And the curse continues...

I know a lot of this is not really a curse and is really just due to Korean ways. But let's analyze for a moment anyway.

This is post-torrential rainstorm from camp #1 after the river washed up the rocks:


At elementary English camp #1 (read previous post), we were supplied with an overabundance of water from a torrential rainstorm. At elementary English camp #2, we hardly had any water! On day 1 the water had turned off and those in charge spent the entire day trying to fix it. For a few hours we had no water = kids could not wash their hands or shower or use the toilet. We were also worried because the following day was our water games day.

They had to bring in a firetruck in the evening to pump water from the river to give everyone just enough time to take quick cold showers.


Hmmm...and of course it rained on our water day and was beaming HOT and sunny on our active running day. We were also 20 students short of what we were told. And supplies went missing. And blah blah blah this camp was a curse.

But we were highly complimented on our hard earned efforts and ability to manage the crises. I say...well done.

CURSE: BITE ME!

p.s. I love my students. They're my bundles of joy.

The Curse of the English Camp

As I stated previously, planning for my elementary English camp was a pain the ass. And thus, I have declared the entire thing to be a curse. Here is why:

1) Initially we were informed there would only be 25 students. Then later told it was 75.

2) They changed the dates about 3 or 4 times.

3) We were never notified if there were going to be other native teachers working (there's 3 in Bonghwa but 1 had his own camps to do)

4) For our very first meeting (just about 3 weeks prior to camps), no one had prepared any sort of lesson plan. All that was available was a time schedule to follow.

5) The other native teacher and I planned EVERYTHING alone.

6) We find out we have 3 other native teachers, supposedly from South America. Why the hell would there be native English speakers from South AMERICA?

7) Nope, they're from South Africa.

8) The other native teachers live in a different city so are not available for any meetings.

8) Then there's just the whole pay situation. We were promised one thing, offered another (significantly less). This was frustrating because we spent countless hours planning by ourselves with no help from the other native teachers nor the Korean teachers.

9) The supervisor tells us we have to pay for all our supplies. WTF.

10) They were only going to give us 4 Korean teachers for 5 groups. Elementary kids do not speak that much English.

11) A week before camps, one native teacher fractures his knee and can no longer work the camp.

12) The other teacher and I have to restructure everything to make 4 groups instead of 5. And yes, by ourselves.

13) At 9:00pm the night before the first camp, one of the other native teachers is being rushed to the hospital due to a stroke (later find out it's a seizure) and her husband (the other native teacher) is going with her. So we now are down to TWO native teachers for 75 kids. Luckily, one of our friends was on vacation and was willing to help us out. We also eventually found another teacher from Yeongju as well.

14) We are not given any say in the opening ceremony, which of course was performed all in KOREAN at an ENGLISH camp.

15) Supplies...either missing or useless.

16) Everything for the most part was going well. Then we realized we were not invited to speak at the closing ceremony. They wanted it to all be formal and in Korean. While we understand the cultural aspect of having the chief of education there, we felt it was our duty as native teachers AND camp planners/organizers/runners to be at least a PART of the ceremony. A Korean teacher was going to give the speech in her broken and poor English using incredibly big words that children would not understand. When we asked if we could speak, we were denied this, which made us feel like our roles were unimportant. We had a big argument about that.

17) On our last day (the day we spend all outside playing water games), there was major flooding going on because it had rained all night long. The clear river turned muddy brown and underwent an enormous mood change:




Our food source could no longer drive to our camp because the roads were blocked due to mudslides and the fact that the roads were basically collapsing. So we had to drive all 75 kids to a nearby restaurant to feed them breakfast in the torrential rainstorm. We finally convinced the Korean teachers to buy a ton of snacks in case we got stuck at camp and had no more food. For our lunch, they went out and bought 85 cups of ramen noodles.


Since the roads were closed, our other 2 native teachers were not coming to camp since they had not slept over like we did (and it's about an hour away from Yeongju). So the other native teacher and I were stuck with 75 kids all day INSIDE while the Korean teachers were running around doing various crisis things. We got stuck playing a million random games just to keep them busy. Unfortunately, it was too hard to make them all that much English-stimulating, but we had to step up all alone and handle the kids by ourselves, so there shouldn't be any complaining.

We were supposed to leave right after lunch, but we were not free to go until 5pm when bulldozers were brought out to open up the roads, giving us a small time window to let us take the kids home. This is why the day was so messy:


So the whole camp process was a bundle of joy. Camp 1 is finished and I cannot believe I survived. It was the biggest pain in the ass I've had during my time in Korea...but if it weren't for the kids, I wouldn't still love my job.

The kids playing Horse, Love, Piggy Back. A good time. Watch the partners with one small kid one big kid when they do piggy back. A laugh worthy time.



Hello, my name is Amy and I am an English Camp survivor.

*applause* WELCOME AMY!