Every Little Cell is My Body is Well…

Every Little Cell in my Body is Happy

Every Little Cell in My Body is Well…

An eventful yom shishi: after making a brief cameo at the Jewish Farm School Alternative Spring Break Educator Training, spending a night on the bus in 10 degree weather, and making our first big score of used vegetable oil in Southern Virginia, we were cruising down the I-95 with time to spare before our first big Shabbaton Program in Raleigh, N.C.

Jonathan is driving: do you hear that noise?

{click click click click click click click}

I don’t hear nuthin. A few minutes later, {RIP!, CRASH!, POOMF!} A flapping piece of plastic breaks off, hits the fan, bends the fan, the fan rips through the radiator housing, coolant drains out, engine overheats, all within 30 seconds. Jonathan pulls to the side of the road, pops the hood, immediately diagnoses the problem and calls a towtruck.

“Well…this is gonna take a few days for me to fix…” he smiles with characteristic good humor.

Everyone is totally cool. We play with Elizabeth’s pet Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches and I whip up a little challah dough on the side of 95, waiting for the towtruck. A few hours later, we are leading Kabbalat Shabbat at Congregation Beth Meyer, challot in hand. We have a lively dinner with their impressive teen group. The kids are concerned about habitat fragmentation and we discuss the environmental impacts of meat.

Our Saturday program is well attended: we lead about 15 families in a pre-Havdalah nature walk and share classic TEVA curriculum such as Shema Soundmap, Foxwalking, Meet-a-Tree and more. After a gnoshy 3rd meal, we have a rocking musical Havdalah outside, ending in a campfire.

Our sunday program consisted of our groundbreaking ecodrama opening skit, performed for 100 5th graders from the Triangle area surrounding Raleigh, before busting out to our stations: learning about good design and solar energy by building Solar Oven Pizza Boxes, learning how waste=fuel and food on the Topsy Turvy Bus Itself, and figuring out how we can make a difference by playing our environmental committment relay race. At the end of our program, all participants sign our giant environmental Megila, which collects the names and commitments of all our program participants across the east coast, providing a striking visual exhibit of the engagement and breadth of the Jewish Environmental Youth Movement.

Stay tuned for more exciting adventures, pictures, and some informative how-to-s!

~Jonah