By Mia Mapa, Greenheart J-1 Intern
You only live once! I chose this kind of cultural exchange because it helps me treasure all the memories we’ve had to make our life happy and beautiful. Camping is an outdoor activity. You cannot predict what will happen to you in a particular place. So we are all getting ready for the opening in 2 weeks for Summer, but Frank went to our house and surprised us by saying that we will go camping tomorrow. We are all excited, we can’t even sleep for tomorrow’s camping. So early morning we drove all the way to Yakima. This place is really, really far but this place is really beautiful like me.
As soon as we arrive at Yakima, we buy some stuff like a tent, sleeping bag, food, drinks and etc. Living in this chaotic world was really awesome. Being with my Crystal Mountain family was really cool and enjoyable. As time goes by, being with my co-interns was good but sometimes challenging. You can learn new and different things because of them. But in this moment, specifically in the camp, I was really amazed being with them in an interesting place of very good ambiance. In fact there’s no signal in that particular place, but I didn’t even care. I didn’t expect that having no cellphone in that place was really good and that you can enjoy that place. We concentrate in the activities, but of course we can only use cellphone for taking pictures and memories together.
Being in the camp you will experience different things every night. You can share different stories, you can make s’mores, eat together as a family, go swimming in the river, go hiking and rafting. These are all the activities we had done. And we really enjoyed it. For me this is the only thing I can connect myself to the environment. That’s why camping for me is the best. FAMILIES THAT CAMP TOGETHER STAYS TOGETHER.
Sound like your kind of adventure? Learn more about the J-1 Intern and Trainee program!