Tag: study abroad

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Grace Koepele

Boom! Shake It Up, Shake It Up

The second part of camp in Cimadolmo continued to keep us on our toes—we took an evening trip to the nearby city of Treviso, challenged our campers with various escape rooms, enjoyed a surprise visit from Carl the singing guitar man, took a field trip to Venice, and conducted a second scavenger hunt all in the first three days!

Despite our vast range of activities throughout the week, the kids somehow always found a way to work one line from our popular “City Camp Rocks” song into absolutely every aspect of their days. If someone so much as dropped a pencil, jumped in the air, gave a high five, or did nearly anything else, one or two kids would suddenly exclaim “BOOM! Shake it up, shake it up!” Which, with this song being a call-and-response song by its very campy nature, would require a follow up response from the surrounding kids of another resounding “BOOM! Shake it up, shake it up!”

Wednesday was an adventure within itself—the entire camp took a day-trip to Venice to visit museums, wander the city, and give the children a chance to practice their English in another setting. While the older campers spent the morning amongst the all of the paintings, photographs, sculptures, and other lovely things at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum of Art, I accompanied the younger groups to the Natural History Museum for a visit with our new friend the largest crocodile in the world and a laboratory where we made castings of trilobites and other cool fossils.

After the museums, we ate lunch on the museum campus and strolled around the city until it was time for us to return home (more often than not with that infamous “shake it up” line or some other camp song serenading the passing tourists). Our journey back to Cimadolmo required not only a train but a school bus as well, since the town does not have its own train station. Both the train and the bus rides to and from our little Venetian adventure kept everyone entertained with lively (and lengthy) renditions of five or six different camp songs and many rounds of Uno (with some children willingly acting as the table for the cards because our transportation did not provide tables).

After one of our classically long camp days, my coworkers and I treated ourselves to an evening out among the tiny, winding canals and cozy streets of Treviso. The time out away with all my coworkers was exactly what we needed to recharge. After a nice stroll as the sun set we took an aperitif in a cozy piazza near the city center and enjoyed the peaceful break from scurrying children and constant theatrical play. As much as I love my work with the kids, the songs, the games, and the busy going of it all, it felt refreshing to have this time to step back from camp and chat together about everything else in our lives aside from camp.

Our final day of camp together was tiring and busy, but lovely just the same. In between practicing the songs, games, plays, and questions that comprise the final show, we took naps, drew more pictures, played new games, and fought off ravenous mosquitoes while enjoying the sunshine outside. Once five oʼclock rolled around, we took a two hour pause at our respective homes before returning in the evening for the show that is our camp farewell. In my room, we had one of the liveliest arrangements of songs and games Iʼve seen at any of my camps (not to mention our wonderfully decorated classroom thanks to the fleet of artists I had the pleasure of tutoring at this camp). It only seemed fitting that we ended our final evening of this immensely artistic and musical camp with a massive dance party to the “Cha Cha Slide” (and we even roped our camp director into joining in on a second round of the song).

I will miss the insane artistic drive of these campers, their enthusiasm, my long evening strolls through nearby vineyards, and post-camp relaxation time with my host sister Vittoria but at the same time I am excited for what my next and final camp has in store for me. Each and every camp this summer has tired me to a new degree but has also led me to make some phenomenal friends, meet wonderful people, try a plethora of new things, continue to see the immense beauty of Italy, and left me feeling full of gratitude.

I will miss my time in Cimadolmo but I look forward to the next adventure ahead of me in the beach town of Marotta! ‘Til then, ciao for now.

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Grace Koepele Italy

Third Time’s The Charm

My third camp of the summer brought me to Cimadolmo, a small town nestled among the Prosecco hills of the northern Veneto region of Italy. Along with a South-African, a Canadian, and a fellow Michigander, we had an incredibly eventful first week.

Six young women pose outside in a row, smiling and wearing red or blue shirts that read "ACLE CAMP TUTOR."

At the beginning of the camp, the children were quite timid with our morning circle songs and activities—something that is not uncommon — but their level of apparent disinterest made me worry that they would be an unenthusiastic bunch. Thankfully, the first afternoon of habitat games came around and my worries were alleviated. In habitat games, we divide the campers into teams and have them compete in various relays to select the animals, colors, adjectives, and places that will become their team names. By the second game, practically every kid was invested in the competition and in the fate of their groupʼs name. Once the names were selected and each group began designing their team crests, every camper had at least one marker in hand and was making some contribution to the artwork. After this activity we soon came to know that any artistic endeavor required at least 30 extra minutes because the kids loved so much to draw and create absolutely anything.

Several young children lean over a large sheet of paper, coloring a landscape.

Other afternoon activities fortunately proved to stir similar levels of excitement throughout the week; during our camp-wide scavenger hunt we had one Freddy Mercury impersonator, three human pyramids, four love letters to for us tutors, and 35 giddy campers running from one side of the school to another in an effort to solve all of the tasks first.

A young boy with his back to the camera posts a drawing on an orange wall next to several other drawings.

Once water games day came around we were in for a treat. Not only did we have 200+ water balloons to launch at one another but also a surprise “celebrity” participant (a camper impersonating Johnny Depp), a couple “Baby Shark” references, three water-war waging tutors (including myself), four completely soaked helpers, 10+ water relays, and countless buckets of water poured on anyone within range.

Young children smile and pose for a selfie--one wearing large, red aviators with the remnants of a fake mustache on his lip.

We ended the first week of camp with an eclectic talent show featuring everything from magic tricks, to the Macarena (courtesy of our lovely camp director and assistant), to gymnastics, to a re-telling of a Roman battle, to a dramatic reenactment of the time I was chased by a moose (which featured one of our camp helpers giving another a piggy-back ride so that they could chase me around the stage pretending to be a moose).

In addition to the excitement of camp, during my first few days in Cimadolmo, the Prosecco hills surrounding the town were officially named a UNESCO heritage site! Over the weekend, my host family and I visited a castle on one of the hills, where we made friends with some donkeys, admired the panoramic view of the nearby towns and countryside, and hurried down the hill back to the car when a hail-storm began aggressively pelting us with hail. Due to the storm, we spent 30 minutes hiding under trees, bridges, and overhangs in our car rather than drinking Prosecco but the adventure was lovely just the same (although I think Prosecco would have improved my sentiments toward the situation…. and lowered my panic as we scurried from one partially-safe spot to another).

A beautiful Italian landscape with old, white buildings in the background, rolling green hills in the foreground, and stormy clouds brewing.

All in all I enjoyed my first week in Cimadolmo and I look forward to what little adventures come my way next week!

Til then, ciao for now!

Categories
Grace Koepele Italy

Hot, Hotter, Hottest

The first half of my second two-week camp with ACLE was one of superlatives.

While my previous camp in Vicenza brought what I thought to be many coworkers, campers, and hot days, this week in Mogliano-Veneto boasted the most. Though the ratio of tutor to camper remained roughly the same, there were 9 tutors (including me) and 92 campers ranging from six to thirteen years old! The sheer energy and volume that each morning circle musters feels as though we may have the whole city singing “Good Morning The Sun Is Up” or “Itʼs Not Hard” along with us in no time.

It became so hot each day at camp that I did not even try to wear the same work shirt twice. Within the first 15 minutes of arriving to the school, I would begin to sweat without even registering that it was hot. Due to this awful heat wave, every day only grew hotter. On Thursday, our camp reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (but apparently felt like 110)!

In an effort to keep everyone hydrated, engaged, and sane, many standing games became sitting games, meditation breaks became our norm, and one tutor even created a “water dance” to encourage the campers to stay hydrated while also teaching them directions (e.g. up, down, right, left, etc).

Despite feeling like I was living in inferno, I was blessed again with an absolutely amazing host family. My host parents, Sabrina and Massimo, are always happy to talk, swap stories, go somewhere, or simply spend time with me and their six-year-old son, Riccardo. Together, we had some of the busiest days yet this summer; every day after camp brought new trips the pool, pilates classes, and a night out in Treviso (a cute nearby town with canals like Venice but not nearly as many tourists, pigeons, or confusing dead-ends).

After a long, hot, and somewhat hectic week, we took a day trip to the beautiful beach-town of Iesolo and quickly forgot about our exhaustion. We swam, tanned, and played a lively game of Bocce Ball—which prompted an important distinction in regards to the new nickname that Massimo has given me: Michigan. We decided that saying “Go Michigan” is not an acceptable form of moral support when we play a family game as it wrongfully supports my collegiate competitors (although we decided saying “Nice try, Michigan” is alright if I lose in a game).

While the past week may have been the hottest, busiest, and most tiresome week Iʼve seen with ACLE so far, I cannot wait to begin the second half of this adventure in Mogliano-Veneto and see what our massive camp accomplishes together next.

‘Til then, ciao for now!