Sum-sum-summer Time

A quick update on where I've been and what I've been doing. Summertime in Kazakhstan means Summer camps and traveling. I've just finished working (more or less, depending on the camp) at 4 different camps in various cities and villages. The first was at the school in the nearby city of Kokshetau. It was with higher level students and the theme was world cultures. The second was at my own school - we pretty much just played a game called "sniper" (like crazy dodgeball, or for those of you who went to Mt. Jordan, War ball) all day after doing a 10-15 min English activity. Meh, everyone was happy! The next was in the village of Zerenda and the theme of that camp was supposedly Fairytales - though we didn't see too much of that going on. This camp was put on by the department of education, and we just showed up for a couple hours a day and did activities in English. The counselors at this camp were super fun and did a great job with the kids. And the last was down in the village of Zhanatas. It took a 31 hour train ride and 3 hour taxi to get there, and was totally worth it. There were 60 kids, 15 volunteers, and 6 local teachers helping with this camp. Lots of fun! I could go into a ton of detail about these camps, but I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves... for the most part.

The kids at my school:

I was trying to smile enough for the both of them...
Myles and I made AMAZING peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies to celebrate the 4th of July. You can tell by the look on his face that they were the best thing we've eaten in months.

During the opening ceremony of the camp in Zerenda:



A fresh water spring in the forest:

And the camp in Zhanatas... On this day, we (or Phillip, rather) taught the students the Electric Slide, the Chicken Dance and the Cupid Shuffle. Here, we are having a little too much fun with the chicken dance.

Human pyramids were a new concept to them. But they sure looked cute doing it!

One of the "creatures" that came out of the art show:

We did an egg drop. This team's egg didn't break!

This team's egg did. Poor Sholpan, looking away in horror at the sight of their scrambled egg.

A couple of teams with their flags: (pictured are Perfect Kids and Big Fast Fire. Other team names include The Big Happy Dogs, Golden Pussycats, Good Friends and Black Apples. The criteria for choosing names was that it should be at least one adjective and one noun, and could not have any reference to Twilight!)

The mass water balloon fight that ended the camp.

Drip, drip, drop - like duck, duck goose - but with water!

Phillip, Chris, and I acted as "administrators" for the camp, and instead of working with a group of kids we did all the behind-the-scenes stuff - making sure activities were set up, putting up the daily schedules, awarding points, taking pictures, making sure lunch was set out etc. Here those two are looking very official and administrator-like.

We attracted quite a bit of attention from local kids as we played outside. I felt bad that they all couldn't come play with us!

By the end of the week, Phillip and I had spent so much time together, we started dressing like each other. Here is our brownish/greenish ensemble...

And bright green day...(here, we're making American-style hamburgers for the last day's lunch. I had to go to the meat market and sit, staring at the the goat heads and livers and intestines for 30 minutes while they ground up the meat. Yum!)

And country-bumpkin day (this picture taken during an impromptu dance party. It wasn't the first, and certainly not the last, of the week.)

Well.... I guess that's about it for now. I've got 5 days here at site, and then it's back down south to Almaty to catch a flight to America! So, to all my friends back at home, see you soon!

Holly out.