Catching Up, Part 4- English Camp!

English Camp.

5 days without internet access, sharing a room with 10 people, cafeteria food... Need I say more? I was really not looking forward to this part of orientation. But I really had no choice. So I packed my bag-- scholars were strictly forbidden to bring suitcases- no room on the bus-- and climbed aboard for the 3 hour trip to English Camp.

The point of English camp-- besides being free labor for the camp folks lots of fun for the TaLK scholars-- is that is actually does give you a chance to get a little experience under your belt. Experience with nasty cafeteria food, crazy cute Korean schoolchildren, and other things that suck provide great experience.

The rooming situation wasn't the best. Some people roomed with as many as 10 other TaLK Scholars and instead of a mattress, you had a make a little pallet on the floor...
That little empty spot near the window is where I put my pallet.

Each TaLK Scholar gets their very own Korean kid and it's supposed to be great because you get to bond with the child, eat meals together, and in addition to group activities, do 1-on-1 stuff. Unfortunately, this time around, a few children canceled for English Camp, so about 10 Talk scholars, myself included, didn't get a child. I was pretty bummed out.

This is one of my friends in my group and his Korean kid, Bill.
I guess I'd have to say that Bill was the kid I 'bonded' with the most while I was at English Camp.
He even drew a self portrait of me....
Yeah.... Not much to say about that...

One part I really enjoyed about English Camp was the music class. I got to play a traditional Korean musical instrument! A Korean friend of mine actually gave me a phone charm a while back...
It's a Janggu (장구), a traditional Korean drum. And ever since she gave me that phone charm, I really wanted to play an actual Janggu. Well~
Sweet!


Another part I enjoyed about English Camp was the talent show. Each of the 6 groups was split into 2 parts and had to perform a dance with their Korean kids. My team was assigned the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and it we had fun making up the steps, practicing the song, and finally performing it. It was pretty awesome! We even had some kids wearing little animals hats (elephant, monkey, etc) and dance onto stage in the middle of the song.

Finally it was time to go, and although I was happy to be going back to the relative 'comfort' of Jochiwon, in some way, I was discovered that some part of me was really going to miss those gremlins kids.