Campo with the kids

Sorry I haven't been in touch recently for those of you who care I've been travelling lots and lots!

On January 10th we left for campo (countryside) with 35 kids! We traveled 6 or 7 hours by bus to a house in the middle of nowhere to stay for a full week. There were also 10 of us ti@s. (I like how the chileans do this with the "at" sign to make a/o) Either way, it was about 45 of us in a 4 bedroom house with ONE bathroom.

Here it is:

Our house! Every day we would wake up, have breakfast (ususally bread, jam, and coffee) and then get ready for the day. Our days would consist of waking up around 9, heading out to the river or for a long hike around 11, eating a late lunch, playing some made up game, soccer, or going for another walk in the afternoon, and then hanging out at night. The older kids and the younger kids went off separately in most cases, and I stayed with the younger kids most of the time because that's who I usually help with at school. They made me a little crazy by the 5th day though so I switched for a day and it was a nice break.

 I was chewing these things all week and by the end all the little kids were too

The countryside wasn't inhabited by many people but those who did live there had their own livestock. The pigs were scared of us at first and ran away when we got close, but by the end they were coming right up to where we were. There were also horses, chickens, sheep, and cows. My favorite day was the first one when I was walking with two kids and one of the neighbors invited us in to see his farm and he let the little kids get on his horse and take them around. He also showed them how he roped the sheep and let them try, although as you can probably imagine it wasn't as easy for a 6 yr old. It was a special trip nonetheless. Afterwards he invited us into his home and gave us some apples from his tree.

Here is the canal in back of the house where a lot of playing, falling, and floating shit down the canal occured

 Barbarians attacking the castle!A few hood rats I know doing what they do best: playing the 'noes (needless to say there was like 5 G's on the line)

Marshing Mellows

The river we went to and spent time on the beach for a day...The countryside was weird it was mostly Chilean logging forest - the trees were evenly spaced and all were the same age. The only trucks we saw were logging trucks.

The week was awesome for everyone involved and it was a really special trip to have been a part of. It was not without its trials (one bathroom, hot dogs in just about every meal, little kids crying and wanting to go home by day 4) but I feel priviliged that I got the opportunity to spend this week with the kids. I'll probably post more pictures and stories as I remember them, but I just wanted to write about this while I remembered most of it.