Yesterday, the staff of the Russian language and English (ESL) villages bused over to Bemidji, MN, about 3 hours to the east of Moorhead through relatively rural terrain, which, in some places where there were birch trees, looked kind of like the Russian countryside. Bemidji is home to a concentration of language camps (not to mention that it's also purportedly the home of Paul Bunyon) and yesterday was Concordia Language Villages International Day. It was pretty interesting to see all the kids in the various language villages in one place, singing and acting out skits, and dancing in the German village square to a variety of international pop songs. We arrived at the Norwegian village and our staffs (Russian and English) made up the caboose of a long train of kids and staff that marched through the woods into the German village. It was quite a site!
Our Russian staff took a side tour around the lake (Turtle Lake) to the new, permanent site for Lesnoe Ozero (which will open next summer). It was really beautiful-- large wooden, very unintenionally Russian-looking cabins overlooking the lake... I don't know if I'll ever be back as a Russian village staffer, but I wouldn't mind a few weeks in a setting like that (the cabins are apparently $1800 a week)!
One of the highlights from yesterday's International Day was a young lady (16-/17-ish) who approached me (I was wearing my hideous, handmade "Peace" t-shirt) and asked me in slow, deliberate Russian if I spoke the language. She turned out to be not a villager, but a Finn visiting the family of another young lady in the Finnish village. It was such a pleasure to speak with her for a bit-- that sort of thing was going on all over in different languages yesterday. The theme was fostering peace among different cultures-- what a GREAT experience yesterday was for those young villagers!!
Today we leave for our Russian village site in Vergas, MN, about an hour and a half from Concordia College... I'm psyched, but don't really know what to expect, exactly. But I'm ready for the adventure!
More here soon, hopefully, as the camp gets started (and, if possible, I'll try to get up a picture or two, as well)...
Poka!
P.S. One of the cultural culinary offerings yesterday, which struck me as somewhat amusing, was the "Pickle on a Stick." (I'm not sure which culture is responsible for this, but it smacks of something American, doesn't it?) And, even MORE trivially, there is a huge paper clip you can sit on in the Swedish village (the paper clip is, they tell me, a Swedish invention).
