I Will Miss Camp
By Elyse Waksman
ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Onward Boston Israel
Student at Clark University
“I will miss camp.” This is the last English sentence of the day we taught the girls at the camp at Tzvia. It was a bittersweet day, starting with this English lesson on the future tense, and ending with the girls giving us gifts and certificates to show their appreciation for us. We spent the day writing letters to IDF soldiers, decorating picture frames and filling them with photos of all of us, and exchanging contact information so that we can remain in touch. Working with these girls over the past five weeks has had such a huge, positive impact on my life, as cliché as that sounds. I hope and believe that we have also had that kind of effect on the girls. I wish that we could have worked with them for longer, because our relationships with them would have continued to grow stronger, but we packed as much as we could into the time we had.
During these past several weeks, a few of the girls have invited us over to their homes (I will be going later today!), which is exciting and heartwarming. On the first day of camp, getting the girls to even talk was a challenge, and now they’ve opened up to us so much, and that development tells me that we’ve done something right. Even more than going to one girl’s house for lunch today, I’m looking forward to our banquet next week, when we’ll get to see their community and meet their families. It’s only been a day since the end of camp, but I miss the girls already and cannot wait to see them all again!
ENP Volunteer Summer 2014, via Onward Boston Israel
Student at Clark University
“I will miss camp.” This is the last English sentence of the day we taught the girls at the camp at Tzvia. It was a bittersweet day, starting with this English lesson on the future tense, and ending with the girls giving us gifts and certificates to show their appreciation for us. We spent the day writing letters to IDF soldiers, decorating picture frames and filling them with photos of all of us, and exchanging contact information so that we can remain in touch. Working with these girls over the past five weeks has had such a huge, positive impact on my life, as cliché as that sounds. I hope and believe that we have also had that kind of effect on the girls. I wish that we could have worked with them for longer, because our relationships with them would have continued to grow stronger, but we packed as much as we could into the time we had.
During these past several weeks, a few of the girls have invited us over to their homes (I will be going later today!), which is exciting and heartwarming. On the first day of camp, getting the girls to even talk was a challenge, and now they’ve opened up to us so much, and that development tells me that we’ve done something right. Even more than going to one girl’s house for lunch today, I’m looking forward to our banquet next week, when we’ll get to see their community and meet their families. It’s only been a day since the end of camp, but I miss the girls already and cannot wait to see them all again!
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