camp

I have a new job. 'Camp Counsellor' for Berlitz (the big boss of European language schools) in their Kids and Teens English program. At camp there are usually between 30 and 50 kids, aged 7-17 and one counsellor for every ten kids. The day starts at 8am. You wake the kiddies up and eat breakfast with them. From 9.15 - 12 I'm quatsching my way through English lessons. Passive present progressive? Kid, I have no idea! After lunch we teach sports and crafts. Then it's dinner and evening activities - on a good day we chuck on a movie in English and our work is done. One evening we set up a little health spa in the classrooms and gave all the kids face packs, footbaths and manicures. 11 o'clock you make sure the last kids are in bed and not making out with the other 15-year-olds behind the skate park. Then we meet with the rest of the team, crack some beers, talk some trash, organise the program for the next day, make lesson plans and correct the kids' work. Most nights I finished at around 1 or 2am. That's an 18 hour day spent trying to maintain full-on, mental kid energy! And we do this seven days a week.

My first camp was at Ummanz, a tiny island in the Baltic Sea. I imagined idyllic surroundings and fresh sea breazes. I arrived in grey, east-German holiday camp conditions. The kids complained that it was like being in a prison camp - and judging by the food it probably was. Not to mention the horse-flies and the infestation of wasps. Anyway, the kids were cute and their valient attempts at speaking English at all times - hilarious:
"Amy, when become we a sausage?"
"Roxy, where's Inga?"
"He is in the room. I go holeing her?"

On the final night we organised a disco at the surf hostel down the road with the kids and counsellors from another camp. Everyone stuck an envelope on the wall and posted little notes for the others. Most of mine were along the lines of, "Amy, you are so grazey and funy! I love you. Love Kati." My favorite was unsigned and read simply, "Best teacher of the world!" Ah, kids and their over use of superlatives. Precious!

I arrived back in Berlin completely exhausted and promising myself I would spend the next week sleeping and detoxing on a diet of steamed broccoli and mugwort tea. I was chatting to Patryk one morning about how he thought that he didn't take enough risks and missed opportunities. (On a side note, I believe this is bullshit. Patryk always seems to be having adventures. The kid's just stuck in a rut because he's spent too much time in the outer suburbs of Sydney.) Anyway, I told him I thought he had nothing to lose and everything to gain and that he should run away and join the circus. Within the next half and hour later I got an email from the company saying that a volunteer position on a camp in Romania had become available at the last minute. I thought I should take my own advice so, with no idea what I was getting myself in for, I signed up.

So last Saturday I found myself on a plane to Bucharest with the dear Kate Davison; another fabulous old homo from Dubbo, Jon; and Lehua, a tough ass Californian punk rocker. We spent the first evening wandering around Bucharest, admiring the juxtaposition of bulky Communist architecture with massive billboards and neon lighting and a few hidden pearls of Art Deco details and Orthodox churches. The next morning we stuffed our pockets with fruit and bread rolls from our hotel's buffet breakfast before being picked up and driven through Transelvania and the Carpathein Mountains to Dorohoi, eight hours away on the Ukranian border. It was too dark to see much of the town when we arrived. In the daylight I realised that I don't think I've ever been in a place where the effects of poverty were more obvious.

We met the woman who had started the school, who turned out the be a fundamentalist Christian from the USA - a theme carried through by most of the staff. She warned us that Romanian kids weren't like Western kids. They were shy and reserved, brought up by strict Orthodox and Evangelical families. Some of them were not allowed to dance. Singing and hand-clapping were of course permitted. So we started the kids off with a few getting-to-know-you games. All good clean fun. No hip grinding or pelvic thrusting. It soon became pretty clear and these kids were NOT shy...and as for dancing, just try to stop them! Given the opportunity to run around and go crazy they went mad for it and had an excellent time. It was affirming to see that kids from such disrupted backgrounds, raised by fundo Christians are, in the end, just kids. The parents said they'd never seen their kids that excited about learning and they wanted to honour us for the work we were doing. The parents of three families picked us up one evening, took us out into the hills and fed us homegrown tomatoes, cucumber, garlic, plums and apples with homemade sheep's cheese and schnapps. One father even slaughtered a pig and cooked it a big cast iron pot over an open fire. We all had a grand old time getting pissed and dancing around the fire with the parents to the local radio playing on the car stereo. There was only one German speaker and one English speaker other than us among the group but I've never felt more warmly welcomed anywhere in Europe.

The weather was perfect. Kate, Lehua and Jon were amazing to work with and even more amazing to spend evenings with - drinking cheap beer and gazing out across the horizon into the Ukraine. On the car trip back to Bucharest, drinking homemade wine bought on the side of the road I was sad to be leaving. But I'm happy to be back in Berlin again. Chloe's visiting so I'm playing tour guide and trying to settle myself down again here. I realised that in the past 2 months I've only spent about 2 weeks in total in Berlin. I feel fulfilled and satisfied but a bit worn out and disconnected. I need a place to nest.