LIFE Camp was all kinds of incredible and rewarding ... and completely consumed my existence for three straight weeks. Three other volunteers and I traveled from town to town putting on the week-long camp with many a guest star from the rest of the volunteer crowd. What have I learned? The dangers of saying the word "condom" to a 12 year old, how incredible some 15 year olds can be given half the chance, how to throw both a football and a rugby ball, how to survive being tackled by 10 Georgian teenage girls, and what it smells like when 7 Peace Corps volunteers stay in the same old Soviet-era one bedroom apartment together for an entire week while they conduct a kids sports camp all day long (hint: think biological warfare).
Here are a few cute pictures from the camp. This was just the warm-up, too! Our funded camp is two weeks from now! We're editing our resources and gearing up! In the first picture, the kids are acting out a scene about what they would do in a situation where everybody is too drunk to drive home. Nika's on the phone calling a friend. The second two are rugby!
Today is my 3rd night back in my village after having been gone for almost a month working on LIFE Camp and hoo boy did I miss The Mafia! Tako asked me over and over why I left and where I'd gone for two straight days after I came home. All in all I had to agree with her-- what the heck was I thinking?! We're back to our usual routines now, thank goodness. Today I carried her out of my room as she beg-moaned for more paper. She has books full of blank paper now and doesn't have to ask me anymore, but don't think that changes anything!
To combat the effect of the old Russian spring mattress on my back, I've started doing yoga in the mornings and evenings to the fascination of my host family. Even though I do it in my room in private, I'm invariably interrupted at some point by someone knocking on my door for one reason or another. Thus in the span of two days home, my routine has been well discovered. So tonight Anuki and Keti came in to exercise with me. I wouldn't call that hour of my life the most productive ever exercise-wise, but it was pretty dang funny.
Near the end of our yoga session I passed my camera off to Keti and this was her take on the situation. I'm posting representitive selection of her pictures. I didn't post the picture she took of my computer screen, hower, where the lady in the yoga video is just lying on her mat because that was just way too creepy. You'll notice the Bananagrams set that Janell sent me and Keti LOVES and broke out soon after she got bored with the weird poses. She likes to just group all the same letters together ...
Anyhow, enjoy the world through the eyes of my 5 year old Georgian host sister!
