June 28, 2008 || Roditelskii Den' (ie) Parents' Day

Parents' Day!
Oh man, this is the day that all the kids look forward to, and none of the staff or counselors--there's so much more work involved when every kid's parents, brother, sister and whatnot is running around, asking questions and getting into general trouble. Since Desi and I took a 2-hour nap today, we didn't actually get involved in too much of the action. We sang our song again during the performance for parents--each group did their best song/skit again--and then we worked at the rock climbing wall until 1ish, when we broke for lunch. Many of our campers still jumped and waved hi when they saw us, and we got introduced to parents everywhere we went, but just as many also smiled shyly and just waved from their parents' arms. It was all very interesting to me--there were lots of people who had that "I'm just bursting to talk to you but I'm afraid you won't understand me/my language skills are bad/or you won't like me" smile, and all I could think of was how much more fun it might be if we were all a little less worried about what the other person might think. Those that I started talking with were very excited to continue, including the parents I belayed for on the wall--THAT was fun too, though they were a bit heavy.
The rest of the day we stayed around our dorm, doing last minute packing and cleaning our clothes. Right after dinner we leave for our camping trip, so everything's got to get finished in the next 15 minutes (another short post). My hair is French-braided, courtesy of Desiree, since I won't be able to wash it for two days. All I'm taking is my backpack, and I'm not sure if it'll be enough, by the way they're talking how cold it usually is. It's been getting harder and harder to find time to write in my journal, since everywhere I go kids are dragging me off to play Pioneerball, or Russian hand/card games (I finally learned a Russian card game! It's awesome and while I was learning I was like "This is so Soviet" since there's only one loser and all the rest are winners) or American ones. Last night we had another late night, where Desi and I stayed up talking with Ilya and Egor about everything--Misha, and how part of the reason he's so cold to us is that he doesn't like Americans, movies, everything.
Working in the pool yesterday was great--the kids got really into water polo and it was fun to not have to be careful around the older ones. Other than that, I can't think of anything else to write right now (but there's always so much I want to say when I'm walking over! Every day there's a hundred tiny memories that I'll never be able to hang onto all at once, and they're only going to pop up months, years later in the smallest slivers... and I'm sure whoever I'm with then will never be able to appreciate them--like here's one! Alyesya was talking to her mom while I was belaying, and all of a sudden I caught the word "Anglichanan" so I of course had to turn around and call "We're not English! We're Americans!" .. even that's not that interesting, but it's these little flashes that I don't want to forget... there's just no way to hang onto them all).
Desi and I were listening to one of my mixes today that had "Breakfast at Tiffany's" on it.. I love that song. And I know, in just another week, I'm going to be thinking to myself, "And I hate when things are over..." 7 days left!