Summer Camp!

As promised in my last post, I have lots of stories from my week at Intensive English Summer Camp with 80 kids from 12 to 19 years old from all over the country, including the Atlantic coast. It was a fantastic week with a truly great group of students. They learned a lot, made tons of new friends, and had an experience that almost no kids in Nicaragua get to have (the idea of “summer camp” doesn’t really exist here).

Although a total of six students from my two schools were originally accepted into the camp, only two were able to attend:





But I didn’t really see much of either of them all week.

We had a staff of 11 adults: one English Language Fellow (Misty) who was the coordinator, 4 Nicaraguan teachers who taught the actual English classes in the mornings (they were great!), 5 Peace Corps Volunteers, and a friend of Misty’s (Fatima).

PCVs:


Misty & Fatima:


Some of the Nica teachers:


All of us, minus Misty, had groups of about 7 to 9 students who we ate with and did a lot of the activities with. I was the leader of Crimson Cross, named for a cartoon army apparently, of 8 guys who were in the advanced class and spoke really well when they arrived and amazingly by the time they left. There were 3 from Managua, 2 from Bluefields on the Atlantic coast, one from Granada, one from Jinotepe, and one from Esteli (up north):

From left to right: Carlos, Gustavo, Christian, Jonathan, Mario, Emilio, Lonny, and Kiefer on the ground, where he could usually be found:



(This one has an extra kid in it, he snuck into all the group photos we took the last day!)

I seriously couldn’t have asked for a better group, these guys had no qualms about doing the goofy camp songs we taught them, almost always spoke in English, and had the best manners I’ve ever seen in teenaged boys (they carried my dishes for me at lunch, were friends with everyone, and I only had to yell at them in the morning because they usually arrived last for breakfast :)

So our week went something like this: the students arrived in Managua on Sunday afternoon



and we all bussed down to a retreat center near Granada where we got settled in and played some games to get to know each other.



The students were supposed to be in their rooms at 9pm and lights out at 9:30pm every night because breakfast was early at 6:30am. As leaders, we all made rounds to check on the kids and then met each night after lights out to talk about the day and discuss details for the following day which meant we generally got less sleep than the kids. The first morning I was completely confused to wake up at around 5am to the boys in my hall talking and listening to music! Turns out some of the kids got up as early as 4am!! We actually had to chastise them and tell them to SLEEP IN, or if they are awake early to be more quiet. I’ve never seen teenagers have to be told to sleep in. My boys had no problems with this and when I wandered down to wake them up at 5:45am every morning all the other kids were up except for them :)

Every day started with English class in the morning, we assisted in the classes but also used the time to rest and prepare other activities.

I assisted one of the beginning classes:


The PCVs taught a one hour “culture class” each day about holidays (Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, and MLK Day since it was this week).

I had Christmas, we learned about the Nutcracker & made little Christmas trees:




The trees were a little tricky but at least they were good about it:


After lunch the schedule changed a bit each day, on Monday we had a bunch of activities prepared (I taught ballet again):




And we had field trips three days of week:

Tuesday we did a digital scavenger hunt in Granada (which we won, btw).
A “small” group photo:


Wednesday we visited the American Corner in the national (?) library & the Nicaraguan-Northamerican Cultural Center (CCNN).
At the library:


Group photo at CCNN:


Thursday we went to a TV news channel and one of the national newspapers, El Nuevo Diario.
Jonathan & Kiefer with the anchor at the TV station:


Trying to stay awake at El Nuevo Diario (they were really tired by this point):


Otherwise we used free time prepare presentations for the closing ceremony,

Important people came to see what the kids had learned, hopefully we convinced them that the camp should be an annual event:


Since we were named for an army, in our presentation I was a drill sergeant and they told me all their reasons for coming to “Basic Training English Camp”


practice for the talent show on Friday night,

Lots of singing:





And dancing (the guys and a few more doing Soulja Boy):





Maria & I did a ballet (we were roommates again, so we basically spent the last 3 weeks together. Good times):


The ensuing dance party:


or just rest. Needless to say, we were really busy all week. I got home yesterday and slept 11 hours last night. This morning when I woke up alone in my house, I actually kinda missed the sound of giggling and gangsta rap that the boys played outside my door at 6am. This post is definitely long enough and I need to get on to other things but maybe I’ll post more of the fun stories from the week later.