It's been a busy week. Last year, Thomas did a couple of soccer camps during the summer, and really enjoyed the one run by English School of Soccer. So when Steve the organiser asked for volunteers to help next year, Linda was only to pleased to offer her services. To cut a very long and tortuous story short, we ended up with Linda doing a whole lot of admin, and hosting Luke, one of the male soccer coaches for the week.
It was a stange experience. We had been led to believe that it would be a cultural exchange, and that the coaches would become part of our family life and shared activities for the week. Instead, inevitably for a group of young teachers who had been working hard for 4 weeks and were looking forward to their last week before going home, we didn't see a lot of them, or Luke. Their mornings were taken with the camp, whilst the afternoons and evenings were filled with trips to New York (twice), Philadelphia and shopping without us. This left us with just the Friday, when we hosted a barbecue for all the coaches and the host families. Hardened old cynics like us can always find loads to bitch and moan about, but it hurts that Thomas was quickly and lastingly disappointed not to be able to share his stuff with our visitor.
Still, Tom had a good time at the camp, picking up on his soccer skills and re-charging his enthusiasm. His biggest disappointment, however was failing to win the weekly quiz about the British Isles, even though he knew all the answers without help from us.
