M-am intors de la tabara

I've just returned from a week of English camp, where over 100 Moldovan high school students spoke in English all day. The majority of these kids were such good English students that it was basically like an American summer camp; I very rarely had to change away from my natural word selection or tone of voice. Because far too many things happened over the course of a week to allow me to organize my thoughts properly, I've boiled the week down to a list of Top Ten Favorite Moments of English Camp:

10. Playing baseball with Moldovan kids on Tuesday and Thursday after lunch. After teaching them the sport in sports and games class, we had the kids play a real game. Counselors Bryan and Chad alternated as pitchers, Amy was the catcher and Peter was the umpire. The kids picked up the game pretty quickly, and some of the boys crushed the ball. One girl got a great hit to left field, but it landed just foul, and I was such a mean umpire that I actually called it foul. We counselors also did a good amount of trash-talking with each other, using enough slang that only we understood. Great stuff.

9. Laying down on the camp beds. These beds were most likely still left over from the Soviet era, and their chain-mail mattress support caused you to sink down a foot as soon as you sat or laid down on it. By the third night, we had all adjusted to the sound of squeaking metal as we moved in our sleep.

8. The second girl from my village, Mary, coming a day late. When she got there, we found a place for her to sleep, even putting her in the same cabin as Nadia, the other girl from Mereseni. She then came up to us in the late evening saying that there was still a problem; right now, her bed was in the entry room, and she didn't want to sleep alone. We said we would come in and move the bed around. I stopped into the cabin a half-hour later with another male counselor, ready to move the bed. I knocked on the second door and said, "Is everyone all right in there?" They opened the door, and there was Mary in the bed that she and some other girls had already moved into the room. "Everything's fine," she said, with the biggest smile that I had seen on her face all year.

7. Inside-Out Day. On Thursday, all campers and counselors had to wear their clothes inside-out. I set the tone early by walking out of the cabin in the morning and singing my newest composition, the song "Inside-Out," to the tune of "Heart and Soul":

Inside-out.
I like to wear my clothes inside-out
Because I don't like my pockets.
And so I wear all of my clothes all inside-out.

I also made sure that each camper was wearing their clothes inside-out before they were allowed in the cafeteria for breakfast. Although it was a pain to go without pockets and to wear my hat inside-out all day, it was a great way to create camp culture. Ian, a counselor, gave awards to the campers who did the best job of dressing inside-out; the winner had a belt on outside his clothes; the runner-up wore his swim-trunks inside out, giving him a highly-visible extra mesh covering over his more important bits.

6. The first campers' parody of English camp counselor. The most recognizable character was me, played by a boy named Valic. He wore a hat and a short-sleeved collared shirt, yelled "Yeah America!" a lot, and was told by the actor playing fellow instructor Chad, "Shut up, Pete." Pretty much spot on.

5. Music day in my American culture class. In a 50-minute lesson, we listened to Pink's "Stupid Girls" and the students' choice of either Green Day's "Holiday" or Outkast's "Ms. Jackson". Each song generated 15 minutes of discussion about what the song was about, what it showed about American culture and how it applied to Moldovan culture, as well. Conversation topics in the classes ranged from whether it's better to be smart or to be beautiful--one girl's answer: smart and beautiful--to what the proper time is to start a family to what a citizen's obligation is to inform himself or herself in a democracy. These kids brought out some deep thoughts, and for many of them, language was not a hindrance.

4. Immigration and diversity day in American culture class. We started the class by splitting into five groups of four. I handed each group a picture of a friend or acquaintance of mine, including those of Chinese, Mexican, African-American, Pakistani, Russian and Caucasian heritage. One group said that the black guy was a hip-hop musician who had just gotten out of jail and was happy to be rehabilitated after years of using and selling drugs. The students were quite surprised when I told them that Bernard was a literature major at Harvard. We used this to open up a discussion about stereotypes, and also talked about stereotypes about gypsies in Moldova.

The stereotypical black image was presented in class by Nick, who was one of the most kind-hearted and smartest campers. He explained to me later that day at the dinner table that he hadn't meant to be offensive.

"It's because I've seen a lot of movies from America," Nick said, "and people who look like that and have [dreadlocks] are always doing things with drugs."

3. Chad during our soccer lessons on Friday. In sports and games, we asked each group whether they had ever played soccer. Ninety percent of the boys raised their hands; ten percent of the girls did. Chad then went into a rant:

"I don't buy this bullshit that girls can't play soccer. In America, girls play soccer from when they're young until they can barely walk. And that's why American women's soccer is consistently ranked first or second in the world, and why America has won four of the last six women's World Cups."

The girls played soccer for the first time, and they enjoyed it. Twenty-two of them played a game after lunch.

2. Thursday night snack. The other camp using the same camp grounds was playing loud Russian pop music for their disco directly outside the cafeteria when we came in for our night snack. A group of campers began dancing and told me to join in. I did, and it set the crowd on fire. Then I pulled one of the camp directors, Rodica, in to dance with me, spilling some her tea as I dragged her five feet into the circle. It was from this moment and others during the week that I received the unwarranted label of "a good dancer".

1. Getting the kids to sleep and waking them up. Unlike in America, counselors in Moldova don't sleep in the same cabins as the campers. This forced several counselors each night to stay awake on guard duty until 1:30 a.m. or later. This part was only enjoyable because it allowed me to be strict going into a cabin of boys and say, "What the hell are you making noise for? Just so that I'd come up her and yell at you? I don't want to hear another sound, or else we'll split up the teams tomorrow and you won't be with your friends." I can be quite convincing when I put on the right voice, and it's liberating to be able to yell at kids in my native language and have them understand it.

I took a more genuine pride in waking the kids up every day. At 7:30 a.m. I would step outside and yell, "Good morning, campers!" After about half of the campers responded, I would announce that breakfast was in 30 minutes. Then I would walk to the building with sinks to brush my teeth and wash my face, high-fiving every camper and counselor I saw on the way. Find me any place outside of a camp, and I will never have this much energy at 7:30 a.m.


I could go on about this camp. I was so impressed by these kids and by the majority of the counselors, especially considering that the Moldovans all volunteered for this camp and didn't receive a dime for their hard work. In my first year here, I've often told Moldovans that more opportunities are opening up in their country every year. Camp was the first time I had seen so many children actually taking advantage of the opportunities available to them. I can definitely say that I saw some of Moldova's best and brightest high school students this week, and I'm proud to say that I've taught them something.