Prologue

"To have another language is to possess a second soul."

-Charlemagne

This summer will be markedly different from the twenty-two other summers I have seen.  I will be volunteering in Eastern Europe with Learning Enterprises as an English teacher.  I haven't yet received my placement information, but I'll likely be staying with host families in both Croatia and Romania.  There is a possibility that I'll be placed at a summer camp in Croatia or an orphanage in Romania, but that remains to be seen.

I love working with children.  I'm the third of six siblings and the eldest girl, so I grew up in the kind of chaotic beauty unique to children and their many kinds of messes.   In college I had less opportunities to regularly interact with kids, but I've worked as a PCA, babysitter, and nanny since high school, usually during the summer.

Teaching English to children with no prior knowledge of the language will certainly stretch me, I think.  I do, however, speak a little Croatian; I specifically selected LE's Croatia/Romania program because I've been learning more about my Croatian heritage and am anxious to experience Balkan life myself.  (And my own language skills will improve as a result).