Here Comes the Rain

Today it rained for the first time since I have arrived in Spain. It meant the children couldn't go in the swimming pool, but it was nice for something to break the heat. Luckily it ended in time for them to go to sailing school.

Camp Weekend off and New Campers: Saturday, July 12-Monday, July 14

I have been complaining a lot on these last few posts, so I want to open up with the positives of the weekend, before I move into the negatives.

On Saturday, the first group of kids with their constant complaining left and I took the afternoon to sleep and eat a donair, mmmmm. Later, we spent some time at the beach and then went clubbing and it was great to have a couple child-free meals.

Yesterday the new pack of kids arrived, and though their English is terrible, they do not have the attitude of the last group and are actually excited about the activities we have prepared!! They are a little more excitable however, which makes some things difficult, but there is also only 23 of them, which is a far more manageable number. We have started off very organized and strict with rules (thanks to Ali and myself) which helps immensley.

The final excellent item is that I have bought a mosquito net for my bed, and now I am sleeping and napping much easier. Unfortunately it is bright blue and has feathers on it, which makes it a bit ridiculous looking, but it works very effectively at keeping the breeze in and the bugs out. It is also kind of fun to feel like you are sleeping in a fort, and though it does not offer privacy, in a shared living accomodation, it gives you the sense of having your own room. Kind of.

Okay, the bad.... Well the bad right now is the director... I have discovered she is inept. The first week Ali and I assumed that the problems that were occuring were all the fault of the unnamed company we work for and that we should give her a chance to get her footing and follow her directions, even if we did not agree.

This is no longer the case.

We are into camp session 2. Session 2 is supposed to be a breeze, you have run all the activities once, you know the materials you need, you have made a better list of rules based on the behaviour of the last campers, and most crucially, you have a whole 24 hours at least to rest and prepare for the next group.

This weekend the director took us to the beach, we were all so excited that we could go to the Meditteranean instead of Mar Menor (which is just so salty). Unfortunately she couldn't find it. That's correct, take a look at a map of Mar Menor in Spain and you will see we are PAINFULLY close to the Meditteranean. You'd think that would be the kind of thing one would consult a map for, so after driving around for an hour, we just went to a busier and less nice beach on Mar Menor than the one we are close to.

Next, it turns out, she was hired for this job because... well that is the thing no one can figure out. She was a counsellor for this organization last summer for 4 weeks, and has no other experience with kids, she has no first aid what so ever, has no other camp experience and is not a teacher. This means she doesn't know how to control the children, so they have no respect for her, so whenever she does try to do anything, she gets really frustrated and starts yelling at us to control them, because "that is not [her] job". That wouldn't be such a problem if she did the other parts of her job.

Things like planning the excursions properly (all the sights in Cartagena we were supposed to see were closed and we went shopping during siesta on a Sunday). Writing the rules of the camp for the first day (she didn't do it the first camp, and when it was obvious she wasn't going to do it for the second camp, Ali and I did it).

My time is running out more later

kater