Starting a new year!

Camp Siberia 2009 Counselors hosted an information meeting on Sunday, October 4, to introduce other students and their families to Camp Siberia.  They told stories of their time at camp, with the orphans, and also about their visits to Moscow and St. Petersburg.  Parents and students in attendance also saw a great slide show (which I will try to link to this blog).

Applications for the new Camp Siberia team 2010 are currently available in the office at Bainbridge High School and on line at campsiberia.org.  Applications must be POSTMARKED by October 23, 2009.  A word of warning: do not assume that if you drop your application at the post office late in the day of October 23, it will actually be postmarked that day.  Applications postmarked after October 23 will not be considered, so be early!  Applications cannot be submitted on line.

Once all applications have been received, applicants will be interviewed by a panel of adult Board Members and former Camp Siberia Counselors.  Interviews will take place at the Bainbridge Public Library during the weeks of November 2 and November 9.   Applicants’ references will be checked by the adult Board Members.  Final selection of the 2010 team will be made over the weekend of November 21 and 22 and all applicants will be notified by email on the evening of November 22.

Good luck to all applicants!

Even more photos and videos

Camp Siberia 2009

I hadn’t realized when I sent you all to flickr yesterday, that the site includes TONS of photos the Counselors have uploaded.    I suggest going back periodically to the link to flickr to see (and hear!) great camp images.

Video of arrival home.

Here’s a short video from Counselor Tag Brown of the arrival at SeaTac — from the kids’ point of view.  Fun.

They’re home!

Camp Siberia 2009 is now history.  Everyone (except Janie who stayed in Russia a bit longer to visit friends and Elliot, who joined his family in France) arrived back at SeaTac late Saturday night.  Unlike last year’s group, which was bumped from a flight and ended up coming home in dribs and drabs over several days, this year’s group arrived all together, slightly ahead of schedule.

I expect most are spending a quiet day getting re-acquainted with their families and their own beds, but soon they will be texting and calling each other in attempts to prolong their shared experience.  We’ll hear more tales of their time in Russia a bit later.  In the meantime, here are a few photos of their arrival.  Thanks to Marc Stewart for the photos.

Here they come!

Here they come!Hugs and commotion at Baggage ClaimWaiting…you’d think they’d be used to that!Robin — straight off a marathon trip from Novosibirsk!

Hugs and commotion at Baggage Claim

Waiting…you’d think they’d be used to that!

Robin — straight off a marathon trip from Novosibirsk!

Oh, and here’s a funny “small world” story:  Steve and Debbie Hill, whom many of you know as the owners of Hill Moving (who’ve always been supporters of Camp Siberia) just returned from a cruise through the Baltic including a stop at St. Petersburg.  As they were waiting on the pier for the return hydrofoil after having visited Peterhoff (the summer palace), a boat was just arriving.  And guess who was disembarking from that boat.  You guessed it!  Janie and our Camp Siberia team.  Small, small world!

They’re about to head home!

Janie called this morning (late Fiday night in Novosibirsk) to report that everyone was safely settled at their host families’, getting a good night’s sleep before heading home tomorrow.  She will try to call again once they’ve taken off from N’birsk, but then we will probably not hear again till they reach Chicago (late Saturday afternoon our time). 
 
Those of you who know Janie know that each year she is absolutely in love with the Counselor team and raves about how they were the best ever!  It seems that this year’s group has lived up to that expectation — and more!  With their second group changing at the last minute, they were called upon to be more flexible and creative than ever.  And apparently they rose to the challenge.  Which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows these fabulous kids!

Expect the Unexpected!

Here’s another message from Janie.  Each year, something new and unexpected happens.  This year it’s a total change of kids!  Read on:

Hi All again,

 I used Cheryl’s email and was able to send a message from the dacha, as Serge, Natasha’s brother was able to magically send the email from camp.  We are back in Novosibirsk after our first session. 

Statue of Lenin in central Novosibirsk, taken 2006

 We had a bus tour of the city, were able to visit the orphanage and will take a large river boat trip down the Ob River to a sand island and the kids will play, have a picinic and rest tomorrow.  Your amazing kids created a magical experience for 18 Russian orphans this past session and are preparing for a big challenge for their next session.  Due to a very complicated problem, the second session orphans are unable to come.  So, your very flexible, understanding and caring kids will work with 12 of the kids from the first session and 6 new that will join us tomorrow when we return to camp in the evening.  We will switch the campers around so they will have new counselors and we will have our next session.  It truly is a challenge for our kids as this group will not be new and they have become attached to their first counselors, but your children are truly amazing and they will and are rising to the occasion as they know that they are here for the orphans.

 

The weather has been crazy!!!!!!  Thunder and lightening every day, rain at least once a day and hot, hot periods, but it has not stopped our fun for a second.  Our first day at the dacha, it rained like I have never seen in my life and the wind blew everything over.  The day before the storm had been so bad that the power went out.  So, this continental weather pattern has been a surprise for us Northwesterners. 

 

Your kids are having a wonderful time together, are working fabulously as a team, supporting each other in their challenges and are just the most delightful group of counselors.  The teachers from the orphanage are truly impressed with their work with the kids and totally amazed at the work they went through to get to camp.  You all have remarkable children and they are a joy to work with.  Think great thoughts for us next week, I know the kids will create magic once again.

 

Hope all is well on Bainbridge.  All our love,  Janie

 

They’re at Camp!

Here we are at Camp. The kids worked all day getting the camp ready for the campers to come tomorrow. We weeded the whole sport court (the size of a basketball court and knee- to hip-high in weeds), unpacked all the materials from our 18 bags, scraped and painted benches, swings, teeter-totters, outhouses and everything we could find that needed refreshening. We finished just as the thunder, lightening and pelting rain arrived. They are extraordinary workers, are exhausted and in the banya as I write. Tomorrow the children come and the real fun begins!!!!!

St. Petersburg was the favorite city and the kids LOVED the Hermitage. We spent 3 extra hours viewing as many exhibits as we could. This group of counselors wins the culture award; they have loved all of the museums and always wanted to stay longer.

Life is wonderful here and will get even better tomorrow. We will let you know how the sessions goes later in the week.

A teacher’s greeting to former students

Greetings, Robin, Annique, Bond, James Bond, Tag, Andy and Grace…as well as the rest of your incredible team!
I just read your blogs and feel overjoyed hearing about your adventures and your meaningful, life-affirming experiences working with those precious children. I await a chance to meet with you upon your return and before my return to Morocco. In the meantime I share with you one of my most treasured Eleanor Roosevelt quotes that seems SO TIMELY!!!
“Until one can see with one’s own eyes, and unless one can feel with one’s own heart, one can never come to understand other people”.
ENJOY! I am SO PROUD OF ALL OF YOU!!! Fondly, A.M.

The kids’ perspective

Here’s a great message from Katie and Tag, two of this year’s Counselors. The group is, as you’ll see, in St. Petersburg and having a great time.

“We arrived by train on friday morning around 6:45 and for most people it was a bit of a rough night but as troopers we packed up quick and took a bus tour from 7-9 in the morning and arrived at our hotel. There was a bit of confusion between what time we actually we were supposed to check in so we dumped our stuff and went out on the town. The day was jam packed with activities. We took a hydrofoil out to Peterhoff, the Tsar’s summer palace, and explored the grounds and the exterior. After that we returned to the mainland, had a little free time and met for a nice dinner in a very quaint little Cafe. St. Petersburg is much more european. It’s a beautiful city with so many things to see. Today we left early early to tour the Hermitage which is a combination of an art museum and the Winter Palace. There is so much to see we all felt deprived even after four hours inside. After lunch we headed to the church on spilled blood which was incredible. The entire inside is made of mosaic tiles and we all were awed by the complexity. We did a little shopping afterwards, all you family members can expect great gifts as well as stories to go along with how we haggled and got the best prices for our items. Following dinner we took a river boat ride and for the first time in 9 years it didn’t rain. The group had a fabulous time waving at the locals and singing all sorts of songs the entire time. Being so far North, St. Petersburg encounters quite a few “white nights,” where it doesn’t ever really get fully dark. Although we are here out of the official season, it is still well within civil twilight at 12 am. Even though we are all exhausted, it feels odd to go to bed when it looks like its 8:30 outside. We are all off to bed here, but tomorrow brings a trip to St. Basil’s and an overnight train ride to Novosibirsk! We are all so very excited!!!”

The Church on Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg

They must be excited: they’re not taking a train all the way to N’birsk, but an overnight flight.

Team Arrives in Moscow

Here’s a message from the 2009 Camp Siberia team after their first couple of days in Moscow. Soon they’ll take the overnight train to St. Petersburd, where they’ll spend a few days before heading to Novosibirsk to create camp — and magic — for their Russian orphans.

“We are having a fabulous time in Moscow!!!!! The flight was great, the flight attendants were so caring and wonderful with our kids and even announced, as the ferry did, that our kids were on board and going to Siberia to create magic. It is one thing for the Bainbridge ferry captain to announce and yet another for the AA flight captain to announce.

The kids are great, doing well coping with 2 showers and 2 toilets for 46 people, loving Russian food, awed by the sights, smells and sounds of this enormous, mysterious city, and bonding beautifully. We have experienced Red Square, toured the Kremlin, relaxed on our river trip through Moscow, walked MANY miles and last night experienced something quite new and so very rewarding and helpful to our kids. We were guest one evening of a friend of one of our Counselor’s mother who works in Moscow as a cross-cultural trainer. We walked to her truly unbelieveable 3-story appartment overlooking the Kremlin and Christ the Savior Church. Our hostess put the kids to work immediately in small groups to create a list of 5 differences they had noticed in Moscow. That was the beginning of one of the most interesting and informative evenings I have spent learning about Russians and their view on life. The kids were engaged, interested and impressive in their observations and interactions; their families should all be proud of their curiosity and intellect. Our hostess contrasted and compared Russian history with that of North America and Western Europe and truly demonstrated reasons for differences. The information was then transfered to institutionalized children, and the outcome was so helpful to our kids.

On our long walk home, the discussion continued and our kids were verbally preparing themselves for their task ahead – our kids at camp.

Today we are off to the Tretykov Gallery of Russian Art; a bus tour of the city; the team’s first attempt at shopping and strolling down Old Arbat Street, a truly enchanting walking street in old Mosow; dinner and then the night train to St. Petersburg! The weather has been perfect, cloudy with sun breaks, but not hot. Today, however, we awakened to rain. I am sure it will stop by the time we finish our tour of the art museum and the rest of the day will be rainless. At least that is my hope.

So all is well and wonderful in Moscow, next installment from St. Petersburg.”