Robin Hood/Carolina Camp

Well, I'm back in Russia. It's a year later, but everything is quite as I remember it: the weather surprises me on a daily basis (I'm glad I brought an umbrella, jeans, and t-shirts), the candy is wonderful, and the people are as nice as can be.

I think it hit me sometime last night, how different I still feel here. Now, keep in mind, I was up on stage with a pair of Japanese fans covering my face, while Japanese music played in the background. Over the music, children were crying out "Ross-i-ya, Ross-i-ya!" which is how they say Russia in Russian. Like any non-Americans, they were going crazy for their soccer team--Russia was just about to play Sweden in the EuroCup finals (they won, by the way).

Darn! I've got to run. I had a friend looking over my shoulder and trying to explain other things to me--he's one of the photographers, and totally cool, I can't help but lose time writing here to talk to him. =) Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to add more to this later--or at least my own journal!

Alright, back for a bit. So last night we were practicing our Japanese fan dance while they were projecting the Russian football match on our faces. Why? Because even Russian children get to stay up late to watch their favorite team play football. Today we performed the fan dance in front of all of Carolina camp, and also we performed a traditional tea ceremony. I don't know how I ended up there, but I was the leader of the tea ceremony. Does anyone else feel the irony in this? An American girl serving as a Japanese tea ceremon-ist in a Russia children camp? Love it.
Anyway, today was our first full/real day of camp. We woke up around 7:45 so we could make morning exercises at 8:10--surprise, we got to lead them! Basically there was a lot of jumping around and waving of arms just to get the kids' blood flowing for the day. Then they had to go back and clean their rooms for inspection while we took a shower. Only about an hour ago, when I went to the cafeteria for dinner, did I notice that near the door there's a list for each group's room, and next to it a neutral, sad, or happy face, and the nearest little girl explained that that was for their room inspections. Desiree wants to get on the computer too, so quickly: we also played Pioneer Ball with a group of kids, sat with the youngest Carolina group (our first week here is all with Carolina, the second all with Robin Hood) [girlcamp.ru and robincamp.ru] during a music lesson, where we sang a bunch of different songs--and we're preparing one to sing at the closing ceremony, with English and Russian, and one about Sadako (you remember, Sadako and her paper cranes... although it was a touch awkward listening to a lecture about Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a bunch of 8 and 9-year-olds). This was also the first place we made some friends--for me, Dasha, Nina, Sveta, Dasha again... and I can't remember all their names. A little girl crawled into Desiree's lap, very tired, and told her "I love you" in English, which made us all who understood laugh. What else, wha--oh! We did the opening ceremony for the camp, where all the groups got together in a sort of parade and showed off poems they wrote, signs they made, and the names they gave their groups, and we danced a bit again (had our first discotheque last night), and raised the Russian flag. Later tonight we will judge drawings of "Russian rooms" and announce a winner... and go to our first counselor planning meeting. I think I'm going to get very used to little sleep and eating peanut butter out of my jar.
More when I have time... but I don't feel like I'll ever have enough time to tell you all about it!

OH! And before I forget.... check these website often, you can see pictures of Desiree and I on there:
www.robincamp.ru >> (the photo site:http://www.robincamp.ru/summer2008.htm?id=10)www.girlcamp.ru >> (the photo site:http://www.girlcamp.ru/photos/summer2008.htm)

Look under "CMEHA 2" and then each day: DEHb 1, 2, 3.." etc.
(for day one on Robin Hood, we're aroud pictures 3, 39-42ish, and 46... this is also a great way to see what our camp looks like)