Today
was the first day of community week, and it began with a wonderful view from
Kibbutz Manera, where Shani, the Upper Galilee Diller coordinator, lives. We looked down from a porch and could see the
landscape of Israel below us. It was a
great start to a great day. Last night,
at the opening ceremony, the two cohorts had been divided into six teams, made
up of half San Francisco Dillers and half Upper Galilee Dillers, and today,
those six teams participated in activities to build friendships, communication,
and an understanding of lessons learned throughout the day. Our first team
challenge was transferring water from one bottle to another, touching only
strings that had been attached to the first bottle. The strings served as levers, and the team
members had to communicate and work together to ensure that as little water as
possible spilled. All team members had to participate, and this helped to work
on our teamwork skills. Although the
other five teams were pretty close, the green team deserves props as they were
the team that transferred the most water from bottle one to bottle two -- way
to go!!!
After
this first teambuilding experience, we all got on a bus and began touring through
different living arrangements that are common in Israel, including a Moshav and
a Kibbutz. At one location that we
stopped at, we met a man who was the fourth generation family member living in
the Moshav. Even more amazing was the
fact that his daughter, and grandchildren lived on the Moshav as well, making a
total of six generations of family that had lived on that same Moshav. This was a really special chance for us because
it is very rare that people can speak of Israeli history from that long ago.
The stories told to us at this Moshav were as old as time itself!
The
teams continued competing, decoding a song from "Fiddler on the
Roof", and participating in tug-of-war-challenges. All the teams completed
the decoding of the song, and after about six rounds of tug-of-war, the winner
for that activity was once again the green team. However, like the first activity,
these were about more than winning or losing, and once again required
participation and communication from all of the team members! These activities throughout
the day helped us bond and change from two separate cohorts to one combined
family.
After
learning about the different living arrangements and participating in bonding
activities, we arrived in Kiryat Shmona, where the teams had one last
challenge. This challenge was different
from the others because although we still had to work as a team, the main goal
was to explore and get to know Kiryat Shmona.
The teams were given ten pictures, and we participated in a scavenger
hunt, walking around and exploring to find the location of these ten
photos. This was a fun way to get to
know the area because not only were we getting to know our sister cohort
better, but it was also like we were leading our own tour, which mean that we
had the ability to look at what we wanted, and spend more or less time were we
choose. The only downfalls: the smoldering sun and the unfortunate lack of
time, as we only spent 30 minutes doing the scavenger hunt!
The
day continued with the two cohorts joining together to finalize the planning of
community week, which everyone has high hopes for, and we are all eagerly
anticipating the first day of community week that is actually lead by the
Diller Teen Fellows – us!!!
Not
only do we have high hopes for community week, but we also have high hopes that
the friendships we strengthened today will continue to grow, and be life-long!!
Toda
Rabah for reading --
Rachael
Katz
View from Kibbutz Manera
Another view from Kibbutz Manera
No comments:
Post a Comment