first day at gavroche
we've spent three lovely days slacking in varna. on friday when we arrived we were ushered around and generally just tried to get to know the place better. saturday, we woke up at 130pm (i was so upset! i planned to sleep till 3pm! but the sun was wayyy too bright and it was too hot. something like 30 degrees celsius. at least i know i will survive when i come home) and went out for lunch and grocery shopping again. visited the cathedrals - first time i've been in one for ages, witnessed a funeral and a wedding! (not concurrently, but in separate cathedrals on separate days). sunday was spent lazing in the reeeealllyyy scorching hot beach in varna, the water felt positively icy.
point is, we had a lot to do for the past 3 days yes? including watching just about all the world cup matches that are on (i'm still upset that netherlands is out, but what a match. and what a card-happy referee). and so we weren't expecting to be too much taxed when we starting working with the children at gavroche centre today. after all, it was 4 hours, we all thought, so how bad can it be?
how wrong can one get??
within the first 10 minutes of stepping into the centre, we were playing basketball with the kids, afer a futile attempt to try and organise them into some semblance of teams, but not knowing any bulgarian and not being well versed in the universal language called miming, we couldn't do it. so it was this whole flock of children running here and there and everywhere, and looking and pleading at you with their big brown eyes when you got the ball so you would pass it to them.
well and good, basketball is something i can handle. within the next half hour however, we were dancing to dont cha and 50 cent. these kids, mind u, are so unbelievably well versed in their english pop and club music, and they are so GOOD at dancing. and these are like, 5-15 year olds? the older ones won't even dancing! much pointers to pick up from them there.
20 minutes of dancing later, they decided to arm wrestle!! yayyyyyy!!! -dances around in happy glee because i am not tired yet!- so arm wrestle with everyone about twice, and being nice we let them all, even the small six-year old very skinny girl, win. so after they've realised what wimps we are (some guys thought it was funny to poke my biceps while i was arm wrestling someone), they decided it was time to play fun games like clapping your hands together, something like ping pong that we played when we were young.
abotu 20 minutes of that, maybe less? that's when things really started to get crazy cuz we really had no idea what else to do with the kids! and it was only an hour into the first four hour session we would have with them. it was honestly tiring, and kids have sooo much energy!
and the kids here are so mature. one of them owns a handphone, and his friend were showing us some pictures in his phone. it was porn. we nearly died. this guy is fifteen.
sheryl came back from the kitchen and said there's a bottle of jim beam in the fridge! the friend of the guy who owns the handphone, this guy is sixteen, goes, 'jim beam!!!' and visibly brightens up. the universal language of alcohol, when even miming fails.
if my entru is staccato and long, imagine how painful the four hours was. it was lovely, believe me, but excruciatingly slow when you had no idea how to entertain the handful of joy that was each kid. (i used handful for a reason, think about it.)
i need to go now, and as they say here, "ciao!"
point is, we had a lot to do for the past 3 days yes? including watching just about all the world cup matches that are on (i'm still upset that netherlands is out, but what a match. and what a card-happy referee). and so we weren't expecting to be too much taxed when we starting working with the children at gavroche centre today. after all, it was 4 hours, we all thought, so how bad can it be?
how wrong can one get??
within the first 10 minutes of stepping into the centre, we were playing basketball with the kids, afer a futile attempt to try and organise them into some semblance of teams, but not knowing any bulgarian and not being well versed in the universal language called miming, we couldn't do it. so it was this whole flock of children running here and there and everywhere, and looking and pleading at you with their big brown eyes when you got the ball so you would pass it to them.
well and good, basketball is something i can handle. within the next half hour however, we were dancing to dont cha and 50 cent. these kids, mind u, are so unbelievably well versed in their english pop and club music, and they are so GOOD at dancing. and these are like, 5-15 year olds? the older ones won't even dancing! much pointers to pick up from them there.
20 minutes of dancing later, they decided to arm wrestle!! yayyyyyy!!! -dances around in happy glee because i am not tired yet!- so arm wrestle with everyone about twice, and being nice we let them all, even the small six-year old very skinny girl, win. so after they've realised what wimps we are (some guys thought it was funny to poke my biceps while i was arm wrestling someone), they decided it was time to play fun games like clapping your hands together, something like ping pong that we played when we were young.
abotu 20 minutes of that, maybe less? that's when things really started to get crazy cuz we really had no idea what else to do with the kids! and it was only an hour into the first four hour session we would have with them. it was honestly tiring, and kids have sooo much energy!
and the kids here are so mature. one of them owns a handphone, and his friend were showing us some pictures in his phone. it was porn. we nearly died. this guy is fifteen.
sheryl came back from the kitchen and said there's a bottle of jim beam in the fridge! the friend of the guy who owns the handphone, this guy is sixteen, goes, 'jim beam!!!' and visibly brightens up. the universal language of alcohol, when even miming fails.
if my entru is staccato and long, imagine how painful the four hours was. it was lovely, believe me, but excruciatingly slow when you had no idea how to entertain the handful of joy that was each kid. (i used handful for a reason, think about it.)
i need to go now, and as they say here, "ciao!"
posted by colours at
10:06 PM
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