So we actually teach two camps that meet every other day, one camp meets MWF and the other TThSa. It seems that most of the teachers prefer the second set of students. They just seem more polite and interested in learning. We quickly find out that most of the kids, as you can imagine, have no desire to be at the camp. It took me a bit to come to terms with this, but when you consider this is supposed to be summer vacation for them and many of them continue to go to evening classes, I finally did and even felt bad for them. The kids ranged in age from 5-12 years old and the camp actually took place at Chosun University in Gwangju. Most of the kids were really cute and all the foreign teachers would always be amazed at how black, shiny, and healthy their hair looked. We all got lovely T-shirt to wear as the uniform. The camp gave us lunch M-F, which was fairly decent. I quickly found out that Koreans do not really drink water or use napkins until after their meal. I, however, had to keep a stash of my own personal napkins to tend to the messes I made.
Other general happenings during week one: I left my toothbrush in the shower the first morning and when I went back later it was gone. I did ‘find’ the toothbrush about a week and a half later sitting on the utility sink. I chose not to reclaim it! Smart I forgot to use the voltage converter one early morning and so my electric razor was fried. I also found out sort of the hard way that the girl’s dorm was right across from my window. After I realized that, I then began to change with the lights OFF! Mosquitoes in Korea can be pretty brutal. Even though our rooms were decent, it seemed that mosquitoes from time to time would come out of the A/C vents. After being bit countless times, I decided to buy a mosquito plug in coupled with me blasting the A/C and fans to create a less than favorable environment. It sorta worked! I also discovered my favorite toilet stall in the bathroom which had a heated toilet seat, lovely! We also setup mini bars in our respective rooms which included an array of cheap Korean wine, plum wine, soju, and maple soju. Beer had to be purchased on an as needed basis as there were no fridges. The Korean wine was surprisingly bad. It tasted like grape juice and more like grape flavored medication. I guess that’s what happens when you purchase wine that costs about a buck and half!
The only bad experience I had was when, one evening, I was looking for a cheap alarm clock to purchase. I went to a ‘mom n pop’ shop, greeted the cashier, and then started looking at the clocks. They were all on display with batteries in them and ranged in price from $1-2. As I picked one up, the cashier lady started yelling something at me, ran over, grabbed the clock out of my hand, and proceeded to take the battery out of that clock and every other one on display. She then went back to the register, while I sat there dumbfounded for thirty seconds. I just left after that! I still am not completely sure what happened there, I guess I have my theories but whatever!
