i fratelli del mondo.

afs family: end camp 2011.

at the beginning of june i headed to castelnuovo nigra (near ivrea) for the end-of-the-year camp. 68 exchange students from Valle d'Aosta (haha, it was just Maria and me from VdA), Liguria and Piedmonte went to the camp, which lasted about four days. i met tons of new people, something i always love about AFS events, and made some stronger connections with people i didn't know very well. we were all staying in this old convent, and i shared a room with Gina, a year-student from Ecuador. we divided up into sub-groups and talked about how our exchange was, ups and downs, blah blah blah. if it weren't for my fellow exchangers, the whole trip would have been super boring. this whole orientation was pretty emotional for everyone, since people started realizing that we only have a month left until we leave. what really hit me what how much i am going to miss everyone in AFS. i've said it before, but i will say it again: AFS kids are your family. you learn, grow, change together. you help each other and become like brothers and sisters. what is amazing to me is how easy it is. i met Matias, another semester kid from Argentina at Rome orientation but only actually started talking to him at the camp, and within a day we were acting like we'd known each other forever. it's like that with everyone ... we have so much to discuss and connect about, it is a challenge not to end up like a family. before i came on this trip, the friend i had that lived furthest away from me was in virginia. and now i have brothers and sisters from istanbul to australia, from chile to iceland. it's strange to me that i might never see any of them again -- it's a hard thing to deal with. we may look completely different and speak more than ten different languages in between us, we may pray to different versions of God and live in completely different cultures, but we are a family. we are brothers and sisters of the world, and this is such a beautiful thing. it's one of the things i am most grateful for from AFS.

anyways, the second night we had like a disco/dance thing that lasted until 2 o'clock in the morning when all the volunteers came to yell at us. only AFSers would party in a convent. it was actually really cool though, to see how everyone from different countries danced. the latina in me kicked in and i started flailing my hips about like i was shakira. i was convinced i looked completely stupid, but i guess i didn't because people were cheering me on and i recieved several notes about my kick ass dance moves. haha, and someone didn't believe i was american. because americans usually can't move their hips like that, i guess. hmmm, what else? the food sucked a little so my friends and i ate a whole jar of nutella in two days. it's italy. oh, and this camp was so insane that i lost my voice a little, which i guess is kind of hardcore. or not. probably not. there was also a talent show in which i preformed the "napolean dynamite" dance with two other american friends. we're just cool like that i guess. oh! i was complemented by tons of people on my italian, anda lot of people thought i was there for the year program because my italian was so good. and apparently i have completely dropped my english accent when i talk, so that is cool. at the end, when everyone left, tons of people were crying, because the next time we'll see everyone is when we are all in rome, going home. i have a feeling that rome is going to be one tearful, sleepless adventure of it's own, but we'll cross that aqueduct when we come to it.

for now, summer is fast approaching as school ends in two days (thank god!), and with it comes the arrival of my best friend from boise (silent freakout here), and the arrival of my host brother from his year abroad in South Dakota.