Camp 2

The second week we had to travel about 40 minutes to get to where the camp was. We met every morning at the office around 7:15 and took a taxi to the MRT station. Then we took the MRT about 11 stops and had to catch another taxi at the other end. Fortunately in Taiwan, taxis are extremely cheap, so we only paid about $3.00 per ride. We walked from the MRT station to the church the first day when we went for training and it took at least 20 minutes, so because of time (and hot weather) we didn’t walk during the camp itself. This week was more relaxed for me, because I wasn’t a small group leader. I helped with songs, PowerPoint and did a lot of English teaching in the mornings. Our lessons ended each day with a cooking class given by yours truly. It was really funny because the first day the dish was Chinese dumplings. You have to wrap a thin wrapper around a meat filling, which I was to demonstrate for the students, after teaching them the English vocabulary words. The funny thing is, I can’t really wrap them well. Anyways, the kids seemed to enjoy it, even if I made a fool of myself! The second day we made sandwiches for which I donned a Chef’s costume. After my demonstrations, the kids got to make their own. On the third day, they made sushi rolls. The camp was pretty fun. The kids were REALLY cute but their level was really low. The youngest groups were really sweet with the almost teenagers showing the typical “I’m too cool to be here” attitude. They did improve by the end though. The cutest moment of the week was when I was teaching the word “give” and I went to the middle of the classroom and asked the students to give me random things (a shoe, a watch, something yellow) and then giving a candy to the first student who could put it in my hand. For the last one I said (mostly just to get a laugh) “Give me a….HUG!” I looked around the room like I was waiting for them all to jump up and hug me and then one little boy did! Perhaps he just wanted the prize, but it was really sweet!