This past week, I had the distinct honor and pleasure of escorting 23 middle schoolers and 12 high schoolers into the Venezuelan outback for a three day team-building/adventure camp experience. I mean, why wouldn't I want to venture into the wilderness with 23 twelve-year-olds? The comfort of my apartment was getting boring, and besides, I wanted to further study the seemingly limitless traffic that pervades every major road in this god-forsaken country. And study I did, for the five and half hours it took us to travel what should be a two and half hour drive out of Caracas towards Valencia, where we took a (traffic-filled) minor highway south to Camp Lagunazo. After five and half hours of dealing with pubescent squeals and incessant tattling (I still don't know how Santiago's pillow got covered in red lipstick....), I was really ready to get off of the bus. We arrived at the camp, which featured a main hacienda, lake, horse stable, and a variety of other activity structures like a dining hall, batting cage and rock climbing wall, and thankfully were taken straight to the aforementioned dining hall. The food was great, and took the edge off after our long bus ride. Like most of the places in this country, our beverage at lunch was a delicious fruit juice. Every meal in this country you are given an option to have a mouthwatering juice, like watermelon, passion fruit, strawberry etc. It's still a highlight of all my meals!
The kids went immediately to activities after lunch and unpacking. I unpacked my things in a room I was sharing with Walli and Mariaelena in the main hacienda, which included its own bathroom and AIR CONDITIONING. Roughing it in Venezuela is kind of the shit. We then split into groups with the kids and started our activity circuit with horseback riding! After a very brief and nonchalant demonstration on How to Ride a Horse, we were off, and before too long my horse was in a full canter and I was really cursing the brief, insufficient instructions we were given on how to make the damn thing stop. Thankfully, my horse was also quite hungry, and therefore punctuated it's overzealous cantering with full stops to eat grass. Next we moved to the rock climbing wall, which the kids were remarkably adept at, and finished off the evening with dinner and desperately trying to get the boys cabin to calm down for a 10:30 lights out.
The next day, we were off to water sports! I got some great pictures of the kids walking a tight rope over the lake and I got to tool around in a kayak. After lunch, we got to zip line into the lake! Talk about cool. This was WAY cooler than my camp experiences, mainly because it didn't seem like the counselors at this camp were too terribly concerned about safety. At least the counselors required the kids to wear life jackets when they were ordered to swim across the lake, but the counselors didn't actually ask the kids if they all could swim.....no one died, so I decided to just go with it. While the kids did their activities, Walli, Gordon, Mariaelena and I got to hang out and chat or play Frisbee or read- it was actually quite nice to relax and spend time together and just be outside. I made the rookie mistake of taking a break in the cabin the last evening we were there and the next thing I knew, it was 2am! I had passed out at 9pm and God Bless Mariaelena and Walli- they let me sleep. Too much Venezuelan sun! Totally wiped me out.
On this trip I also learned that I had missed a VERY important and pertinent memo about living in a 3rd world Latin American country. Half way through the second afternoon, I really had to use the bathroom, but not wanting to ruin our room's ambiance, I decided to sneak into Gordon's cabin and use his bathroom. Moments later, I realized that I had managed to clog his toilet! I began the desperate search for a plunger, eventually swallowing my pride and soliciting Mariaelena's help in finding one, as I did NOT want to face the wrath of Gordon when he got wind of my stealth bathroom activities. Mariaelena eventually came in to investigate and immediately ascertained the problem. "Tracey", she said in astonishment. "of course it's clogged, you threw the toilet paper in the toilet."
I was puzzled. Of course I threw the toilet paper in the toilet! It's toilet paper for heaven's sake! Poor Mariaelena, if she didn't think I was gringa before, my true gringa colors were on full display. She explained that south of basically Mexico, the plumbing systems can't handle toilet paper in the systems, so people throw their paper in the trashcan.
WHAT?!?! I was horrified, both in the practice and in the fact that I had missed this VERY important memo for two months. I asked her, shocked, if I was supposed to do this at home and school as well, fully thinking that this practice was only in the campo and certainly not done in the city. But no, Mariaelena insisted that it should be done everywhere in the country. At that point, I was certain that I had ruined my apartment's plumbing. I needed validation of her opinion, which Walli and Gordon confirmed, so wanting further confirmation, I texted Jackie and Ivan, who both also confirmed the unfortunate truth: toilet paper belongs in the trash can. Indeed, toilet paper is not for toilets. And I have probably singlehandedly ruined the plumbing in half my apartment building, the school and at least five dining establishments. This was a lot of guilt to deal with mid-camping trip. But I had to push through. I also had to push through the fishing out of toilet paper from Gordon's toilet, which was pretty terrible to say the least.
We returned to Caracas Friday evening and the trip again took five and a half hours, but at least the kids were less rambunctious on the way back. I got a good nights sleep Friday and on Saturday Gordon, Walli, Jason, Catherine, Jackie and I hosted the Hash! It was the 740th Caracas Hash and we called it Hash CIC- Chaos in Caracas! A good time was had by all, good Curry was provided by Santi and lots of beer was provided by Andre. We even had a few Marines and the Jamaican ambassador show up! By today, I was pretty pooped from all the activity, so Jackie, Colleen and I went over to Mirage to hang out with Elsy and Holly by their pool, since our pool has turned a rather unappealing shade of green over the last week or so. We capped off the weekend with a walk down to Las Colinas to our favorite burger joint. I still haven't found anything better to stave off a hangover than a cheeseburger. And now I know how to properly handle my cheeseburgers later on too, thanks to my new found toilet paper knowledge. What more could I need? :)
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