This year for the first time ever, HDNA and HDUK chanichim on Shnat, do their messima (educational work) as full on Communarim (ken leaders) in NOAL kenim.
In past years Shnatties did have messima with NOAL, but this year is the first time they take on full roles and responsibility together with NOAL communarim, surely this historic change does not come easily, and the transition can seem daunting, but the relationship between the movements and the value of the experience for the shnatties themselves in invaluable.
Meeting with Nai Ben Danan their rakezet, to go over things, plan and talk
The new HD communarim have meetings and Yom Machoz once a week, and lead older chanichim in the kenim together with NOAL communarim, they also run English peulot (activities) for younger chanichim.
Bonding with chanichim
But why listen to us, when you can read what the Habonim Dror Communarim have to say themselves! Here is a short description from kvutzat Sha'al:
"This is kvutzat Sha’al giving you an update on how we are doing in Chava so far! We moved into our house about two weeks ago, and it has been a real adventure learning how to live independently. We have put in a lot of effort into making our house a home. We brought our couches into our second floor living room by hoisting them through the window. We also somehow got our fridge up the very narrow staircase that leads to our second floor kitchen. Our walls are beautifully decorated with collages we made from old magazines. We have avocado toast for breakfast, central heating in our rooms, and a basketball hoop and mini trampoline outside. And the occasional tortoise wanders through our yard!
Cooking is proving to be a really fun and exciting new challenge for us. We like to make lunches for the entire kvutzah the night before to take to messima the next morning. During our first day of messima, we had a slight mishap in which our hard boiled eggs came out much less hard than we imagined, but luckily we were able to alert everyone via our Whatsapp group chat before any real messes were created. Going to messima in the kenim is something we are all overwhelmed by, but we are excited to get into the flow of how NOAL kenim work. It is hard for us that we all come home at different times, some people not until very late at night, but we are always so excited to welcome each other home. We really like being in tzvatim with garin Gavan, our Israeli kommunarim, and are so thrilled to be creating these friendships and connections with people our age in our sister movement. We hang out at each other’s houses, plan peulot, and eat each other’s food.
"We really like being in tzvatim with garin Gavan, our Israeli kommunarim, and are so thrilled to be creating these friendships and connections with people our age in our sister movement. We hang out at each other’s houses, plan peulot, and eat each other’s food." Habonim Communarim being welcomed to the ken in ken Kfar Saba Yashan
We have Yom Machoz every Monday, which is when all the kommunarim and shnatties from each machoz get together and have peulot run for them about hadracha and other topics. For the second half of the day, we have ulpan with just our kvutzah, which is comprised of playing many games in Hebrew. We are working very hard to improve our Hebrew, and are becoming more familiar with NOAL.
We are loving Israeli music also! Some of our favorite songs are Messiba B’Haifa and Kvish HaChof.
Sending love from all 14 of us!
-Sha’al
See more pictures:
Getting ready for chanichim
Some hiking
