Right now, I'm back in town (in Novorossyisk) at Masha's house. She's a wonderful girl who was a counselor at camp, and we became fast friends. I'll be staying with her the rest of the summer.
While at camp I was without internet, but I kept a camp journal. You'll notice the entries get shorter and shorter as time goes on and I get more and more exhausted. I'll give you a few entries at a time so it's not overwhelming. Photos later!
Happy to be "home", and happy to be back online! Also, it's my birthday, and it's already shaping up to be the best birthday ever.
Пока ребята, Russian Jane
The Camp Diaries
Hey guys! I’m
without Internet access here at Mountain Springs, so I’m keeping a camp journal
instead! I’ll put it all up when I
get back to civilization.
DAY ONE: THEY MADE US DANCE
Dannah and I arrived at the camp around noon, and went to
work right away putting together journals for the campers (the ones that almost
killed us the other day) while everyone else worked on other campy projects,
like hanging banners and making nametags for the campers.
The theme of the 10-day English camp is “Route 66: Lost and
Found”. All the vocab has to do
with time, directions, etc. The
topics look like they’re going to be excellent conversation starters for deeper
things. The last day even has a
section about finding direction in your life. It should be pretty fun.
Our camp schedule is going to rigorous to say the
least. Our day starts at 8am
and ends at 11pm. Thank goodness,
there’s a quiet hour in the middle (тихий
час, I think that sounds really cute) explicitly for napping. Our days are filled with meetings,
lessons, games, and a whole lot of together time. I think I'm going to be totally exhausted by the time this
camp it over, but it's going to be a blast, I already know.
My co-counselor
is Varvara, a fireball from Sibieria.
We've become fast friends, and I'm excited to share this adventure with
her.
In the evening,
we had a little party for us councelors and workers at the camp. And by little, I mean huge. There weren't that many people, maybe
50, but they did it up right. We
met in the soccer field where there were two rows of plastic chairs. We were instructed to all stand in the
middle, boys on one side girls on the other. Then, Varvara and another bloke Peter taught us a country
dance that turned into giggling bedlam pretty quickly, but it was really fun. They taught us another dance after
that, and everyone participated.
Initially it sounded exactly like the kind of thing I would hate, but it
was really fun.
After that, the
camp leader Andree gave a speech and we all prayed together. Alyssia did the same, and the lit a big
bonfire to signify the start of camp.
After that, we did something really neat. They gave us about three big flat ribbons that we tore into
little strips. We then went around
to everyone and tied a ribbon on their wrist while giving them a blessing. It was really touching, and by the end
of it my wrists were full of ribbons.
After the party,
a group of us went down to the rocky beach and sat on the shore for a bit in
the starlight. We were all pretty exhausted, but it was a beautiful night and in that light, the sea really did
look black. On a side note, in the
background were Russian screaming and cheering because Greece was playing
Russia in Eurocup. They love
soccer here.
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