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Acclimating to camp life, filling myself with baguette, and teaching French kids how to eat pancakes

It's Day 8 of Adventure Camp, and it's Pirate Day. I just spent the last two hours devising an elaborate game to hunt for buried treasure. Six teams much each find ten clues in the camp, decipher the code and visit a hermit to receive map pieces. Once all teams have finished, they put the pieces together to find the treasure.

Classic counselor pose
Each day has a different theme: Explorer Day, Everglades Day, Mission to Mars Day. Yesterday was a big day at camp: Valentine's Day! During my ESL class we made envelopes and valentines. We had a "fancy" dinner and a dance for the evening program called "Boom." Everyone dresses up- the counselors are almost unrecognizable, a far cry from the daily ponytails, Tevas and jean shorts most of us wear. It was great to see all the kids dress up and dance- reminded me of my time in middle school, except they do a lot more jumping up and down and less awkwardly standing on the sidelines. There's this one song, "Sardines" that the kids just go CRAZY for. It's hilarious.

This morning was also special, as the kids were served "American Brunch": scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes with (fake) maple syrup. There is a tutorial before food is served to show how pancakes are properly eaten- not rolled up like a crepe, but cut with a knife and fork. The veteran counselors said that usually the pancakes are prepackaged and heated up, and there is Canadian bacon instead of actual bacon. At this site, however, the pancakes look like little crepes (probably really confusing for the kids) and we had real bacon. It was honestly better than any bacon I've had for a long time- looked like something smoked locally.

We have about five more days left with this lot before we get a new bunch of kids. There are about 60 at each session. Tomorrow is my second day off. My most recent day off I went on a hike with a fellow coworker through the countryside. It was incredibly picturesque, but of course I didn't bring my phone to capture the scenery. Imagine rolling hills of wheat and huge fields of sunflowers. Later in the afternoon I went into the town of Miramont (about a twenty minute walk) for a beer and ice cream. And I got to take two naps. That was great. Tomorrow one of my coworkers friends is picking us up and we're going to do some touristy things around the area.

This southern, more inland area of France is not very populated, but it's quite beautiful. In the summer it's sunny, hot, and rarely rains. The landscape is very agricultural and dotted with small towns. There are apparently a lot of castles, though I have yet to visit one. We went to a ropes course on Friday, and the man driving us there said there are over a thousand castles in the area. Hopefully we'll visit a few tomorrow!

The days are tiring- I usually wake up before 7 for a quick run, and we typically don't finish our debrief/prep meetings until midnight. But the combination of copious amounts of baguette and being around kids all the time keeps me pretty energetic.

As I write this, it's almost midnight. We're sitting around the table in our tiny office snacking on Camembert and Saint-Nectaire cheese with leftover baguette from our picnic lunch today. The lifeguard from the camp complex is here and doesn't speak a lot of English, so the French-speaking counselors are talking to him (currently questioning him on the pronunciation of Grenoble). It's been a good, long, day, and it's nice to be with great people (and great food!)

Sophie



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