On Wednesday, each bus had slightly different schedules, but all MBI-ers did each activity in the end. Every bus did the Hirbat Midras hike, which is actually a hike done entirely underground and through a series of caves while wearing headlamps. After the hike they went to Tel Azaka. This is the famous place that is said to be where the battle took place between David and Goliath. The MBIers walked up to a look out point and were entertained by skits that the tour guides and madrichim (counselors) put on for them re-enacting the story.
Later, Buses 2 and 3 went to the Blind Museum (see previous post for description) while Bus 1 had some time to hang out on the beach flipping the end of what happened the day before. Following this part of the afternoon, the whole group came back together for dinner and afterwards had kvutza time. During this part of the evening members of each kvutza ran peulot for their own kvutza. Throughout the summer, MBI-ers have been getting more and more practice running peulot, or programmes, for their peers. This is a great way for them to develop leadership skills as well as play an active role in their own MBI experience.
After this the MBI Kaf 2011 basketball tournament continued into the semi-final round. Two hard fought games were played, with the rest of MBI chanichim and tzevet (staff) cheering them on.
Then everyone went to bed... and here is where the night got crazy. Kudos to our madrichim for what was to follow.
A couple hours later, each MBI-er was woken up in the middle of the night and told that "the british are coming, we need to make it to Palestine." This is similar to an activity called "Aliyah Bet" that is run at many of our machanot, which simulates and teaches chanichim about the illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine in the years prior to Israel's Independence. Everyone dressed quickly and gather back outside on the field. When the whole group arrived, they realized that some of their MBI friends were missing. It seemed that all MBI-ers whose first name was Talia, Hannah, Sara, Josh, and Jacob had been kidnapped! Then a 'haganah' soldier, or at least a tzevet member who looked like one, appeared and told them that he saw them all being taken to the central pavilion a short way from where the group was standing. He told them they needed to make it to the pavilion but to not get caught by the British soldiers who would be in hiding along the way. As most of MBI started moving towards their friends, they heard rustling in the bushes and a few 'people' jumped out at them, but.... they didn't look like British soldiers.
IT WAS ZOMBIES! Everyone ran towards the pavilion to get away from the zombies, and when they got there found that it had been turned into an Alien Zombie Spaceship. In the center of the pavilion was their missing friends tied around a pole. Each MBI kvutza then had to do different tasks to get their friends back from the Zombies-Aliens, like making a human pyramid and throwing a sponge backwards with their legs which a kvutza-mate would have to catch in a basket.
Once they saved all their friends and wanted to get back to earth they found that they had to do another task all together as MBI called a harragut fair. In this activity, a rope is tied over a long distance and each MBI-er is blindfolded and then has to walk along the rope one after another from beginning to end. Along the way different tzevet would come up to them and say things like "zombies like to eat brains" and then put the MBI-er's hand into a bag of wet crackers. At other spots a zombie said "zombies have trouble with saliva" and would spray a bit of water at them. Somewhere along the way, a zombie leaned in close to each blindfolded MBI-er and told them they had been personally marked for future alien experiments and tied something around one of their wrists.
When all of MBI reached the end of the rope they found a medura, or a bonfire, waiting for them all. They had made it back to earth and all sat around eating marshmallows and singing kumzits. Slowly, the MBI-ers then realized that what had been tied around each of their wrists was a red string. It was the red string that goes in the neckline of the chultzot they got a few weeks ago. Their process transitioning into Habonim leaders had reached the next step and they now had all the pieces of their first chultzah or movement shirt. It was very exciting for all of them, some of whom were asking if the entire night had just been planned as an elaborate scheme just to give them their strings. It was certainly a lot of fun, but then time for everyone to go to bed for real. The next morning there was a sleep in for everyone, with optional breakfast earlier, and programming did not start the next day until after 11am.
On Thursday when they woke up, MBI had a set of chugim or small discussions about the Habonim Dror movement. One chug was about Workshop, our 9-month Israel program for post-high schoolers. There was also a chug was about the Ken, our regional year-round activities. Another was about living in a bayit, or a semi-communal living situation that some Habonim members have chosen for themselves to live out the values of our movement beyond just camp and program frameworks, but into their everyday lives. Two other chugim were about what a movement is and how Habonim Dror has defined/relates to Judaism. Gil ran a chug in which he talked about what Habonim used to look like in the 1990's and the immense changes that have occurred since then.
In the next part of the day MBI went to an amazing museum called Machon Ayalon, which used to be an underground ammunition factory before the independence war. The Hagganah (defense force) asked a group of people who wanted to build a kibbutz to build and operate an ammunition factory underneath. The group dug out an enormous underground hole in just weeks, while the British thought they were building a kibbutz. 40 people would go underground daily just to make bullets. The kibbutz took in laundry as its source of income, and the access to the ammunition factory was under a washing machine that slides to the side to reveal a ladder. All 40 of the original workers were trained to climb down the ladder in record time. They made 250,000 bullets without a single mishap, and bullets were the one thing the Israelis did not run out of during the war of Independence. Visitors today can still walk down the ladder and view the machinery while listening to the story.
From our staff- talking to the MBI-ers as they were coming out most said it was really cool. Along the way they were being asked what it means to take responsibility for something and what it means to take responsibility in your life.
Afterwards they came back and had dinner before their first sikkum peula. Sikkum means summary, and is the term used for the part of the program which will aim to help the MBI-ers process all that they have done this summer. The first sikkum peula was about looking at MBI and the Habonim Dror movement as a whole and understanding how structures and specific goals sometimes change over time in order to better implement the values that you hold. The feedback from most of the kvutzot afterwards said that the discussions each kvutza had about this went very well.
That night, the final game of the basketball tournament was played. The two teams played up to 15, and the game was 2 hours long. The team from Tavor won in the end 15-10, but the lead went back and forth throughout the game. It was a good game to end the tournament and an overall fantastic part of the last few days. The hope is that a time can be found before the end of MBI for a game to be played against the Madrichim. Additionally, though there were some girls playing on the machane tournament teams, a seperate MBI girls game is scheduled for tomorrow.
The last part of today worth mentioning is that the group said goodbye to their bus drivers today. The same bus drivers have stayed and driven our MBI-ers throughout the summer and have become beloved by their bus's MBI participants. This summer's program would not have been anywhere near as successful without them and here too I want to say thank you to Kamal, Dudu, and Faisel.
Today, Friday was a day of sikkum peulot processing the summer. One was run for everyone altogether, another was run seperately bus, and the last one was run by the MBI-ers themselves. In the evening was their last Kabbalat Shabbat of course, and then a final mesiba (party) for the last night of MBI. The music will be shut off at 2 and every person must be in their rooms by 3. Tomorrow is the last day of MBI before their trip to the airport after shabbat.
I will be posting again tomorrow when they arrive at the airport and the group flights take off. Throughout travel day I will also be posting here when the group flights land and as each destination's participants are checked-in through security. If you have any questions about MBI travel from this point on, please email me at programs@habonimdror.org or call +1-917-822-2330.
Shabbat Shalom for now.
Ari
