AFS Camp

After getting off the twelve hour plane ride and making it through customs our group, a huge mass of teenagers at 28 people, was divided into two groups depending on where they were to be dispersed throughout the country. I guess this is where things started to feel real. (ha ha ha). Our group (the northerners) were then taken to our AFS camp. Much to my delight the AFS camp would also be a Hogwarts look-alike!!! So anyways we stayed in these dormers, very tall with huge windows and even with little Harry Potter-ish dorm room beds! I really loved that camp. My roommate Kati and I, who is going to San Juan as well only for a year (she´s a tough cookie) sort of just hung out in this VERY beautiful courtyard, complete with a large fountain in the middle for the giant goldfish to play in, while everyone made their way to our "camp" from the other AFS international affiliations. "camp" is not the word I would use to refer to the castle we were staying in... ha ha ha..

It was only a one-night camp, but it was very jam packed with various activities (and a few very boring lectures) about how to assimilate into a foreign country "smoothly". All the AFS "orientadores" were VERY VERY nice and very cool and sincere and welcoming. Most were fluent with english however all prefered to converse with the students in spanish, however painful it was for the student.. ha ha.. They also didn´t let us go to bed until one in the morning! Most of us there were pulling thirty-forty eight hours without any sleep and were getting a little loopy at this point. However it ended up being VERY worth it... So at ten o´clock we ate dinner (relatively early) and prepared for the "talent show". Each country was to compose a piece of "talent" to show everyone. Complete with a stage. So chicos de Estados Unidos performed a very moving interpretation of the "Thriller". It was basically created all by quick improv. theatrical intelligence. ha ha ha... so anyways. Following the talent show the AFS volunteers performed a skit of a typical "asado" (argentine barbecue). Well at the end of the skit they all began dancing on the stage, and chairs tables etc... but then they started making all of us dance and before we knew it, two hours later, it ws 2:30 am and we had just had our own succesful argentine dance party. It was VERY very fun, but we were all VERY tired and had to be up by eight the next day to drive into Buenos Aires.