Hey everybody, I'm so sorry for the delay in posting. I was having trouble with the internet for the past couple days, but I finally got everything figured out, so there shouldn't be any more problems with keeping up a regular posting.
Friday was the last day in our first week of camp, and I had finally gotten used to the flow of things here. I had been sticking with Row all day, everyday, and we were still working on the same things in the same classes. I found Thursday night a guide to Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint's shortcut keys, and in computer class was able to teach them all to Row. So after a while we finally learned how to navigate through them. Computer class success! In math our group continued to work with the abacus; we focused on multiplication and multiplication tables. A couple of the camper's siblings joined us as well. After lunch we played cards during our break; most of the kids didn't even know the most basic games, so I taught them how to play go-fish and Uno. Which was harder than I thought. One of the kids, Juan, was difficult to teach because he wanted to keep all the pairs he had gotten in go-fish in his hand, and also just wanted to draw from the deck. I think his explanation was "because I love fishies. I want to go fishing all day." Eventually we were able to get him to let go of his cards, but we were never able to fully get him away from the "sea of fishies." At art that afternoon the campers made bead bracelets and necklaces they could give to their parents or siblings who were with them. There were more than a half-dozen type of beads, each a different shape or texture, and the campers made the necklaces based on feeling. In the end, Row made a necklace for his mom made from his favorite shape-the cube. Luckily it was for his mom, because almost every cube bead was bright pink and I don't think Row could have handled the pink overload (he hates the color).
Saturday was an extremely exciting day for everyone at camp, me included. We all went to the Belize Zoo! This is a regular field trip for the camp, but every year all the kids and even the adults look forward to it and are excited to visit. It's exhibits and animals are all local Belizean or Central American animals, and it's in the middle of the forest, so it feel like the animals really are at home here. It's rather small, but that doesn't make it any less interesting to the visitors, and the kids all made that very clear with their shouts of excitement as we turned into it's driveway. While we were there we got to see and feed several different tropical animals: boa constrictors, scarlet macaws, deer (yeah, not totally tropical), spider monkeys, tapirs, peccaries (rainforest pigs), koatimundis (rainforest raccoons), caracols (rainforest turkeys), a harpy eagle (largest living eagle), crocodiles, ocelots, and best of all jaguars. It was a great experience to see the campers running around listening to all the animals and taking them all the sounds in, being able to experience something just as well as the other seeing kids. It showed me once again that the difference between them and other kids is not that large. It's just their eyes, not them.
Sunday Row and I took a break from camp to just relax and sleep in while everyone else visited Kaye Kaulker for a beach day. From what I heard it was incredibly fun and I missed out on a prime opportunity for quality sun, but I liked my extra sleep too.
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