Some belated pictures from the s'mores bonfire

Michelle and I lead a rendition of "The Princess Pat" with the kids. I was the echo, because it's Michelle who knows all the words.








Emily and Gwen demonstrate how to make (and eat) s'mores.










Everyone bonfiring












Brandon helped the kids get the marshmallows onto the pokers and Michelle and I helped get them off. It was pretty adorable. The blonde woman is Anna, who was like the leader of the camp and the counselors. She was pretty awesome.





Michelle and I are weirdos. This picture wound up on our bulletin board with the caption "You know you want s'more!"

The horse heads get around

A group photo with the horses that Kuba used the whip on.












Szymon came up to Michelle and said, "I have a very funny idea for a picture. I require two people." So that's me holding the horse hat.










Michelle got a Polska hat from one of the kids, so we attached one of the horse heads to it at our after the Art Expo staff party. It became the Party Hat that no one could look good in, case in point. We have a whole series of these pictures, but I need to acquire the one of Michelle that started it all before I can truly exhibit them.











Bartek looking very serious while wearing the horse head.

















They brought us cold pasta and bucket of meat and sauerkraut from the kitchen and came in saying, "Pizza delivery!" Here is Lauren attempting to eat something from the bucket of meat.

More Art Expo stuff

Here are the kids' collages all set up and displayed in our room for the art walk.

















More.













Still more. We filled pretty much the whole room up.













Probably my favorite collage, done by one of my little geniuses. Tobiasz was reading a book on world religions during his free time at camp, so he made this. He could name every culture each picture came from. Note the tiny astronaut in the middle. That one represented America, apparently. Also we had to go on a search for a Dolce & Gabana ad so that he could copy the ampersand. He couldn't just cut it out, oh no. We also decided not to inform him that he spelled "peoples" wrong, because that would have required a long correction process. Polish children are tiny perfectionists, and Tobiasz was one of the most serious about it.



Happy, perfect little darling children waiting to perform in the play!

Art at the Arts Enriched English Camp!

My tissue paper collage portrait of Frederick Chopin, or "F. Cho" as we have affectionately nicknamed him.
















My portrait of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, made with clippings from magazines and, of course, feathers. He is also known to us as "T. Ko."















Michelle with the stagecoach she made for the play about F. Cho that the kids had to put on.











Kuba the stagecoach driver with Michelle and the whip she made him. He requested the whip and it was all very amusing, since three much larger guys were his horses.

Michelle and I sang "Sexyback" a lot when we were around Kuba and his whip.




Yep.

This is Halloween!

Here I am preparing my own Halloween costume. The American staff prepared Halloween (in July) for the kids, because they don't celebrate Halloween in Poland and they think we're all nuts. Such an attractive picture, no?

"You've got red on you."











Here I am in full costume as Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama. The kids don't really know Futurama so they were all a bit bemused. One girl told me, "You look a little funny and a little scary," which is really the most accurate assessment possible. The jacket is on inside out and it was trashed by the time I finally got to shower.











This is Jakub--who is called Kuba--and he was a pimp who was killed three ways. I did his slit throat make-up. Apparently the deflated kickball was supposed to be a weight, like someone tried to drown him, but we thought it was supposed to be like he got a gunshot wound in his knee. I don't know. ♥ Kuba.











Two hippies and a metalhead.














Edward Scissorhands won the costume contest. She also stayed in character almost the whole time, which was very impressive.

Back at Załęcze

This is me trying smalitz (pork fat you spread on toast) at a late night bonfire with the Polish staff.











Michelle was less thrilled by the smalitz. She has persisted in calling it "schmutz."











In blue is Hana, who is really more interested in talking to me and following me around than in working on her art. Her English is quite good for her age and it's very cute all around. To the right of her is Nikola, who is also very sweet, but she is more serious about her art. Here they are working on collages from magazine photos on one specific subject they chose.


Bartek (in the crazy hat) DJs at one of the discos. All of the teaching assistants who like men have a tendency to sigh whenever he goes by (well, when he's not wearing the hat). This is very funny because all the little girls at the camp sigh and moon over Hunter. Hunter is actually directly to the left of Bartek in this picture, hah.



This sign said "Arts Enriched English Camp" at one point, but now every time we go by it says something different.

"I want to ride my bicycle..."

These guys have this act down to a science, they've done it so many times.

Eventful times at camp.

A bulletin board that Lauren arranged. It shows where all the teachers and assistants come from in the U.S.











Kids in my fourth class working on their tissue paper collages. The two girls on the far right are apparently my two new best friends.










Fourth class again. The kid hiding his face with the folder is Kacper. He's a bit of a handful.











This is Szymon (Shi-moan), who is sixteen and very bright. I'm a bit sad that I'm not able to work so much with the older kids so I could hang out with him more (and plenty of the other kids, naturally). He also has a special, um, talent which will be featured in the next video I post.




The Marshal came on Thursday, so Nancy was ironing George's tie in preparation. Gotta be fancy!

Getting our sexy on!

The hotness of this video cannot be contained. Also, I realize that trying to do video in portrait view is a bit of a dumb move.

Awkward middle school dance party!

On our second night at the camp they threw a disco. I believe that in this picture the kids are rocking to Lady Gaga's "Poker Face."










Jim, who teaches the orff instrument class, dances with Pani Makita ("Pani" is an honorific, like "Mrs" in English), the head lady of Zalecze.










Ah, blurrily captured young love.













Brandon, Emily, and Lauren kick it with the kids.













Dave, Brandon, Hunter, Stanton, and Teddy are keepin' it real. Old school.

Polish camp song!

They gave us all the words written down, but that doesn't help us much!

S'mores!

Michelle demonstrates the importance of coffee in the morning for us. We usually rise at about 7 am for breakfast at 8 am and then our classes begin at 8:45.









A shot of our huge s'mores endeavor. It's all for the kids, believe me! Michelle and I were helping them get the marshmallows off the sticks and onto the graham crackers and chocolate. We both got burned in the process and Michelle got mosquito bites all over, including on her face, but those are the casualties of s'mores! We have many silly pictures, but they were taken by other people, so they will be up later.

More s'mores.














Here's a shot of the kids at the bonfire. The dark-haired girl is Asia (Ah-sha), our invaluable translator, without whom we would be utterly lost 90% of the time.










I don't know who this guy is, but he's carved out of a tree trunk so he must be important!

At the camp in Zalecze!

Here is my little corner of Poland in Zalecze! In English that is pronounced "Zal-wen-che," or that is how we've been saying it. The L should have a line through it, which means that it is actually a W. Michelle and I have a room that is basically a cupboard under the stairs (no letters from Hogwarts yet). It's right next to the kitchen, so really it's a pantry under the stairs. No bathroom, we have to go upstairs or hope someone is nice enough to let us in theirs. The room is susceptible to Mothra and mayflies and mosquitoes because Europeans don't believe in screens. We're very slowly getting the swing of things, however.

A previous tenant left us Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stickers on our door.












Michelle and Lauren on the very spacious covered porch/balcony on the second floor, where Michelle and I also have our room.










This is one shot of the classroom where I'm helping to teach collage to kids who are about age 10 to age 13. Most of them are 13 year old girls and 11 year old boys, so as you can imagine, it's an adventure.







Another shot of the classroom.