Fast Day and Follow Up (6/15-6/16) by Raquel Levy

Today (6/15) we sort of had a merged day. After we broke the fast, we had a half hour to get ready for a surprise event. So typically we expected the worst. We got on the bus, and arrived at a cable car, next to the Lebanon border. We went down the cable car to a “grotto” aka caves surrounded by water. It was beautiful. We walked through the slippery caves, some people took a fews tumbles. We then stood by the “wailing” sea, and played Red Rover and invaded each other’s personal space in order to expand on these games during “family” time. We spoke about physical and personal boundaries. We then got an hour and a half bus ride, keep in mind, its 1am and we are running on zero hours of sleep. After most of us passed out,we arrived at a random gas station in order to receive our “mission.” It was survival night, we mapped out our points and planned out our route before going back on the bus to get to our “final” destination. So we split into our groups and we were on our way. At one point we all sort of met up and convened. We all got to the point we all thought was our “final” destination, only to receive three more points.It is now 4am we are still running on no sleep. To get to our next point, some of us climbed under barbered wire, and ran away from cattle.

Regardless of our points, we all returned with an unforgettable story. We shared them at the gas station where we prayed shaharit at 7am, got back on the bus, sort of lost our concept of time, and once again attempted to get a few hours of shut eye in. Once we returned to our hostel, we ran to breakfast and ran straight to bed. We are now running on four hours of sleep and the 70 people who are coming from the South arrived. We didn’t really get time to interact with them because we rushed on the bus to repel down a mountain with a beautiful view. We hiked down and up the mountain in our “families” another great experience. And now we are chilling back on top of the mountain, ecstatic over the news that we are staying in Israel and I am writing on a pizza box, I don’t know how, but I’m running out of space so bye.

When we arrived back to the hostel, there was a magician entertaining the kids that came from the South. It was so amazing seeing the kids and how happy they were to be there and out of the bomb shelters of the South. Tomorrow we are planning a carnival for them and will get more of an opportunity to interact with them.

– Raquel Levy