So the camp was the strangest thing ever. I was with the kids from 8am until midnight, then the counselors would have about 2- 3hour meetings afterward, translating to no sleep, ever. What made these meetings even better was that I didn't understand a single thing because I don't actually know Russian (I'm working on that still). So my friend, Sam, and I passed the time throwing ants onto each other and then eventually started skipping the meetings to swim in the river. We met so many characters at the river. We met a girl who took English in high school and insisted that we friend her on facebook, immediately. We met another person who was just chilling with a hedgehog. We ran into a party of people who gave us booze and we ended up making fun of each others' culture and accent. It's safe to assume that there is always a good time at the rechka (little river).
But the camp itself was intense. Filled with back to back games, activities, and skits. We played about three camp-wide games a day, which often meant that the counselors were running around in 100+ degree weather, while chasing or being chased by screaming Russian kids. My favorite and most terrifying game was the one in which us counselors were dressed in bones and antlers and were told to be deer. Then they released a horde of scary children on us. My deer instincts told me to run and I did, fast. I have scars from running through the brush at such speed and agility. I was terrified, more terrified then the night the all the Russians left the Americans in the woods after dark for about an hour. Cool, bros. But back to the story, these kids were scary. And I'm sad to say, they managed to gobble up my bones and antlers, leaving me panting on the stone ground, alone, begging for our local water, that was soon to be nicknamed grasnaya voda (dirty water due to it's color and odor).
I know I say these kids are scary, but they are truly far from it. They are passionate, intelligent, innovative, and simply amazing. Like for one game, the American counselors had to create tasks for the children to do and stick them into balloons. But to get the tasks out of the balloon, each team had to create a functioning bow and arrow. AND THEY DID. It blew my mind.
This is Misha taking a shot at a balloon. He was the best shooter in all the teams.
Here's another boy, named Misha as well, completing a blind portrait task.
This was the day before tragedy struck.
**I know I left a lot out and alluded to things that I really didn't explain here or elsewhere, but that would be a lot of text that I feel might bore you, plus I failed to take a lot of photos during the actual camp day **
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