Peulat Tzevet

This is a thought from last week.

When I worked at camp, we had to put the kids to bed before we had staff programming. Basically the programs would be at 10pm, and there would be "shmira" (guards) that walked around until staff curfew - to each cabin just to make sure everything is okay. That's sort of like babysitting patrol at Michigania, but they actually go to the cabins to check on the kids.

I never thought that this was how life was - I thought it was just one of those camp things.

Well, I learned that I was wrong. On Thursday night I watched the Kite Runner with some ladies in the Jewish community here, and they all have kids. We met at 9pm, after their kids were in bed. I don't know if their maids were "watching" the kids or if it was their husbands, but I realized that we had a peulat tzevet (staff program)!!

In other news...
Matt and I went to this boardwalk in Pasir Ris Park, which is about 20 minutes from our house (five MRT stops away). We saw big and small crabs, big fish, big and small mud-slickers (a few were even six inches long!). It was pretty cool. It was a mangrove walk. I think I find that stuff interesting, because it's so different than what I saw growing up. We did not have mud-slickers -which are essentially fish with legs, so they can go on the land or water. I remember finding tadpoles in the Orley's pool, but that's as far as it got.

Also, tonight we held the third UHC (Reform Jewish community here) family program. It was on Passover, and it went really well. We learned about the parts of the seder, decorated matzah with chocolate (that was a kid's idea), wrote psalms, sang and learned the story of Passover. The other two programs were on Shabbat and Purim, and we have one more this year - on Israel for Israel's 60th birthday. It's actually a really fun thing for me to do, and the community seems to really like it - and they're all getting to know each other. It's a really positive part of my life here.