In the beginning...

I’m way overdue with beginning this journal however I will do my best to sum my experiences the last five days.

On Thursday, I rode up to the Teva Learning Center with Laura Bellows and Rebecca Lemus. (I really had to struggle there for a second to remember that I knew their last names. This is another place where last names generally aren’t of much importance.)

Teva’s fall season takes place at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Connecticut. Anyway, we had a pretty uneventful trip up. We stopped often enough for bathroom and stretch breaks, and once to fill up the tank of the Toyota Prius Laura had the awesome opportunity to borrow until this weekend.

Anyway, not to leave you with too much detail, the first few days here have been a blast, living and learning with many friends old and new. I’ve spent most of my days with the Shomrei Adamah group, made up of new Teva educators, who will be working with students who start to arrive in about 12 days. Shomrei Adamah students learn on Isabella Freedman property (trails, etc.); other groups with returning educators spend more time in the field, on offsite overnights, for example.

These first couple weeks are a training and orientation opportunity, in addition to bonding with each other. However, now that I’ve helped get the temporary Teva office set up and gotten oriented to some administrative work for Freedman, I’m starting to transition to spending more time in the Centers’ offices and less time learning with the group. This is not to say, though, that there will be any shortage of time to spend hiking and having fun.