Week 3 day 12, 22 Jun 2009
Summer camp again!!! This time I really get the feel of missionaries climbing hills and walking endlessly to spread the word of God. But I wasn’t walking endlessly to spread the word of God, but instead to educate children and teenagers about HIV and AIDS. After taking 2 buses, we got off at the roadside of a quarry and walked. We walked past cemetery, climbed a small hill which overlooks some really fairytale like houses, thinking that they were the summer camps we were heading for, but only in despair as we continue walking, walking past stretches after stretches of similar houses, past a small lake, and more houses, and finally, with a greeting of a cute little dog tugging at my jeans, we finally reached the summer camp!!!
Somehow being a foreigner in a foreign country, and not being about to speak their native language makes you the superstar for a few hours. At summer camps, that’s always the case when teenager and kids would crowd around us like we are some big celebrities and talk to us, ask us for mobile numbers, Vkontacke (Russian FB), and emails. But the best this is, they love taking photos with you and sometimes, you do get little surprises from them, like small toys, drawings and coins etc.
Sometimes I think that being a male for a few hours was a good idea because you are like HOT!!! All the Russian girls swamp to you like bees and soon its enough to set up your own fan club. Being a girl, and as you know, are not as HOT compared to my fellow male interns, I did not get swaps of kids crowding around me. I had to wait and wait and wait and finally, small crowd will gather around me. For the first time, I actually received a drawing for a boy at the camp. Aww it was such a sweet picture, I love it (; (thanks Nikita)
After camp, the administration of the camp as kind hearted enough to send us back to NSTU in a mini van and not make us walk the same route back. (if not I think we will have to camp in the cemetery for the night)
No comments:
Post a Comment