After I wrote the blog post yesterday my work was
pretty much done. I earned my wages lesson planning and such at the hotel, but
the kids were off with their buddies and I didn't see them again til this
morning. Apparently they had a good time at their penpals' houses because there
were a lot of tired faces this morning!
Today was a full day, though, and they did amazing. We
started off visiting Lev Ha'Emek elementary school. This is the school that TT
is paired with for elementary kids. We sat in on an English class before
recess, and then the TT kids were bombarded by little Israelis! The boys got
chosen for soccer teams, I got swept into the teachers' lounge, and the girls
were taken on a tour of the grounds by some little girls.
After this we played Canada Trivia with a grade 5 class. In
this game, the TT kids asked multiple choice questions about Canada and
volunteers from grade 5 would answer. Questions included:
4. Who is the head of Canada? President Ben Scrivens, Prime Minister
Stephen Harper, King Wayne Gretzky
7. What is Banff? A
type of tree, A national park, A sport where you run naked in the snow
and;
15. Which is not a province? Nova Scotia, Nes Tsiona, Alberta
But they should think twice before volunteering, because
incorrect answers bring a punishment! These included pretend to be a moose, make
a snow angel, fall skiing, and more.
However, correct answers
mean the chance to punish a Canadian. Everybody had a good time with this and
if the grade 5s didn't particularly learn anything about Canada, at least they
had fun seeing how silly Canadian Jews are.
From Lev Ha'Emek we went to the Tel Chai College. There we
met some scientists who helped the kids make rockets out of dry ice (bring your
own goggles). From there it was a small hop to Tel Chai courtyard, a rebuilt
monument to the Tel Chai kibbutz that was destroyed in 1920 after a very famous
battle. This is one of the places the kids learned about only a few weeks ago
in class, it's always neat when they can see the real places that the stories
in their classes happened.
The next stop on the itinerary called for skating and
swimming at Merkaz Canada. On the way, we stopped at Dado Lookout and peaked
into Lebanon for a minute. Both our leader (Jasmin) and our mini-bus driver
(Avi) live in the area, so they talked a little bit about what it was like
during the war in 2006, and that's another one of those things that really
makes you think about how tough it can be to live around here.
Finally, we got to Merkaz Canada, the Canada Center, built
with funds from the Jewish federations of Canada in the 1990s. Taking Israelis
skating in Israel, well, at least only one kid got a big gash. I particularly
enjoyed Sam giving skating lessons to a group of Arabs wobbling around. There's
hope for peace on a skating rink at least.
Well, I'm back at Gonen now and dried off from the hot tub.
It's been really fantastic watching the kids bond with their Israeli pen pals
and I am very inspired by the work that Gesher Chai and the federation do to
make sure this program is so successful.
OK, hope everyone is doing great at home. Enjoy the photos
and perhaps I will have a chance to post pics of the Banias and jeep rides
tomorrow!
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