For the first time in two weeks half of us had 24 hours free which was much-needed and also a lot of fun.  I spent the day with three Brazilians here in the U.S. for the first time and who were absolutely ecstatic about being able to explore an American city and go shopping.  Their excitement was very contagious and it was fun to be a tourist in my own country as well as be able to show them around a little bit.  As with Andrew who was visiting from New Zealand, it was fascinating to see what they wanted to take pictures of and what they had questions about.


We made it about 5 minutes from camp before we had to stop and take pictures of some deer that we spotted on the side of the road.  When we got to town, they wanted to take pictures of houses, campers, trailers and backyards because everything looks so different from Brazil.  Our first stop was the laundromat which was a bit chaotic because laundromats don't exist in Brazil and they had never used dryers before.  After the laundromat, we headed to Walmart which caused literally hours of exclamations of delight and disbelief at the amount of choice, variety and the low prices.  Stores like Walmart don't exist in Brazil and most things are very expensive.



After hours in Walmart and Target we headed to Applebees for lunch for a feast of American food and some beers.  After lunch, everyone wanted to do more shopping for presents for friends and family back home.  My favorite quote of the day was, "Eu quero morar no Dollar Tree / I want to live in the Dollar Tree".  By far, the favorite store of the day was TJMaxx because of all of the brand names famous in Brazil at ridiculously low prices.  We were there until closing.



Packing everything and everyone into the car for the drive home was a bit of a puzzle and we got all of the doors closed just in time before it started down pouring.  On the thirty minute drive back to camp we received a call from the dean that there was a tornado watch and to come directly to the basement where all campers and counselors were packed in like sardines and anxiously waiting for the weather to pass.  It was a rather dramatic end to a crazy day.

Our final night of the first session of camp we had a big beach party to celebrate.  The weather cooperated and it was a beautiful night full of dancing, singing, pictures, presentation of certificates, a banquet and lots of treats.  All of the students were here for two weeks and on Monday another session arrives for two more weeks.  It was a bittersweet ending as we got to know the students really well and are sad to see them go.  On the other hand, it will be interesting to get an entirely new crop of Portuguese learners - this next week will be our busiest yet!

Every night we put on an elaborate evening program after dinner.  Two people are responsible for the idea, the planning and the implementation but everyone is present to help supervise.  Programs have been events like putting on a Carnival in Rio, playing traditional games from Portugal, staging a game show, geo-caching in the Amazon and simulating a triple border crossing with exchange rates between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil.  It's an extraordinary amount of work but always interesting to see what the other counselors come up with.

Tonight, however, we all breathed a sigh of relief because it was universally decided upon that our evening program would be "Noite em Casa" which means that there is not evening program and that the time is spent having a "Girls' night" or "Guys night" in our cabins.  The campers get to decide what they want to do and the girl campers in my cabin decided on chocolate fondue, nail painting and bracelet making.  It was a huge success and also fairly relaxing in comparison with the normal routine.

View of our cabins on the lake on the way back from the bathroom

I don't know how to make any kind of artistic craft, but the girls in my cabin are more than skilled - they even brought their own supplies from home.  I learned how to make a cool lanyard/bracelet type thing that glows in the dark!  I also found out that they all bring plastic string that glows in the dark to camp so they can keep working on projects secretly, after lights out.  Tricky.

There also happened to be a fabulous sunset tonight - never get tired of those here.  Boa noite!

Camp is fun and interesting but it's definitely not my thing. I really enjoy teaching Portuguese but it's extremely difficult to be silly, wacky, crazy and funny the rest of the time.  The songs, the dances, the rituals, the chants and the costumes never end.  It's a job that requires you to be 100% on 100% of the time.  Most of the time there's lots of noise, screaming, running around and chaos.  I carry a frisbee with me everywhere I go and have an arsenal of cheesy group games in my head for all the times when we're standing around waiting with nothing to do.  It's an introvert's worst nightmare with nowhere to hide.  The precious few hours after the sun has set and campers are in bed are pure bliss.  Sometimes it's difficult to decide whether to stay up late and enjoy the quiet, or go to bed early to bank more energy for the following day.  Three more weeks.

International Day, or "I-Day" as everyone calls it at Concordia Language Villages is the highlight of the summer and is a very big deal.  We started preparing for it the very first day of camp as it involves a ridiculous amount of planning.  I-Day is when all of the 15 language camps come together to celebrate language learning and diverse cultures.  I-Day happened last Friday and it was a ton of fun.

It's been tricky to stay in touch with Sean this summer not only because cell reception is pretty terrible but also because we have different days/nights off.  Often, Sean is out on a trip and is only back at camp for one day before he leaves again.  We were able to catch up for about thirty minutes yesterday which was awesome as I was dying to know how things are going.



He said he's enjoying the job so far though the first couple of trips were rocky because of campsite reservation and weather problems and another because everyone got strep throat and they had to turn back early.  Most of the boys are from the city and a wilderness trip has been challenging for them in a variety of ways.  He also said that he's had to do a lot of first aid including bandages, tick removal, fevers and scrapes and bruises.  He's looking forward to longer hiking and canoeing trips later in the summer as well as working at the rock wall when he's at camp.  I don't know the next time I'll hear from him but it was good to get an update while we both had some time off.  Until then it's snail mail only.

Dinnertime!

Thais doing a craft project

Because of a computer glitch in the U.S. Department of State's computer system,  for about two weeks hardly any foreigners were allowed entry into the country.  Naturally, this wreaked mass chaos and havoc on travel, study and business plans for many internationals and also caused a problem for our Brazilian language and culture immersion camp called "Mar e Floresta" (sea and forest).  For the first couple weeks of camp it was just four of us running everything - me, and a few other Brazilians who had arrived before the problem.  Finally, our whole team has arrived from Brazil which has decreased individual workload significantly - hallelujah!

Any showing the students around

Giving Portuguese class

Dance class

Bruno on the guitar

Campfire time

There are eight of us in all and I am the only American which is both good and bad.  Good in that I'm practicing my Portuguese like crazy and learning a lot but bad in that at times the activities are way out of my league for my current vocabulary (i.e. trying to teach archery barely knowing the technical words in English is a challenge).  Sometimes I don't feel as useful since I can't contribute as deeply to some of the cultural activities because I haven't lived there my whole life but other times my knowledge of English comes in handy.  Most of the Brazilians don't speak English so I help a lot with translation and also with safety/emotional issues with the campers when they need to communicate in their own language.  I also do all of the official paperwork and documents in English along with the nightly cabin council to talk about how things are going.  We are full steam ahead with some campers here for one week, others for two weeks and still others who are here for the full month (which is unfortunate as this means we can't repeat some classes/programs/activities).  Let me introduce you to the team:

Bruno (Brazil, 35) - Assistant dean of the Portuguese camp and our fearless leader.  He is a physical education teacher in Brazil and also plays a number of instruments.  This is his 5th summer with CLV.

Carla (Brazil, 34) - Wife of Bruno and primary education teacher in Brazil.  Is in charge of the academic and activity programming.  This is also her 5th time here.

Any (Brazil, 30) - Gym teacher who also teaches dance, zumba and capoeira.  This is her first time in the States.

Andrueza (Brazil, 32) - Primary school teacher in Brazil and this is also her first time in the States.

Guillerme (Brazil, 33) - Gym teacher in Brazil and is here for the first time.

Sofi (Argentina, 26) - Gym teacher who learned Portuguese while living in Brazil for a year.


Thais (Brazil, 22) - Former villager turned counselor.  Grew up in Brazil with Brazilian parents but is now studying in Bennington college in Vermont.