Remember that time at camp?

Going away to camps are relatively popular here in Russia. For children, it's beneficial for them to get out of the city, breathe fresh air, and socialize. For parents, sending their kids away to camp for a few days or week is probably the closest you can get to selling your child. I'm 100% sure that my parents were going to donate me (tax-exempt purposes) when I was younger. It's natural.

In winter, I agreed to do a full week (every day counts, believe me) working as an English teacher in a linguistic camp. When kids are on vacation and out of school, studying is the last thing they want to be doing. Of course, there are exceptions. I will admit now that the only sleepaway camps I went to were academic--one for yearbook (yes, it exists) and another for 'writing the expository essay.' When children are out of the house, out of their parents' surveillance range, they feel free. I, as the teacher/counselor, felt trapped. After that week, I said 'no' to working with children in mass numbers. It's just not my thing and I accept that.

Last week, I spent five days at another linguistic camp. This was obviously against my free will and I received no compensation for it, but my visa was being compromised (if you want the full story about visas in Russia, contact me privately). I had worked with these children before at a day camp, but only for about 2 hours a day--far from 24 hours a day. I tried to be optimistic about it: I'd improve my Russian, I can get fresh air, I won't have to cook/spend money, I can be unplugged, etc. The air was fresh, but full of may flies; I was well-fed, but the food was terrible (and I can usually eat anything); and there were no activities at this camp.

I'm not saying anything about communism in Russia, but you can still feel the culture left behind from the Soviet era. When I (involuntarily) volunteered at the day camp, I did my job well. Because I did it well, I was invited (read: forced) into volunteering at the summer camp. I lost the motivation to do exceptional work the second time around.

Besides improving my language skills, I had a lot of time to be observant. In America, we try so hard to be politically correct that it makes us prejudice to people who are not so politically correct (i.e. those who use the metric system). During English class, we practiced paying compliments to each other. One girl turned to her partner and said, "You are...um...BIG!" She wasn't saying it to be funny because it was the only adjective that came to her mind. In another activity, a student described a classmate, and the others had to guess who it was. One description was, "He has short, dark hair. He is plump." One of the boys answered enthusiastically, "Oh! That's me for sure!" Kids are funny, but not funny enough to convince me to do this again.

Below is a video clip of our kids participating in the camp's talent show. It's cute, and now the song is stuck in my head.