Last Week…ish

Unfortunately, this as my last real week of work (even though I had only two days of it due to Lag B'Omer).  I had a really successful day of work on Sunday, where I worked with Gilad (a boy with Cerebral Palsy).  We were in a tandem kayak whereas the rest of the class (save 3 kids…one of them was paired with Harold) were in single kayaks.  During the class, we had a few competitions, which I naturally won (with Gilad).  He was really excited by these and victories and kept calling me, "Chamud."  After our race, we had a competition where we had to do 360°s, it was incredibly difficult and taxing on me, but I managed to pull out the victory (Gilad's paddling was very poor, and he splashing me more than he helped out…not his fault though and I am not angry or frustrated by any means).  After the competitions, I helped him change his clothes.  we joked around a bit and just talked.  It was a very nice experience (except for the fact that I had to put on his underpants and he was right next to my face, but I guess that this is part of the job description).

On Monday, I helped out with the boogie-boarding group for the first activity. The idea behind the activity was to teach surfing fundamentals.  I really enjoyed this, even though I was too big for te board and spent the majority of the time corralling and schmoozing with the kids.  After this class, I helped out with the windsurfing group by acting as a role model and showing kids how to do whatever they were having trouble with.  However, the best part of the day was by far lunch.  On every Monday, the madrichim try to have a little lunch meeting where someone goes to the local hummus place and buys some moosabecha for everyone to eat and relax around.  It is a really nice thing to just sit around, drink coffee/tea, eat a little hummus and pita, and kibbutz (not the socialist group, but the talking verb)