Day 9: Machaneh Etgar

Today, the group traveled to Ya'ar Kfar HaChoresh, a campsite where our Israeli sister youth movement, Hanoar Haoved veHalomed, runs many of their summer camps. The Ya'ar as we call it for short, will serve as the group's home base for Machaneh Etgar. We introduced Machaneh Etgar, or Challenge Camp, to the MBI program last year. Etgar is the Hebrew word for “challenge.” The next few days of Machaneh Etgar are designed to give the group new outdoor experiences and challenge them mentally and physically through a series of activities. These experiences will aim to foster skills in the areas of leadership, team-building, and tzofiut (scouting).  

The chanichimot began the camp by walking around and orienting themselves to the space. They then returned to where they will be staying and learned how to tie basic knots for building structures to set up their campsite. After learning about the topography of the area, they split into several smaller groups of 5 to 6 which will serve as their groups for the tiyul tomorrow.

An important feature of Machaneh Etgar is that each person has a different role and responsibility while on the tiyul. They will be madrichimot for each other! Some of the roles are as follows:

• A madrichol (singular, gender-neutral word for madrichimot) who leads with the trail map 
• A madrichol who makes sure that each person is being cared for socially
• A madrichol who is helping to keep their peers safe and healthy along the way
• A madrichol who is checking to make sure each person is prepared and has brought everything they might need with them 
• A madrichol who will help to lead educational activities on the trails

Tonight, each person with the same role had time to review and understand their responsibilities, as well as teach others in their group what they needed to know. After a final briefing and check to make sure everyone felt prepared, it was off to bed for a good night's rest!