Two and a half weeks ago Callie and I embarked on a journey. Quite the cultural experience. We went to a smaller town and stayed with a wonderful couple who are like my adopted grandparents. We stayed with them and worked with them in the garden, kitchen and English Club.
We met some Brothers and Sisters and spent some time together.
For the first few days we spent a lot of time preparing for English Camp. I grated enough carrots to feed... a group of hungry teens for a week!! We fried chicken, shucked peas, picked cherries and made fried mashed potato pies. We were supposed to leave Tuesday for Camp but the grant money didn't arrive before Tuesday, so we postponed. People here are very pushy and expect things to happen very quickly. Gramma had us call and write at least every day (usually twice a day) to ask "Where is money?"
Well the money didn't come and wouldn't come for a few weeks so Gramma postponed a little longer to see if we could "push this bureaucracy machine." Well, we couldn't but Callie now has friends in high places. So we were told Wednesday that we would leave Friday. We went to help with an art club for disabled kids Thursday until noon. While we were there, we kept being asked, "Are you excited to leave today for English Camp?" We were a little confused. When we went back, we asked if we were leaving today and they said, "Yes of course. At four'o'clock!" So we rushed to pack and help get ready. We took 10 students with us to the wilderness...
We crammed all of the students and us in a crazy rickety van with a very interesting driver. There was little reason as to how the seats were put in the van. They faced every direction! We stuffed us all in and the adventure began. Maybe an hour into our trip, a middle aged sketchy looking lady walked into our side of the road from across the street. She started arguing with the driver. Then a interesting looking man walked to the back of the van and tried to open the door! He was banging on it and looking at one of the girls who was sitting back there. All of us were kinda in shock and asking "What is going on??" Callie and I were never told what was really going on. She thinks maybe they were trying to kidnap one of the girls for trafficking, I think maybe they wanted to hitch a ride, or maybe the driver didn't own the van and they did... I don't know, it was really interesting.
Though it was only an hour and a half away in American thought, it took us over three hours to get to the lake we were camping at! I dont think we went above 45 km/hr. Some of the girls gave us a bag of chips and said it was cheese flavored. It was definitely NOT cheese flavored! I think it was crab and lobster flavored hahaha! Callie didn't really like 'em but I thought they were okay.
We got to the lake and Grampa had already set up some of the tents and the toilet. They assigned us one of the few tents that had been set up. The guys started to set up another tent and they had no idea how. Callie and I are both camping experts and asked if we could help them and they said no, no, no!! So we took another tent and started to set it up. We were just about ready to raise the tent and one of the guys came over, who didn't know how to set up a tent, and took over. It was awful. One of the poles snapped and Callie and I felt so bad. We got in trouble because we were doing a "man's job." Gramma told us, "Go organize the kitchen." and we hung our heads and went to the kitchen.
We had mashed potato pastry fried pie things for dinner that Callie and I fried that afternoon :) They were really good. Unfortunately, the two days before we went I did not feel so great. Milk fresh from the cow does not really agree with my stomach. Neither does week old unpreserved carrots. I still didn't feel well for the next two days and developed a migraine. Callie felt really bad too. We were quite a pair. I developed immunity to milk products, but Callie didn't. I found out I may be gluten sensitive. There is bread at every meal and lots of it. We joke that together we make up one person: she eats the bread and I eat the dairy!
Culture shock set in a little bit. After all, we were in the wilderness of Asia with a bunch of Asians who didn't really understand American culture. It was quite interesting. We were told to have a few lessons ready and we did. However, I think that Gramma expected us to take charge of everything although she never said so. She would have us sit around the fire place and say "Go on, continue," after we had finished with our lesson or random times during the day. We had to make up stuff off the top of our heads and ask the students what we were supposed to do. People here only say what absolutely needs to be said concerning business, so we had no idea what was expected of us. It was a little hard. We went berry picking every day and mushroom hunting. We asked which mushrooms were good
Callie and I recognized what was going on in our heads and decided we must change our attitudes. We spent a lot of time talking with Dad that day. The next few days of camp were the most enjoyable days of my time here so far....
No comments:
Post a Comment