Kfir Road Trip

posted by on Sep 15, 2017

Mike Rufino, from Kfir, tells us all about the Kfir Road Trip to Niagara Falls: “We got closer” kfir-a.jpg

On this Kfir trip to Niagara Falls, both Aleph Kfir and Bet Kfir got closer. Before the trip, our aidah (age group) was together and discussed about what the next four days were going to look like. I’ll be honest, in the beginning it didn’t sound that interesting, but my initial thoughts were soon proven wrong. After the pre-trip preparation, our merekzim, Sonia and Nataliya, put us in the work groups that we needed. The options were: fire vaad (made the fires for campsites), tent vaad (set up the tents), cooking vaad (helped prepare the food), and fun vaad (planned fun activities). I was in the fun vaad and the experience was enjoyable. The next day came, and it was time for trip week to start!

The ride to where we were hiking was smooth and easy going because of our amazing bus driver, Jerry. Our hike was a very beautiful and casual three mile trip. On the hike, we played games. For one game, we had to think of a word and give the first letter of the word to the other person that is playing. Whoever is playing has to ask a question and the answer has to contain the letter of the word. The fun part about it was chanichim and tsevet participated, and it ended up never getting boring. Our campsite was a nice place, but the people we were sharing it with were not very appreciative of our enthusiasm and how loud we were. At night, we sat around the campfire, and our madrich told us a story while we roasted marshmallows.

On the second day we packed up our stuff from the campsite and got back on the bus to Ithaca Commons. When we got there, there were various restaurants, coffee shops, and clothing stores. The more popular shops that campers went to were Urban Outfitters, Starbucks, and Subway. After the plaza, we went on our second hike. It was another chill hike, but this time, it was about four miles. After the hike we went to our new campsite. This campsite was isolated and no one else was there with us. It seemed more old fashioned than the one from the first night. We had another campfire which concluded another great night.

The third day started out smoothly. Everyone got up at the same time, ate breakfast quickly, and got on the bus to head off to our next activity. The rest of the trip was great. We all got closer by working side by side. Overall, the trip was awesome and a great experience due to the staff, group of kids, and the variety of activities.