Friday, 22 July 2016

The life of a Mountain Camp Counselor



English student Molly has recently returned from working as a Mountain Camp Counselor in Italy, as part of TTPL’s global programmes. Here’s Molly’s story on her time in the mountains of Bardonecchia:

We had the best time in Bardonecchia, it's been an amazing experience. The internship was completely different to what I expected us as camp counselors were involved with everything. We went horseback riding, mountain biking, hiking and those were just the main activities.
Every day was different and we bonded more and more with the children as the days went by. Being there for the children was very rewarding, we had to help them through missing their parents to cuts and scrapes. It was quite stressful at times, trying to organise children that were excited and hyper and get them participating in activities but luckily all the camp counselors worked well together.

We each had our strengths. Mine was definitely getting the children's attention, I didn't know I could shout that loud! The camp itself was in a perfect location, stunning landscape and lots of nearby walks and activity centres. 

The Olympic village where we stayed was very well organised and the rooms were much better than I expected, we had a balcony with views of the mountains. There was a bar downstairs which is where we went for our coffee pick me ups and to use wifi as we didn't have it in our rooms. That didn't matter as much as I thought though because you didn't really have time to browse through social media we were too busy entertaining the children.

The food provided was great although pasta got a bit repetitive, luckily it's a thing in Italy apparently to have pasta as first course and then a second course of some sort of meat and veg which allowed us to try other things. Over all the experience was fantastic although slightly exhausting. I would definitely consider doing it again but maybe at a different camp.

TTPL offer a range of teaching programmes in Italy, click here for more information 

No comments:

Post a Comment