Camp! Camp! Camp!

Hello everyone!


I thought it might be time for another update since I recently started my new job for the month of January and am living in a new place etc.  As most of you should know, I am teaching English at a Chilean summer camp for the month of January at a school just outside of Santiago in a town (or suburb-ish) called Calera de Tango.   In short, I LOVE it.  I love living out in the campo, or country.  The air is fresh and clean.  The weather is perfect.  I fall to sleep to the sound of silence instead of honk-honk and I wake up to birds chirping.  I am very much a "city-girl" but I am kinda in love with Calera de Tango.  Luckily, I'm not on my own either.  Another girl, Gabriella, that I met during my study abroad program is here with me teaching English as well.  As much as we loved our host families and Santiago, we are so happy to be out in the country and to have a little more independence.  We do our own cooking and are in charge of our own schedules as well, minus having to be at camp five days a week for eight hours a day.


So the atmosphere is wonderful.  Now time to talk about the job... The name of the camp is Summer Land and it is run by a Chilean woman who lives in California but whose family lives in Calera de Tango etc.  Summer camps are not popular and are practically nonexistent in Chile.  So Ximena, the director, thought it would be a wonderful idea to bring the concept of a summer camp to Chile in order to give kids something fun to do during the summer as well as learn English, which is the main thrust of the camp.  However, these kids aren't sitting in a classroom for eight hours learning English.  Nope.  We try to incorporate English into all our activities - sports, relay races, art projects, music etc.  Everything is well-organized and thought out.  Honestly, if I were a kid again I'd want to go to this camp too!


So for the kids it's a good time.  For us as camp counselors... it can be exhausting.  Obviously.  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my job and I am so happy I am here, but at the end of the day, sometimes I can't even think or move and all I want to do is sleep.  As many of you know from experience (being parents or babysitting etc), children have an unlimited source of energy.  Overall the kids are great but every once in awhile when they just won't listen or are running around like chickens with their heads cut off you just want to throw the towel in or yell or cry or all of the above.  But patience is a virtue, I suppose, and something you must have with children.  Patience.  I am also learning to embrace sticky fingers and globs of paint in hair etc.  It's all good fun and at the end of the day I really don't have to clean them up, I can just send them home to their parents.  (hehe)


No, but really we are having a blast.  The entire Summer Land team is a lot of fun as well.  I am meeting a lot of new Chileans and able to practice my Spanish.  The idea of the camp is English, English, English but it truly is a bilingual camp.  Most of the kids don't know a whole lot of English so they need things explained in Spanish occasionally etc.  The goal at the end of the day and at the end of the month is for these children (110 in total) to know substantially more English.  Knowing multiple languages is something I am obviously passionate about and support so I am definitely enjoying my time working at Summer Land.  Plus it is a good break from study abroad and just allows me to remain in Chile longer.


Okay, that's really all I have to say for now.  I hope you all are staying warm back at home.  (Although I have heard it has been absurdly warm for January).


¡Ciao!