5 Simpsons, Garfield, Jon, Odie, and a Jonas Brother

This is the cast of my upcoming show. Basically, the plot is that the Simpsons are being themselves (except I have on Lisa because my Lisa can't come to the show), when Joe Jonas comes in looking for his two brothers. The Simpsons don't know where they are, but they call up Jon, who brings over Garfield and Odie. They don't know either, but Jon and Homer offer to sing as substitute Jonas Brothers.

It could be a disaster, but the show is really about whatever the kids like. Five of them love the Simpsons, and four of them do not. So I asked the other four what they liked, and for a few minutes they insisted that there was nothing that they liked, but finally one said, "Garfield!" And two of the others also like Garfield. But there was one who was still unhappy. He's a pretty big kid, and I was surprised he didn't like the Simpsons, because every boy here (and most girls) love the Simpsons. I was shocked when I asked him what he liked and he said, "The Jonas Brothers!" So he's Joe Jonas.

My group is very different from the one I had at the convent. But they are the same age and they use the same level book. This time, I feel like rather than them being at English camp, I'm at Italian camp. They REFUSE to speak to me in English. This is a big problem because I do not speak Italian. Most of the tutors at this camp do, so at least they can understand what's going on and choose whether or not to let the kids know that they understand. But I have no choice other than to say, "English!" and then they just give up trying to tell me something and walk away. As a result, I am learning more Italian every day. They are pretty fast with the workbook, in English of course, but they just won't speak it. So today when I handed out the script for the show, most of them looked at it and said "Inglese!" I have no idea why they thought I would write a script for them in Italian.

Aside from these frustrations, I have another great group of kids. They have a smaller range of English than my kids last week (which went from two girls who couldn't say two words in English to the guy who used the word "disassociate"), so I don't have to wait as long for a few kids to finish. I am also lucky to have a real classroom this time so I can explain things using a blackboard. But, it is a huge room and the walls are bare, so every little noise echoes. Thus, when two people talk, it's very, very loud. And when five people talk, it's deafening. Still, it's really nice to have an actual space this week.

This week I have a host family. My host mom, Simona, speaks fantastic English, so I can have real conversations with her. My host sister, Sarah, is 5 and my host brother, Omar, is 8. I talk/play with them as much as I can, which is difficult when we speak different languages. But yesterday I spent some time playing with Sarah and three of their neighbors in the apartment building. And that was a lot of fun.

Simona took me to the annual village festival on Monday night for dinner. I'm living in Bolgare and teaching in Calcinate. This area is a bunch of villages probably about 5,000 people each and the camp draws from four of them. It seemed like half the town turned out for the festival, but we left when it started to rain. But we watched the fireworks from a flat on the third floor of our building, and considering this is a town of 5,000 people, the fireworks were incredible. They lasted for about 15 minutes, and while some didn't make it above the treetops, there a lot of amazing ones.

Something else that I've been noticing a lot this week is race. Most places I've been around Italy have been almost entirely White. But here it's different. When I went grocery shopping with Simona on Saturday, I could tell that this area was much more diverse than the other places I've seen. I asked her about it, and she said that there has been a huge wave of immigration in the last 10 years or so. Her building is mostly Indian, and her ex-husband is Egyptian. But at the festival, it was about 99% White. She said that the town is pretty racist, so I'm thinking that the immigrants don't feel at all included in this area, even though they make up so much of the population now. I think it's really hitting me because I spent four months in the Czech Republic, which is about 95% Czech, and just haven't been in a racially diverse area for so long. This is another reason I'm excited to go home.

Well I'm here until Saturday morning, and then it's off to another camp. I should find out my destination tomorrow! And I'll post a bunch of pictures as soon as I get internet on my laptop.

Happy July!!

Parma Ham, Bacon, Clams, Mussels, Prawns, Beef with Cheese, and Other Un-Kosher Delights

Camp #1 ended today. I am pretty glad it's over. The final show went really well, and talking to the parents and eating their food was great, but the last few days were rough. My well-behaved group turned into a not-so-well-behaved group. But they nailed the show, they all memorized their lines perfectly, and they had some amazing costumes.

My favorite part of today though was the food after the show. Unfortunately I missed part of it because of a name mistake. For the kids' portfolios/diplomas/certificates, I used the names they wrote in their workbooks. Well, one girl wrote "Elisa Vitalina Benedetta." So I wrote everything as "Elisa Benedetta," but apparently her name is "Elisa Vitalina." Oops!

But after that, I started eating. Two parents came up to me and told me that they'd made dishes specifically for me. Everyone here knows that I don't eat pork. One cooked me a mushroom/cheese/bread dish and another made a tuna rice dish. But then I was standing next to the massive pork, and a woman I don't even know came up to me when she saw me looking at it and waved her finger in a very concerned way, saying "You can't eat it! Pork!" I still don't know who she is, but she knows who I am. I also came out as a Jew to a few people this week, although it was more the Italian-speaking tutors coming out for me. Everyone accepted it smoothly, one guy asked if I'd been to the synagogue in Rome, and Sister Gabriella (the cool, young nun), was happy to finally understand my dietary restrictions.

More about food... last night was an incredibly bizarre dinner. Every week night we've gone to a family's house for dinner, and the food is always amazing. But last night the four of us went to a fancy restaurant for weddings/other events owned by the family of one of my kids. It was us tutors, three of my kids, their mothers, and a bunch of teenagers and I don't really know if they were friends or siblings, because no one every told us. We got there at 8, and we didn't have a conversation with anyone until 11. We sat at one end of a double table, surrounded by kids who refused to talk to us in English or Italian, 20 feet from the mothers who did not say a word to us. They just served us food and watched as we ate it and pointed when we didn't eat certain things. The title of this post was part of the menu. The least Kosher dinner... ever. At least there was some fish, and as for the spaghetti with clams, I just picked out the clams. And the dessert was good.

Well tomorrow I head to my next camp. I'm going with my friend Mike (!) from school to a city of 5,000 about 40 minutes from Milan. I'll be transporting for 7 hours, but 4 of them are on the speedy train which I've never been able to afford but now that I'm not paying, it'll be wonderful.

I'll post some pictures from today soon.

More Fun in Frattochie

Some stories from the last few days...

"Her water is wrong!"

At the end of every camp there is a show for the parents. My kids wanted to do one about a crazy American family, so I am letting them. We'll see if it turns out to be a good idea. One of the original scenes that is no longer in the script is one where the mother gives birth. I let the kids figure out the show in Italian and then perform it for me in English so I could understand what was happening. The one who is really good at English ran up to me and said, "Her water is wrong! Her water is wrong!" So I responded, "Stefano, what are you talking about?" And he pointed to the mother, giving birth to another girl in my group and repeated, "Her water is wrong!" I asked, "Her water broke?" He said, "Yes! Yes!" I cut that scene.


Photo Booth

Kids love Photo Booth. I think people of all ages love Photo Booth, but especially young kids. I brought out my computer to play "Hello Goodbye" for them when I was teaching opposites, and the techie in the group noticed the camera above my screen. So when we finished learning the song/motions, I turned it on and took a picture of them. Then, today I brought it out to work on the script for the show, and was quickly mobbed by half my group. So I told them that they could play with it during lunch. They spent the first 20 minutes of lunch taking pictures of themselves with different distortions. This is one of my favorites.


Nuns + Water Balloons

Friday was Water Games Day. We did Over/Under with huge water balloons, and the game where you hold a water balloon under your chin and pass it from neck to neck. But the best part was when Sister Gabriella (the young, cool nun) got ahold of the extra water balloons. And after a while, she moved onto the hose. I was really tempted to peg her with a water balloon while she was spraying me with a hose, but God might have struck me down immediately. I wish I had pictures.


Secret Shabbat

I'm going to guess that this was my convent's first Shabbat... and they don't even know that it happened. I got some wine and a lighter in Rome, Samira had leftover birthday candles, and I took some of the rolls they have daily in the canteen. And towels served as kippot. It was the first Shabbat for my three co-tutors and for Lauren, my good friend from Wash U who visited for the weekend. I think we went through about 8 birthday candles because they burnt out in like 15 minutes. It was definitely a unique experience.

Shoe Shoppin'

Yesterday I went shoe shopping with a nun, and today I went with the mother of two campers. When I arrived on Saturday, I told the camp director that I wanted some sandals, since the ones I bought in Prague cut into my feet. We looked for about half an hour but found nothing. So, she made it her mission to find me some good sandals.

Today, at the end of camp, I was waiting around as parents took their kids home, when one approached me and asked, "Are you looking for shoes?" I thought that she thought a camper had lost a shoe and she found it, so I said that I wasn't looking, but she seemed confused. Then she said, "Open-toed shoes?" and I realized that Angela had told her about my search. So I went with her and her two campers/daughters to a discount store. We walked in, she knew the owner, and when she pointed at me, he said "Ah!" in recognition, so I guess everyone in this town knows that I am looking for sandals. The only problem... this store doesn't sell men's sandals. Oh well.

Luckily I actually found some good ones at the next store we went to. I took off my shoes/socks to try them on, and when I went to the mirror to check them out, I realized that the two girls had put my shoes and socks in a shopping cart and were trailing me. SO cute.

Today was another fun day at camp. We focused on months/days of the week/present continuous (-ing) and then played a really fun all-camp game in the afternoon and my team lost by one point, but was really proud to get second place. And now we're off to some pizzeria on a mountain that one of the camper's families owns for dinner! Life is crazy.

Life in a Convent

I just returned from a shoe shopping trip with a nun. I'm not sure how to begin to explain my last few days.

But here are some pictures from San Remo, where I had orientation last week. The first is from the Old Town, which I walked around with a couple of my roommates as soon as we arrived. The second is a view from the villa where we had orientation.

I am living in a convent about 20 minutes outside Rome. It is very rural, pretty hot, and extremely Catholic. I am a tutor/counselor for an amazing group of 9-11 year olds, all of whom go to school here. Their teachers are all nuns except for one, Angela, who is the camp director. Camp goes from 9-5 Monday-Friday, and this is a two-week session. This is the first year that ACLE (the organization I work for) has had a camp here, and this is the only session this summer, so it's pretty much a trial run. That means that the camp director is new, and no one here knows that to expect.

For the most part, camp has been great so far. I was really anxious because the orientation was unnerving at times and overwhelming at others, I've never been a camp counselor, and I've never taught a language. But as soon as the kids arrived, everything fell into place. I was worried about having a group of rowdy, uncontrollable kids like I had during the practice morning during orientation, but with the group I have now, I can leave them for minutes at a time and they will be completely responsible. I want to desribe all of them but that would take forever, so I'll just describe a few. Two of them are siblings and their mom is a former English teacher. One of them, Stefano, knows a ridiculous amount of English. Today he walked away from a group of kids, looked at me and said, "I disassociate myself!" I don't think American 10 year-olds would have any idea what that means. When someone is that far ahead, it can go either way: He can completely remove himself from the group, or he can participate and explain things to the other kids. And he is the latter, which is wonderful.

There's a boy named Francesco who is about a foot shorter than all the other boys, and he is unbelievably cute. And there's a girl named Federica who enjoys playing loud, fun games, and she comes up to me after them and says "That game is crazy!" But my favorite might be Giammi. We break up into teams with kids from every group in the afternoon for mini-olympic games. I am the leader of Team Redwolf. Giammi is also a part of Team Redwolf, and he cracks me up. He always makes silly faces, his shorts are way shorter than everyone else's and also tighter, he tried to choreograph our team cheer, and after people lie on the ground, he runs up to them and wipes their backs clean.

But more on living with nuns. None of them speak a word of English. They know that I don't eat pork (although they don't know why), and on Sunday they served a dish that looked like pork, so I walked into the back room, where I expected to find only Gabriella, the youngest nun who we communicate with mostly (2 of my co-tutors speak fluent Italian). But I walked into a room with about 10 nuns sitting and eating. Each was seated at their own personal table, and they were all facing each other. And as soon as I started talking, they all started speaking at me in Italian. This was one of those moments when I just kind of withdrew from myself and thought, "How did I get to this point?" I was standing in a room with 10 Italian nuns who were all talking to me at the same time in a language I didn't understand. Well anyway, it turned out that the meat was beef.

We're staying in a mini-apartment building on the property. Us 4 tutors each have our own rooms, with bathrooms included. And we have a terrace balcony (pictured). So it's nice. I was a bit bummed when I saw that I'd be living in a "flat," and not a homestay, but it's turned out really well. And I learned at dinner tonight that we have dinner plans for the next 5 nights. 5 campers' families have offered to have us over, which I am really looking forward to, although that's a lot of busy nights when are days are already packed.

There are statues of Jesus everywhere, and crucifixes in every room. And there's also this poster of their plan to Evangelize. Oh and tonight during dinner, we were served a peach that had a cross in it!

It starts with an F...

Sadly this is all I remember about my first destination of the summer. I was told twice, but I forgot to write it down! It's somewhere near Rome, and I'm taking the night train there tomorrow night.

Orientation has been a crazy week. It's in San Remo, which is about an hour from Nice and only 20 minutes from Monaco. My hotel is about 2 minutes from the sea, and the orientation takes place in a villa filled with palm trees and flowers, overlooking the sea. It's obscene. But for such a relaxing location, there's been a lot of stress.

I realized that it's been a loooooong time since I've been in a place nowhere near anyone I know. So that's been a little rough, and I have absolutely needed daily internet access to maintain sanity, which I know is not the best thing. I'm sure I'll get used to this quickly. And I haven't been a camp counselor before, which is a challenge even before you consider that these kids don't know very much English.

But the games and songs we've learned this week are so fun, and that makes everything better. I can't wait to teach them to all of the kids. It will be an adventure when I walk into a classroom with 10-12 Italian kids on Monday and do my best to teach them English. And I'm expecting it to take a few weeks to really find my footing, but it should be a lot of fun.

Oh and I'm excited to post stories like Maryse's about teaching kids, and I have one so far. On Wednesday morning we went to a school and worked with kids, and we were doing a game where we shout a color and they have to find something that is that color. We shouted "Pink!" and two kids walked toward me, with one pointing to the other's cheek. But the kid was really tan. So his friend pointed at the cheek, and then pointed at my face and said "Pink!" They found my pink cheeks.

Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen (Scotland)

We landed in Scotland, and it was green. That was actually the main reason I wanted to go to Scotland. But I didn't expect to see a sunset that would rival Florence's.

We arrived at a distant Ryanair airport, and just missed the train to Glasgow. Stranded for a while, we looked beyond the station and saw an incredible sunset above the brilliantly green landscape. It was so nice that we considered passing up the next train to wait for it to set, but decided to get on board anyway. But about 5 minutes into the ride, we went along the water, and the sun was setting on the water, and I thought, "I have to get off this train and go to the beach." So the next stop, we got off, not knowing if another train would be coming soon or at any point that night. Luckily, the next one would come in an hour. We walked, and then ran, through a small, nice beach town. I ran to the water and took probably close to 100 pictures. I think it was the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen. That's how Scotland began.

That beauty was upstaged on Day 2. We took a train and ferry to the Lonely Planet-recommended Isle of Arran, about a two-hour journey from Glasgow. As we docked, I noticed that the island was shockingly similar to Milos, the island I went to in Greece. The shape of the island was similar, and where there were mountains on Milos, there were mountains on Arran. But the white and blue of Milos turned into intense green, everywhere. The first thing we did was picnic on the beach with food from the grocery store there (Where the aisle markers were in both English and Scottish). The pincic concluded with two problems and one solution: What do you do when there are too many Pringles and your chocolate bar metled? Pringle fondue! It was delicious.

After lunch we embarked on a journey toward Brodick Castle, which was a much more challenging walk than either Audrey or I expected. But we saw all kinds of birds, some wrecked boats, and managed to make it across all of the streams that crossed our path. We walked through the huge territory of gardesn around the castle for a while, and had some authentic Arran ice cream, which was the best ice cream I've had in a long time (I'm not including gelato). But then it was on to Glen Rosa, which was my favorite part of Scotland.

Glen Rosa (Rosa Valley) came at the end of an hour-long hike through green hills, passing flowery fields with sheep and horses. When we first saw it, I instantly thought of the Great Valley from the Land Before Time. There was a river flowing through, some very isolated and interesting-looking trees, and just green everywhere. Audrey took a break so I went on a little farther, and came across a very simple bench, and sat for a while. I was in this huge valley, listening to the river below me, and I could not hear or see anyone. It was amazing.

Edinburgh is a unique city. It's classically gray and there's a valley that cuts through the city where there's a beautiful park. The castle reminded me of the Akropolis (keeping with the Greece comparisons) because it just shoots out of the ground into a plateau. On the first day we went on a free city tour with an exceedingly awkward guide, but the stories made the tour worthwhile.

The second day was more interesting. We stopped by a coffee shop in the morning so Audrey could get a latte. This should not have been complicated. She asked for a "latte," and he looked confused. "A watte?" he asked. Audrey paused... "A latte." He said something like, "Do you want a watte?" At this point I couldn't contain my laughter and ran out of the shop and started laughing on the street like a crazy person. Audrey eventually got her "watte" but threw it out in favor of better coffee a block away.

For lunch we went to the Elephant House in Edinburgh, where J.K. Rowling began Harry Potter! So that was exciting. We also went to the Scottish National Museum, which had a stuffed Dolly the sheep, and a fun but very difficult simulated F1 racing game. We ended the night on a free pub crawl from the hostel (my first), where we met a really nice Australian, and a Puerto Rican who knew all about Wash U (It's rare that I find anyone who has heard of Wash U).

The UK... They Speak English!!

I've been in the UK for 9 days now, which is an eternity when traveling. But it's been a really good eternity. I've been staying with Audrey at the University of Sussex, and we just got back from 4 days in Scotland.

Before we went North, we alternated between exploring Brighton and London. I took the train in from Paris last Thursday morning, and got off in a land of English speakers. Being able to ask anyone for help and assume that they could understand me was bizarre. I took advantage of this while getting lost trying to find the British Museum, which was the place I went to immediately. But on the way, I found a Tesco Express where they sold fresh chocolate chip cookies! I haven't had a fresh chocolate chip cookie in months, so that was my breakfast. I explored the British Musem for a few hours (Rosetta Stone and Parthenon marbles in the same wing? It's insane) and then reunited with Yael who I hadn't seen since Greece.

Brighton is a beach town that is California-ish with its pier and beach food. I probably spent half my time there skipping rocks, and the other half trying Audrey-approved British food (so as to avoid the stereotype of awful food here).

We went up to London last Saturday and had a really fun, busy day. It began with an ordinary walk to Buckingham Palace, where they happened to be rehearsing for the Queen's birthday party. It was a fun parade, and I wish I could go back for the real thing. We met up with a bunch of people from school (one coincidentally) and saw Waiting for Godot with Sir Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, which was entertaining but very much caught between moments of intensity and moments of Three Stooges reenactments. But Ian McKellen was in it, so it was good.