Chillin' at Camp

After our Urban Plunge, we headed back to camp for some much needed relaxation and learning.  If there's one thing that I've learned on Outtatown, it's how important rest is.  Your body is capable of so much more that you think it is, but without rest... Bad news!

So we went rock climbing.  That's restful right?

showing off our mad Spidey-skills

story time with Tara

Now, Tara has this incredible game that is designed to allow students to experience what it's like to be an immigrant in a foreign country.  It's a complicated game and at the beginning you only know 5 English phrases: "My name is...", "Where is the bathroom?", "Where is the government official?", "I have 2 children", "Where is the English teacher?".  The chaos and frustration is a pretty accurate experience for the most part, but it sure is hilarious as a bystander to watch students running around yelling "Where is the bathroom?!" at the top of their lungs.

The game quickly disintegrates into pure anarchy and you see corruption everywhere.

corruption in the government! 

the pass-off

hey! where's my portion?!

I rest my case.

Later on in the week we did a little bit of service at our camp - it's always nice to be able to give back to a place that houses and feeds us.

cleaning the van

With so many people we quickly moved through the tasks we were given and had a free afternoon to find an adventure.  We took off for the Pinawa Dam and figured, best case scenario, we get to swim in the rapids.  At the very least, we could wander around a super beautiful location.

Pinawa Dam

Lucky for us, the water wasn't outrageous and we were able to spend a few hours playing in the rapids.  I was a little nervous, just because as smooth as the water looks running over the rocks, my experience is that the rocks still jump out and bruise your rear.  But, contrary to my expectations, there was so much seaweed/algae that it was a lovely soft, smooth ride!

waterslide

My only complaint was the snakes!  AAAHHHHHH!  I hate snakes.  HATE.

And this is what was awaiting us...

Goerz, the snake guru

I spent the first 10 minutes standing on a rock, twitching and trying to hold in my screams...  But when challenged to hold a teensy, tiny, itty, bitty snake, I thought it might possibly be time to step up again and try to hold a snake for the first time in my life.  Now, you may or may not know what happened the last time I held a snake... Long story short, it bit me.  Ick.  But this guy was so little I thought it was worth a try.

I did it.  But I think my face accurately tells you what I was thinking.

freaking out.  no big deal.

Snakes.  Still not my favourite.

Cheers,
Sandy