Celebrating the Fourth of July in Poland

As you well know, this year the holiday was on a Sunday. On Saturday and Sunday during a Global Volunteers program, those are weekend days for everyone, including our students. They climbed a mountain that day! We used the 5th of July to explain and celebrate the Fourth of July. I did the "history lesson" and explained while the holiday is celebrated everywhere, each place and perhaps each family does it a bit differently. I did this because 5 of us on this team are from Minnesota, and there is only so much to say and only so much about Minnesota that can be interesting to the students.

Each volunteer gave a short presentation that had something to do with American culture or history. One told how the Iceland volcanoes in the 1870s led his family to immigrate to North America. Another explained how his family re-connected recently with relatives remaining in Slovenia. Another high school student told about the Minnesota State Fair. There were ten presentations altogether and the students today told me they really enjoyed them. I found these are the best I've ever heard during my experience now in 12+ language camps.

The day had started out rainy, but it seemed like the rain had stopped at around 10 AM, so we all walked down the road to a school and used the athletic field there for a kickball game. We had only been there about 30 minutes when we had to call a "rain delay."

We came back to the hotel for a fine lunch and then afterwards had banana splits. These were such a hit that I may suggest we do this again next year. -- See I already have a plan!!!

In the evening one of the volunteers led games played at his family reunion. These included water balloon toss, a ping-pong ball race, and an egg toss which went on forever. Who thought eggs could actually survive all those bounces!?!

The evening closed with a bonfire -- the traditional Polish activities plus making S'mores. I always get amused by American volunteers who think they have to teach Polish kids how to safely roast kielbasa. They fail to know that Polish kids have been doing this since  before they were old enough to even walk.

There is a blog about our work here too on the Global Volunteers site. Go to http://www.globalvolunteers.org/ and when there click on the link to "our blog" and then choose Poland. Happy reading.