Courtney in Guadeloupe -- Week 1

Courtney called on our drive home from Pagosa. Yay! Perfect timing since we were in the car altogether so she could talk to everyone!

Here's her report:
There are 17 girls and 7 boys. Everyone is so nice and they're having a lot of fun.  The counselors are great too. 

All the girls sleep together in one room "Madeline-Style" (...live 12 little girls in two straight lines...). BUT it's so hot and humid at night she can't sleep. (Growing up in a home without air conditioning, I have a lot of experience with trying to cool off at night. I told her to try laying a wet towel over her at night.  ...Those miserable hot nights I had growing up might have been for something if my daughter can benefit from my experience!!!)

The shower room is communal so it makes her nervous when the shower curtain doesn't hang correctly.  Everyone else thinks it's funny that it makes her so nervous!!  They get a shower every other day and she was thrilled that she got to shower that day.

She was also excited that she got to choose 10 items of clothing to be washed the next day.  But they wash their undies and socks daily in a bucket.

They are building a small gazebo covering a picnic table which has been hard, tedious work.  She's sawing metal.  The drinking water is also warm, not cold. (Interesting she'd comment on this because when she was in 3rd grade and we moved to Utah from California, her one complaint about her new school was that the drinking fountains didn't have cold water!!  Clearly cold water is important to Courtney!  She takes after her Dad!)

At lunch time they have a rule that they only speak French to each other.  She listens but she doesn't have much to say because she can't think of how to say it yet.  However, in just the few days that she's been there she's noticed she's already understanding more!

She was on her friend's phone card because she hadn't had time to buy one yet so she could only talk for 5 minutes, but she wanted to say hi to each of the boys after we talked.


So good to hear from our Courtney! As much as we agree with the policy of not calling home every day, we keep checking e-mail and voicemail to see if today is the day we get to talk to her!!  Can't wait to hear from her again!  Love that girl!

By the way, we also got her AP scores while she was gone... 5 on Calculus BC and 5 on Physics. Pretty Amazing!!