senor

you know the one thing that always makes your first day or so at camp easier? takes away the homesickness? comfort food. but it takes a special kind of person to put so much love and care and joy into every meal so that you always feel at home.

the other  night a very beloved member of our camp family passed away. our old cook jonas. jonas was the man that everyone loved. it was impossible to feel anything less than the greatest affection for him. his joy and passion for not only the food but for those who would be eating it was touching to say the least. jonas has always been a large part of my life even though he was only here for the summer camp season. i remember being younger and popping my head up over the serving counter to be greeted with a great big smile and "heyyy muchachaaaa" (even now i hear the words in my head exactly as he said them. i will never forget how that sounded). he would smile down at me and then vanish for a moment and often returned with a tidbit from the kitchen. then after yet another smile and a wink he would turn back to the work at hand singing to himself " bum ba ba dee do ba ba"

as i grew older i learned to appreciate him more and more, and when i started studying spanish in fifth grade i found a way to connect with "the senor" in one of his own languages. Every summer after that I did my best to converse with him in spanish, which aside from being fun was also what helped me reach the level of fluency I have today. jonas was one of the biggest parts of camp. he wasn't just the cook he was a friend, and a father figure. while sad that I will never see him again I know that wherever he is now, he is cooking up some of the best food ever made and smiling down upon all his muchachos and muchachas, just as his picture smiles down upon the serving counter in the dining hall, a tribute to a man who will always be missed and thought of with great affection.

te extrano senor. siempre estoy su muchacha <3

it's been a while hasn't it??

well. i thought i was gonna be able to actually keep this thing going on a regular basis. i suppose not....
last time i wrote i was telling you about the "wedding campers" and the aftermath of Irene.  since then we've gotten a temporary road ( and i love that thing to pieces let me tell you!) and we're currently working on digging out the brook to have a spot for the new culvert. this means that hopefullywithin a week or so we'll start building our NEW BRIDGE!!!! this one meant to last.
while everything that's happened due to irene has been exciting, i has put a damper on the off season festivities.
a few years ago( 5 i think) we started this thing called the Walk-A-Thon ( iskyla= hike or walk or something like that) to help raise money for camp. It's usually a pretty big even with around 100 people or so who come to spend columbus day weekend in the vermont foliage and see friends and family, all of whom are part of the great big Neringa family. they walk a loop through the town ( unfortunately it's usually in the rain. the weather tends to do this to us) and return to camp later in the afternon. throughout the day we roasta pig in a pit we make in the driveway, and later that night... we feast!! then comes te fun part. the party!!!! live music til 3 in themorning??? oh yes!
the adults all dance through the night while the teens are left to their own devices, and the younger children attempt to get some sleep throughout th noise.
now the older i get the more i enjoy this event. wh,y you may ask? simply because i can stay out later.
one thing that the camp goers never see to realize is that the building where they hold their dances and parties... is about 30 feet from my house. and the band itself is about 40 feet from my bedroom. this, ladies and gentlemen is NOT a pleasant experience when you're so tired you can't move and you just want to curl up and hibernate for a good ten hours. but that's not the point. anyway. that's the basic description of the walk--thon. now this year because we weren't sure whether or not we'd have a sufficient bridge, it was cancled. this bummd a lot of people out. HOWEVER!!!! Neringa people do not give up that easily. so the cool thing to do over columbus day weekend thisyear was a VIRTUAL WALK-A-THON!!!
which personally i thought was a fabulous idea. I didn't have or attend a virtual walk-a-thon, simply because i was here... but some camp people met up in diffferent places and had their own celebrations.
you can't stop the camp spirit!!!!
questions or comments?
feel free!
but please, be nice