Defining OPPONENT as UP gets ready for a league.

Ultimate Peace in the Middle East is at an interesting turning point. It’s the end of 2011 and we’ve seen growth here beyond anything we had hoped for. We have active youth ultimate communities in Tamra, Arrabe, Ein Rafa, Ranaana, Daburriya, Bet Sehor, and Kfar Tavor. Some of them have even started their own Ultimate facebook pages! There are throngs of anxious kids waiting to get started  in Tuba Zangarria, Buena Nujedat and Binyamina and a host of additional villages longing for UP to build up enough staff to be able to support their ultimate communities, too. Coolest thing? Several of our UP kids tried out and made the Israeli Youth National Teams and are going to Dublin for the Youth Championships in summer 2012. Ten of the 33 boys on the U17 open team are Arabs and the girls U20 team is exactly half Jewish and half Arab. Sick.

Day 4: A sprint and a marathon

“Total déjà vu,” said Itay Semo, 14, of Ranaana, when he got to camp around noon. And it did seem, as we were tossing a disc around, that it could have been the year before, down to the smell of goat cheese wafting across the fields from the goat pen next door.

But things have changed, on all sides. Itay and a handful of other returning campers, for instance, were chosen for the junior Israeli National team. They’re competing in Poland in August. The kids in general – well, some of them aren’t really kids anymore. They’re taller, and they actually know how to play Ultimate. This is a jaw-dropping development; these are kids who didn’t know how to throw a disc last year or how many people should be on an Ultimate field or how to count to 10 in English. This year, some feel as much like friends as campers.

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With a year under our belt,

Day three: Calm before the Storm

T minus 12 hours till our kids get here. That means today was all about planning: ice breakers, drills, and –er – America’s national dance. We need something to break out when the kids dance the Hora and the Debka. What is America’s national dance, you ask? It’s now the Cupid Shuffle, courtesy of R&B singer Cupid.
We’ve even got a musical task team this year, led by guitarist Yaron Katzir, and they wrote us an anthem. I am sitting here looking at the words, writ large on poster board, but the song sounds better accompanied by our house string trio than it would if you read it on your computer screen.

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Fun facts: 98 percent of last year’s campers will be returning this year. 85 percent of this year’s campers

Day Two: Long Distance Vision

Speak English on a bus in Tel Aviv, you’re labeled “tourist.” Speak Arabic on the bus, you’re “suspicious.” Such is the implicit power of language. Nujudiat Ghazi, sport supervisor for the Ministry of Culture and Sport for northern Israel, started the morning by speaking – in three languages – to a group of over 50 coaches about bridging that chasm. It’s a slow process that must develop at its own pace.  “Give the time. Give the space,” Ghazi advised. “Don’t press these things.”
Ghazi’s keys to building trust: 1. Get familiar with the other’s language.              “If I know what he’s talking about, the ice wall begins to fall down.” 2. Get to appreciate the other’s music and dance, whether Debka or jazz. 3. Share similar activities.