Perpetual Change

Update and Wishlist

So Summer has been busy. I have been away a lot, and will be away more for the next month. After Church Camp, I went to visit some relatives in the mountains. They live in a village of about 2000, their last name is the same as the village's name, and I ran into someone I knew there. It was fun, and they have three great kids but they couldn't climb on me enough; it was a bit exhausting. They loved my frisbee, but unfortunately, the loved it to death. They invited me back for the Winter, to go sledding and stuff, and I am looking forward to it. The menu still surprises me here, but I will have more on that in another entry. Suffice it to say that they have two cows and LOTS of milk and milk products, but all very fresh.

Then, I spent a week at home when I was supposed to go to another church camp. Because that camp changed dates, it changed everything, and my family still went back to the mountains, but host grandma came home to fend for me. I was REALLY looking forward to fending for myself. She (and grandpa) can be a bit stifling sometimes. I am like the son she never had, but I managed to fight her out of the kitchen some, and I got some good work done. Then I went for a day to a National Scout Camp. There were also 3 Ukrainians from the US, and one from Australia there. The Ukrainian Scout Movement, which is called Plast - a direct translation from Scout, is very strong in the Diaspora. I taught them to play kickball and dodgeball, and observed for a bit and then came home. I had wanted to go to the whole camp, but the director, who I spoke with only through a intermediary, is convinced that too many adults in camp leads to drinking and lying around and I would have been no different, so I could only stay one day.

Now, I am off to the other Church camp that was moved from last week, and then 10 days with the local scout camp, which I have been helping to plan. After that we will see, there are a couple of things in the works, with a short trip to my old host family to help dig up potatoes... and then school begins!

Speaking of school, and scouts, and things...if anyone is dying to send me a care package, here is a short list of things that would be really cool:

the Wizard of Oz DVD
The Seattle Fish Company "Fish Philosophy" video
some frisbees, official ultimate regulation size
Fantasia DVD, original or 2000
Pez
Abbott and Costello's "Who's on first" (preferably a script)
the Macarena
Litmus Paper
Whoopie Cushions (particularly but other gag gifts are good too)
Mad libs
Christmas and/or Traditional American Music (for beginning players of piano or other
instruments)
vegetable peelers (my favorite is when it has a horizontal blade; I believe Crate
and Barrel has a $2 swiss or swedish plastic one that is excellent)

Yes I actually have ideas for things to teach with all this stuff besides a few that would be gifts, prizes.

PS. Imagine that you are trying to teach a 55 year old woman, that you don't really understand regardless of which language you use, how to swim... Now imagine that the pool is about the size of 3 lanes and has about 10 people in it, none of which really swim well but all are making plenty of waves, especially the heavy set man at the end who keeps jumping up and down for no apparent reason... Oh, and your student doesn't want to put her head in the water... that was my morning.

posted by jjs @ 10:35 AM