C2017: Día 1

Today went pretty much how I expected it to go: A bit of confusion but ultimately it all worked out. As it always seems to do. We arrived at about 8:45 to get the rooms set up and there were a few campers milling about. A good sign as I always have this nagging fear that no one will show up. And slowly but surely more and more campers began to wander in. Still by about 9:15 we had about half the campers we were expecting. Getting a little nervous as I shouldn't have because in the next 15 minutes a whole crowd showed up so buy 9:30 we had 90 campers with us. Still missing about 25 campers but I figure we will probably see them tomorrow as word gets out that we've started.

Most of the morning was spent talking with the campers about the history of the camp and the new schedule this year and getting to know the campers better. Then in the last hour or so we did a practice run through of the rotating talleres/workshop schedule. And it actually worked. It was slightly problematic that not all of the teachers understood the plan well enough to communicate it to the campers(that one's on me. I just don't quite have the Spanish vocabulary and syntax to explain the plan with enough precision.)  On a side note sometimes my students just stare at me when I'm trying to explain something in Spanish and I have no idea if they actually get what I'm trying to say. But they're smiling a lot so it must be all good.

In any event once we cleared up the confusion the campers were able to figure out where they were supposed to go and we were off and running. Remind me to post a picture of Eric banging on his drum to signify the time to move to a new taller. (Eric saw the drum at La Sirena yesterday and wanted to get it which we did because we couldn't find a bell or a whistle or any other signaling device)

While we were doing all this Samuel and Oscar were hard at work getting the playground project going. I haven't heard all of the details yet about their morning adventures but here's what I do know:

1. For the first hour of the camp the teen leaders helped Oscar clean up the playground and get rid of anything that was broken beyond repair.

2. All the mini palm trees were pruned and now look great.

3. At noon as the camp ended a pickup truck arrived with lots of wood and other supplies and a dump truck arrived with a giant load of small stones. 

Looks like we're off and running with that project as well.  And now we're off to the beach for a bit of relaxation after a hard days work.