CAMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 'n' stuff

Ok, so.... you may have noticed that I haven't blogged in almost a week. But then again....you may not. I dunno, I can't keep tabs on who continuously reads my blog or doesn't read it so I can go guilt tripping all over the place haha. But anywho, I have been at camp since Monday! So here's camp for you.

Monday!

So...Monday we loaded up, sorta, in the van and headed to the camp. We actually loaded up in waves. Nathan and I were the first battalion sent in. Laura took the two of us to the camp to help set stuff up, and then she stole Maki Sasaki and went shopping for food stuffs or something important like that. I made the schedule for the week into a poster with the help of Ami Sasaki, Amy, a girl from the California group, and Nathan. Actually.....Ami helped me draw lines and pick colors and Amy was questioning everything I was doing haha. Nathan helped me draw pictures to take up space. Then Nathan and I helped Noboru with registration and name tags for the campers. Kei and Ami were nice enough to help Nathan and me make the name tags.

Then we filed all the campers into the gym for orientation. We assigned them their study groups and let them chose their workshops.

We had pizza for dinner (mmmm) and then had music time. Then we whisked away the kids who wanted to be in our workshops to their respected areas. I was helping Daniel and Mitsu (technically pronounced Mee-tsoo or Mee-ts in the Japanese but since he is from California, he was called Mitts) with a skit. I actually ended up helping a whole lot more with that than I planned. We were doing a modern day prodigal son written by Daniel and Mitsu, so we were assigning parts. Two boys wanted to be the prodigal son, so we had sons. Two of the girls, including Kei, were cast as friends along with another boy. And the last girl was the policeman....yes, there was a policeman. Amy, mentioned earlier, was also in our group, but she wasn't feeling well and was seperated from the rest of the kids. When we were casting the parts, Mitsu asked who wanted to be the dad. We had three boys plus two male sponsers....no problem, right? When asked, all the boys pointed at.......ME! They wanted ME to be otousan! What the?! We let Mitsu be the dad, though. I was cast as the narrator.

We then sent the little kids and elementaries off to bed, and the adults and high schoolers had bath/social time.....which, for me and my campers ended up being just bath time. haha. The baths we used are called ofudon. There are shower heads and hoses lower on the wall. You sit on this little stool, use the shower head/hose to get wet, then you soap up, rinse off and then hop into this big community bath tub. Don't worry, though, folks. We did seperate guys and girls at this thing. We set different times for the genders and/or sent one to one ofudon and the other to the other. Does that make any sense? I hope so.

When we got back to our room, and by we I mean Keiko and I plus Erica from California and Lucie and Kiyomi (High School students), Erica crashed from jet lag. I was a bit tired, but not too bad, and the other girls weren't used to going to bed so early (maybe 10, 10:30?), so we stayed up and read or chatted a bit before turning off the lights and trying to sleep. We all (the 5 of us plus Junko from the kitchen staff) stayed in one small room and slept on futons (which, if you don't know already, is pretty much like the matress part of an american futon...only more soft and comfy) with little pillows that, I think, were filled with plastic beads.....it was interesting, needless to say.

Tuesday!

I actually had a dream Monday night that all of the girls in the room save Erica and Junko slept in til 4:00pm, so I woke up at 6 am, reached over and grabbed Keiko's phone to see what time it was, slightly waking everyone in the room, before apologizing and going back to sleep. Wow....that was quite the run-on-ish sentence...sorry Mr. Feilder.

When we all finally woke up, it was about 7:45 which left us 15 minutes to scramble before breakfast! Fred, from the California team, actually came down to the cabin and yelled to make sure everyone was up for breakfast. We had pancakes, by the way.

One of the things I was put in charge of was to make table markers and drawing pieces so we could have a drawing for who had to help with dishes. There was a sun table, a star table, and a moon table. Monday night, the Sun table had to help with dishes. I got some groans from that because Nathan, Jerry and one of the California guys were sitting at that table ^_^. This morning the Sun table drew the Star table for dishes.....I was....sitting at the star table :S.

After breakfast was study time. Keiko, Lucie and Kiyomi were in Nathan and mine's group. (Is that grammarically correct? I don't even know...wow, and I taught English this week :S). We played a little game of charades to help them think of English words, and also to help them start thinking on present continous verbs (-ing's). It was really fun. Everyone did really well and was really good with their English. Lucie, an exchange student from the Czech Republic, was especially good with her English. We had fun, and then we just chatted for a bit after the game.

Then there were crafts. I didn't really help or do anything with crafts but walk around. The kids were making wooden models or paper fans and the adults were starting on silk screen hangings and making cards.

For Lunch, we had bacon cheeseburger or ham n cheese roll ups. And the Star table drew the Moon table for dishes.....I, again, was sitting at that table.

Then we had a breif bible time with singing and a biblical skit + a short message from Fred. Then was study time again for the older campers and nap time for the younger ones. We played Sorry for our study time. The game lastest....forever! Everyone got down to having one pawn one space away from winning and we were all waiting for that right card.....we pretty much went through the whole deck twice to get that last card. Keiko won, and Nathan and I, who were teaming it, LOST! Lucie had to leave after group time...it was way sad.

Then was free time and bath. Noboru took almost all of the campers and staff to the beach. I opted not to go and played a quick game of Idiots (yes, dad, you will learn it when I get home) and Egyptian Rat Race with Jerry before zonking out at a table. haha

I woke up for dinner. We had fried chicken and mac 'n' cheese. I was asked to help feed Joshy, the Mort's handicapped little boy. He is such a cutie. Thankfully, he was eating quite nicely and not throwing his food, but he was being all floppy and sleepy, so I cleaned him up and put him down on the floor. The Moon table drew the sun table for dishes.... I was....NOT sitting at that table....but I somehow ended up helping clean up anyway. (Seeing a slight pattern here?....I don't mean me cleaning, either).

Then we had group time. I took the "friends" and helped them with their lines. Kei, who...ya know....speaks english, had no problems whatsoever with her lines. Keita (the boy) did have some trouble, so I shaved down his line to two words. The youngest in our group was named Hikari. Her line was "Drive fast!" She said it perfectly! It was so cute and funny.

Us girls went down to the seminary's ofudon, took baths, and then talked a bit in the cabin before we all crashed. It was funny, though, because when we were heading out of the cabin to head to the ofudon, this huge harlequin beetle flew in and everyone freaked out. Erica turned off the light hoping the outside light would attract it. haha Then we turned teh light back on and found it on the floor. We didn't want to squish it, so Kiyomi grabbed a broom and started to.... golf it outside, but after the first hit, she didn't want to hit it that way anymore because the genkan where all the shoes are was over there and she didn't want it in the shoes. So I grabbed the broom and flicked it out the door and onto the steps, then i flicked it from the steps onto the roof of the neighboring building. The thing was waiting by the door for us when we got back from the bath, so i used Erica's flashlight to shove it off the stairs again. haha.

Wednesday!!!

I woke up at 7:40 this time....now that I knew there was an alarm haha. Then went to breakfast which was bacon, eggs and toast. I was tired of doing dishes, so I sat at the exempt table. The sun table drew the star table for dishes (O.O).

For study time, Keiko and Kiyomi played a game where they had to use past tense verbs. Afterwards, we played spoons.....but with markers. We forgot the spoons. It was fun because Keiko and I were being really sneaky with our taking of the "spoons". Nathan almost got all the letters for spoons, but he lucked out cause we ran out of time. For crafts, I helped kids make pencil toppers. Word for future referance....googly eyes are difficult to glue to pipe cleaners. But I was happy because Moka and Tomomi from ECS classes came.

For lunch, we had speghetti! yay! The star table drew the moon table for dishes. (Are you getting it?)

Tomomi joined us for the next study session. We played a game like we did yesterday but with future tense verbs. This one was weirder, though, and was asking them about outer space and future houses and cars. It was really wierd. Then we played spoons! with real spoons! It was fun.

Then we played some sort of chair soccer game thing in the gym. I dunno.... but our team dominated by getting 7 goals! Then there was free time and bath. I played idiots with Jerry, Nathan and Amy (an adult...not the kid).

We had a bbq for supper, so no dishes. But we had a drawing for who went first....moon table drew moon table....but sun table didn't listen to directions and jumped into line. haha. We had burgers and hot dogs. Then we cleaned up a bit and had bible time followed by groups. Our group was unruly and I was completely ready to tear my hair out!

After groups, we had a mock camp fire in the gym because it was kinda rainy out. We sang songs, played a game, and then roasted marshmellows over propane hotplates for s'mores. For the game, everyone was split into 5 groups and were given strips of paper with red, blue or green words on them. Then, using those words, the campers made a silly sentence. One of the sentences resulted in me licking a porcupine. O.o

After the "fire" we took baths, and then Keiko and I talked about words in her dictionary for a while before going to bed.

Thursday!!

Woke up, and then put my futon away and packed my stuff. We went to breakfast and had muffins and fruit....plus two cups of coffee. For the drawing, sun table was drawn for dishes. One of the kids at sun table was wondering if i was putting all the papers for the tables in the cup. Know why? The drawing, not including placement for the bbq, went sun, star, moon, sun, star, moon, sun. Even some of the staff was thinking I was stacking the drawings. But I wasn't. I took all the pieces of paper out of my cup and showed the boy who asked that I did in fact have all the pieces of paper in the cup. I had been sitting at sun table, but I had to skip dishes to clean the bathroom in the dining hall.

After breakfast we had a quick time to practice with our workshop groups before a recital. There was our skit group, Erica and Fred's puppet group, Jerry and Nathan's pantomime group, and then Keiko and Kiyomi were in the music group. It was a fun recital.

After the recital was a short bible time, then we packed everything and cleaned up the cabins a bit before lunch. We had taco rice for lunch, and ........star table had to do dishes. Before the drawing, I took each piece of paper, showed the tables at the front of the room, and put them in the cup so everyone would know I wasn't cheating. haha

After lunch we said good bye to campers and had a final staff meeting to discuss how the camp went. A quiet time and some cushion time will be a must for next year.

Nathan and I went back breifly with Laura to clean up a bit before going back to the camp with Drew Glosson (the guy who helped me at the train station when I first arrived) and two interns with him for Senenkai, the young adults bible study.

It was so much fun. There was a Somen slide. It is the traditional way to eat somen. You fill your bowl with the somen soup (it's cold...so it's kinda more like sauce) and then stand by this slide and someone sends the somen noodles down this little waterslide and you have to pluck the noodles from the slide and then dip then into your soup for eating. I enjoyed it alot! Then Nathan and Aki/Chisako played janken (rock paper scissors) to decide if the girls or guys would do dishes. Girls lost ^_^' so I ended up with dish duty again. haha

We played a game afterwards and then Noboru gave a short devo and we took a picture. Then we hung out for a bit. Drew and his interns were staying at the Mort's, so to give them a bit more room, Nathan and I stayed at the camp again.

Friday!

So Nathan woke me up at 7 this morning. He had to be back to catch a 7:46 train, so Noboru was taking us back to the Mort's. I have honestly been awake since. Just hung out until about 11:30 or so before Laura and I went to get lunch for bible study.

My last Japanese class was after bible study, and unfortunately I wasn't able to go out for coffee with Dong afterward because she was busy. But we exchanged e-mail addresses. There was no after Japanese class class at ECS, so we went to McDonald's for supper, and I have been hanging out here at the Mort's ever since!

So there's my week. I know it's a bit long, and I apologize. I will also have a short break from blogging this weekend because I am doing another homestay, this time with Chisako! So enjoy and I will talk to you (figuratively) later!