Day 5-6: Camp (Intro, Scavenger Hunt, and Round Robin)

The past few days we've been busy because camp started. Our students are loving every moment of it and Berat said some of the Kosovar's made Facebook posts yesterday that they had so much fun at camp and that it was they favorite day EVER. 

We get started pretty early and go non-stop until 11:30 or 12. I seriously don't know how some of the students have the energy to go and go like this. They are with people from the time they wake up until the time they go to bed. 

The ballroom in our hotel was being used, so we got to go to the new Rozafa for our first day of camp. It is BEAUTIFUL (shum bukur). I got to help with registration for new campers. Kadda and Morgan worked with me! Kadda was amazing. I love her more and more as I get to know her. (She's a girl I met last year. I went to her house for flija and she came to our house when she was in the US in the fall). She was able to explain everything to the students if they didn't understand the registration form.

The students got to find out their color groups.

These students got to come to America this past year. 

This woman is one of my favorite people in the ENTIRE world. Her sweet spirit never ceases to amaze me. 

After meeting their color groups they got to set out on a scavenger hunt. 

Almost done?

This group decided to veer from the list of things we asked them to find and decided to go over and beyond and get a picture with the mayor!

Spelling out a word with their bodies... "Merica"-- since they didn't have enough people for America!

This year we have about 170 people in the camp (excluding Americans). 

After the scavenger hunt, we sent some students inside the school to take a pretest in order to get a list of students who would be eligible to come back to the US in the fall. While most of the campers did this, the few that were left did some team building activities. 

Human knot

Ships and Sailors

After camp, the leaders took a couple of the Kosovar students who came to America out to lunch. They helped us a lot with registration and with the English test today so we wanted to show our gratitude. 

Have I mentioned we have an amazing view of different parts of the city from our room? Our room is the one on the top floor on the front with windows. We have a ton of windows and I love watching the sun set each afternoon during our leader manuscript time. 

Due to our crazy, busy schedule we ended up eating dinner at 9:45/10:00. We have come to love eating at the new place, Venecia. 

Camp Day 2: Round Robin (2 English classes, soccer, basketball, and volleyball)

We had the students split into 10 color groups and our American students were paired together so there was a male and female leader in each group. For the round robin days, the groups rotated around the groups so by the end of camp they will have played each group in every sport. The sports are self explanatory, but the English classes... not so much.

English class #1: The students broke into small groups and came up with a place and created a skit to act out the place while only speaking English. They were HILARIOUS!! The rest of the students would watch and then guess the place. Then they played a charades/name that word game where they talked about the word without saying the word and the others had to guess.

English class #2: They created a ME book. The front cover had the letters "M-E" on it and the students filled in the letters with characteristics of themselves (in English). Another page dealt with basic information about them concerning their likes and dislikes. After a while we gave them a chance to share with the class and enjoyed hearing what they had to say. 

Overall today was a really good day. We saw a lot of relationships start to build amongst our students and the Kosovar students. Our students even commented on the fact that when they were with them they forgot that they weren't American. What a great thing! Some of our students said their favorite part of camp was in English class when they got to come up with the skits. Other said they loved getting to talk to the Kosovars as they rotated around groups. They said the Kosovars seemed to enjoy all the stations as well so that's really good to hear! Once camp was over pretty much all of our students stepped out of their comfort zone and went to hang out with their new friends. 

Today, was Peyton's birthday. His morning started off wonderful as his sweet friends and cousin created a bag full of goodies. Today at camp, the Kosovar students decided to throw him a surprise party including music and cake. His color group took up money today in order to buy him a cake. We were all impressed because some people even brought him gifts. It was so sweet! He was thankful and even had the birthday song sung to him multiple times today!!