Last night was the conclusion of the first Shabbat of the session! Saturdays at camp are always fun because they are less structured and there is more time for the whole camp to be together. We started off the day with a big change, having breakfast in the village! All of the campers and staff enjoyed an extra long sleep-in and then ate bagels and cereal before heading down to services at the Fire Circle. After services, we had discussion groups where the camp split up based on age groups and did different activities surrounding the ideas of the week’s service. Following this was lunch and then an extra long rest hour. In our village there was a lot of dance practice going on for the camp talent show, Campstock (which is next Saturday night). Next was Shabbat choice, where campers can go to one of several different activities in camp. Arts and Crafts and “reading on the docks” were both popular options among the Onondagans, as was the pool because it was such a hot day.
Tonight’s evening program was called “Tagmania” and it involved both Cayuga and Onondaga. All the campers were split up into three teams and played different games of tag including “freeze dance tag”, “limbtag” and “blob tag”. The evening ended with a giant game of freeze tag with all of the campers vs. all of the counselors. It was definitely very fun and tired out all the campers and the staff too! The session so far as been going much better than I could have even imagined, and I feel very lucky to be in a village with such great campers and staff members. While it is very early in the summer, the positive energy is overwhelming and I think this will be one of the best summers CSL has ever seen!
Lisa Schwartz (Onondaga Unit Head)