The morning of my travels, I woke up with a profound, burning in my eyes. I could barely open them, and they were red and watering like crazy. And then I realized that I accidentally slept in my contacts. So before my train departed, Marcella took me to the pharmacy to pick up eyedrops.
My new camp director and family must have thought that there was something wrong with me because they continually asked if I was OK. “Oh yeah…I’m fine…the food’s delicious!” as tears were streaming down my face and I was blowing my nose nonstop.
The next day, my eyes still felt like they were making me go blind, so my family took me to the emergency room. I’ve never been to an Italian hospital before, and they thought I was insane for being so excited to go.
I didn’t have to wait long at all before I was called. They asked for my symptoms, had me lay back on the recliner, and then put a drop in each eye. The first one burned so badly and made me feel like I instantly went blind. However, the 2nd drop instantly cured everything. I swear, it was like a miracle. They sent me home with a prescription, and I was good to go.
This week is my final camp, and I was hoping for a nice, easy one. However, this was not the case. I had some of the most unruly children on the face of the planet. Individually, they 3 boys (Alessandro, Paolo, and Enea) were fine. But when placed together, all hell let loose.
Let’s start with Paolo. He would do the work just fine when I separated him from the other 2, but if one or both were in the room, it’s as if I became invisible to him. He had the loudest, most high pitched voice for a 12-year-old that I’ve ever heard. And he liked to talk. Even his older brother kept telling him to shut up. When he was on his rants, he would stare past me, even if I got directly in his face. When I was finally quieted him down, I’d take a breath to speak, and he’s start up again.
Then there was Enea. He was very bright and helpful when I asked him to be, but he had a mean streak. He and Alessandro were best friends, and on the first day they swapped their names just to mess with me. I later called them out on it.
But the worst of them all was Alessandro. This child would not participate in anything, would throw things when I turned my back, jumped out of windows, and would often run away for periods of time throughout the day.
I had to come up with different ways to calm them down (ex. Competitions against each other, letting them be class DJs, giving out chocolate for participation, etc.) but they were still manic.
One day the 3 of them caught a lizard and brought it into the classroom. “Cool, a lizard! What’s its name?” Enea gave me an evil look. “Jessica.” Well I was just about to strangle them right then and there. A glimpse of that scene from Mean Girls at the watering hole flashed through my mind. But instead I played it off as if I were flattered. “Aww, Little Jessica! How cute. We should make a house for her.” I grabbed some boxes, paints, scissors, markers, and glue, and plopped it in front of them. “What are the 5 rooms in a house?” As they numbered them off, I wrote them on the board. “Now Little Jessica needs things in her house. She wants a couch, a car, doors, etc…” The boys were so excited that I let them finish the house during the whole 2nd lesson.
They started getting carried away with the project and decided that Little Jessica wanted friends. They went out and caught 3 more, and named them Alessandro, Paolo, and Stifler. Well what do you know, I guess it is a good thing to have a lizard named after you.
During lunch, Alessandro ran up to me with a frantic look. Little Jessica was gone! We looked around the classroom for her, but to no avail. After lunch, however, they restocked the box with a Little Jessica II. After that, they boys kept watch over the lizards like hawks, even barricading off the younger students so that they wouldn’t smush the class pets.
The final show this week sucked because my kids, for the life of them, would not memorize their lines. Of course my 4 youngest girls were great, but the older ones just wouldn’t do it.
It was a bittersweet moment packing up my desk on the last day. I don’t know if it’s because I realized that this could be the last ever camp with ACLE, or because I survived the week and was so happy to be rid of the brats.
Since I had no camp the next week, my host family offered to let me stay a few extra days to figure out my next move. They took me hiking in the mountains on Saturday, and because we wandered too far, we had to hitch-hike our way back to the car. Definitely a fun time.
Stranded on the side of the road: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QegsPXvAONo
Plans are still uncertain for the next few weeks. Sarah from Alba and Bistagno is coming up to my host family in Longorone, and we might meet up with Alyssa from Alba. As of right now, I’m just extremely looking forward to my first few weeks of vacation.
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