So I’m living on a farm up in the mountains
with a cool hippie family who have a tendency to walk in on me when I’m
changing. They have three cats, who incidentally like to sleep in/on my bed,
one dog that is pretty docile so that’s ok, three sons 7-21, a shower that is
too small to stand up in, a shed full of hay, a tractor and a stella view. It
all sounds pretty fantastic huh? Well it is, but I tell you when you are knelt
in the shower, one hand on the unlocked door that people like to parade
through, the dribbling showerhead strategically held under your chin and a
you’re using your free hand to shave your legs in breakneck speed, you do start
to wonder if it really is! I sound angry. I’m not. It is just hands down, the
oddest experience ever. Sharing someone’s home, having them feed you and do
your laundry is weird. Especially when you don’t know them and they can barely
speak a word of English. It’s going ok though…I mean it's bound to be a little
strange at first.
One of the kids in the house is also in my
class at camp, Nicolo. Sweetest little thing ever. He is seven and as soon as I
entered the house he had me holding all his cats, watching his Italian version
of the Simpsons and likes to wake me up by coming silently into my room and
watching me sleep. On my first full day with them he took me walking up the
river and as he skipped through the slippery rocks and gushing water with ease,
he drilled, falling, not so elegant me on my Italian numbers. He would not stop
until I could repeat them with great speed and perfection and he makes me
perform it to everyone we meet and pats me on the back when I get it all
right…bless him!
My class is full of the most beautiful
little things. I have 11 6-8 year olds who can barely say their names and good
God I am in love with every one of them! They are full of energy and require a
shed load of patience and constant praise and stickers, but they are sooo
freekin cute. I wanna steal them all and pretend they’re mine! They get all
sleepy in the afternoon and just hang on your arm and look up at you and….ooo
I’m broody! But camp is so much fun! I thought it was going to be too intense
with just two of us but it turns out we get on really well and are working
great together. So far we have kept all the kids alive and they seem to be
enjoying it. We barely stop though as we can’t really take a break given
there’s only two of us, but we’re kind of just getting used to it and running
on excessive amounts of cake and pizza. Ima be fat!
Today we had to decide on a plot for the
final show that we perform for the whole town on Friday. This in itself is a
difficult task given my kids can just about pronounce their names…but after a
little translation we arrived at this: One half want to be pirates, one half
want to be mummies, one kid wants to be Frodo, another Jack The Ripper and
another a snail and they’d all like nutella to be involved. So ingeniously Matt and I have
engineered a beautifully diverse plot in which some pirates rescue Jack the
Ripper’s Best Friend Frodo who is drowning with a big rubber ring, he tells
them he is looking for a real ring, they think it’s treasure and go to find it,
get lost and end up in Egypt, where there is a storm and they all die except
the Captain who goes on searching, waking up all the mummies who take him to
the pharaoh who challenges him to a fight, which turns out to be a nutella
spread off. I am wasted here…give
me a stage!
