Summer Camp

I spent the last 10 days on the staff of a summer camp for the Children's Parliament of Stara Zagora. I have been to a number of summer camps over the years in the United States, but was surprised by the Bulgarian style of summer camp. The campers here were very well behaved, though there were some cases of "Mamba" in some of the rooms at night. "Mamba" is when a stealthy camper applies toothpaste to a victim's nose in his or her sleep. The 50 campers ranged from 7 to 19 years old. The younger kids gave their extra food to older kids and the older kids helped the younger ones with washing clothes, keeping rooms clean, etc.

The last night of camp, I stayed up with the older campers to have a bonfire (starting around 2AM). They didn't want to go to sleep, but the director finally came out and told everyone to go to bed. I got to sleep after 4, but was up, packed and eating breakfast by 8:30. I'm still pretty tired from that after a couple of days. Probably the most impressive group activity of the camp was a 8-hour, 15 mile hike up to Rai, the tallest waterfall in Bulgaria. The entire group participated, and the children were surprisingly well behaved. There were very few complaints from the group.

Well, I am pretty tired and not writing especially well, so I'll provide more detail later. Good night, everyone!