First Day of Camp

Thought for the day:

A crowing rooster woke us up at dawn today. He heralded a beautiful morning. Hopefully this is a good weather omen. We had a shower late yesterday, but perhaps today will be cooler and dry. Cooler would work beautifully. The volunteers met with Dorota at “headquarters” to get our final instructions and collect materials to teach our lessons. Also, we are getting a class roster listing the name of our students for the next two weeks. Dorota did a superb job and had us ready for breakfast at 8 AM with plans completed. Breakfast was delicious as usual. The breakfast menu was extremely fortifying for our morning’s chores.

Our classroom instruction began on schedule. Brandon and I will be team teaching. We had our plans ready and began with introductions to our class, and they in turn introduced themselves. They are a great group – two girls and four boys who are fluent in English and eager to get to work.

Brandonproved to be an excellent teacher. He has great ideas and isn’t shy about carrying them out. He’s a surprise pleasure to work with. Because of the class’s proficiency in English we started our second class session with a game of Scrabble. Our third class consisted of a short walk in the neighborhood identifying plants, weeds, birds, and beautiful flowers. It was refreshing and informative. Our fourth class included the game, Apples to Apples. This game not only helps with pronunciation, but proved delightful. Fun was had by all.

Lunch was at 1:30 and immediately afterwards we boarded the bus for a trip to Zakopane. The students did their thing and the volunteers just shopped, and some toured a historic church and cemetery. The church is wooden and the cemetery is fascinating with the tombs above ground much similar to those in New Orleans.

We got back to the Four Seasons (Cztery Pory Roku) hotel at 5:30, and had supper. Then we had a volunteer meeting discussing our day’s events and tomorrow’s schedule. And Jackson finally arrived to the cheers of both faculty and students. We are looking forward to great things in these two weeks.