Captains dressed in yellow, green, blue, and red ran through camp, along the basketball courts through campers clad in their team colors, and up to the volleyball court. Standing on the sand, the captains raised their torches and lit up the Hebrew words, “Yom Sport 2014.” With the start of the opening ceremonies, Yom Sport (color war) officially began!
All throughout Monday, campers represented their teams in a variety of games: everything from dodge ball, to Hebrew games, to drama games, creating banners, and trivia games. Each aidah’s teams received their own points for winning the various games, contributing to the efforts of their color—your aidah didn’t matter any more, what mattered was your color.
Throughout the afternoon, we had all-camp soccer, a Bogrim through Nivonim basketball tournament, and the Apache relay. Campers watched and cheered their teams on, screaming “Yarok, Metzuyan!” “Green team is the best!”
When it was finally time for the Apache—the big finish for our Yom Sport events—colors worked relay race style to complete tasks and raise points for their team. Yellow came in first, cheering their team all the way to the agam (waterfront). Every single person was active in some way in leading his or her team to the finish line.
After the race to the agam was over, one camper from each team kayaked to the island, and one swam from the island back to camp. It was an exciting race—tzahov (yellow), kachol (blue), adom (red), and yarok (green) sat on the grass at the edge of the beach, cheering, “Yesh lanu ruach!,” “We’ve got spirit!” back and forth from color to color. As each swimmer arrived back on shore, their Nivonim captains sat around a fire pit, making their own campfires on the sandy shore.
The goal was to have the Nivonim representatives of each team build a fire that could reach an elevated rope. First yellow, then blue, then red, and then green succeeded. When every rope had snapped, and every fire extinguished, the teams lined up from the beach to mirpeset omanut/nagarut (art/woodworking porch). Captains ran up and down the lines doing the wave and cheering for their team colors until finally the winners were announced. Blue came in first, but everyone cheered on their own teams, keeping up the excitement of the day.
Once the rankings were announced, Nivonim ran into the lake—a camp tradition now for many years. They kicked up water into the air, singing “Nivo, Nivo,” their aidah song, and other favorite tunes. As campers ran to get an afternoon chatif (snack), Nivonim continued singing, jumping and spraying the water everywhere. They were together for their last Yom Sport as campers, the reds, yellows, greens, and blues joining together as one aidah.
Last night, camp came together for our summer talent show. Each aidah had two acts—some of the highlights were singing, playing instruments, dancing, gymnastic routines, and the annual Nivonim boys and girls dances. After a day of color war, with campers divided, it was nice to come together to enjoy the immense talent that exists in every aidah and every camper at Ramah Wisconsin.
Here are a sampling of the team cheers!:
