Some counselors in awe of the sunset over Cass Lake

This summer I'll be mostly working as a credit teacher of Portuguese for adults and children along with being a cabin counselor but I quickly realized that being staff at camp involves a little bit of everything.  So far everyone on the Portuguese crew has done a lot of cleaning, moving, organizing, cooking, driving, singing, dancing, translating, decorating, acting, housekeeping and more cleaning.  What makes it fun is that everything is in Portuguese along with the fact that everyone on staff really wants to be here - some of them are even volunteering their time.  I don't think I've been part of a group this creative, hardworking, eager to help and interested in language and cultural differences before so even the most mundane of tasks is made a lot more bearable by simply hanging out with fun people.

Celebrating Any's birthday today!

One of the new friends I've made is Any, 29, from Brazil.  She is in the United States for the first time and can't speak any English.  She is adorable and over the moon with happiness about having the opportunity to be in the States.  Yesterday, we had our first day off and I took her into town.  It was fascinating to spend the day with her and see what she wanted to do and what she thought was funny about the U.S.  We ate at Applebees and she was super excited as Applebees is very expensive in Brazil and she had never been there before.  Then we spent about 3 hours in Walmart where she could barely contain herself because of the fact that it contained everything and that it was super cheap.  She ended up buying another suitcase because of all the things she wanted to take back to Brazil (shampoo, makeup, clothes, baby clothes (she's pregnant with her first), nail polish, sheets, towels...)  It was so fun to share in her excitement!  Other highlights included the dollar store, a sports store and dinner at HarDees (there's not a lot to offer in a tiny northern Minnesota town).  She wanted to stop and take pictures of a trailer park (she had no idea what it was), a giant sculpture of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox and symbols that she saw everywhere like the state sports teams, bald eagles and American flags.



Tomorrow camp officially camps and we have our first week of Family Camp.  There are three families signed up and everyone is really excited.  Some of the activities we are offering, besides Portuguese classes are: archery, canoeing, soccer, arts and crafts, Brazilian ju jitsu, dancing, singing, theatre, swimming, cooking class and nightly bonfire culture programs (all in Portuguese).  The challenge for me has been trying to learn all of the technical words for activities in Portuguese i.e. what are the words that I need to know to teach someone how to canoe in another language?  The challenge for the Brazilians has been trying to learn as many English words as they can if questions come up and nobody is around to translate.  It's kind of crazy, a little intense but a lot of fun.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes after the families go through "immigration" tomorrow, get their visas, change their money and get a new name in Portuguese.  Game on.

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