a good time just walking up the hill. When we got to the top, there was usually a short dance performed by the selected age group that week. We would then go around to all our friends, and say Shabbat Shalom and hug each other. On Saturday, we pretty much just chill out and have a good time.
There are so many more good things I could say about Tavor, but it would take me 3 weeks, the whole amount of time I was there. Seriously, if you go to Tavor, you won't want to come home!