Camp spotlight: Russian Language & Culture camp
- Hai Anh Vu
- Aug 17, 2024
- 2 min read
South Whidbey used to be full of cultural activities. Let's revive them!
Once upon a time, South Whidbey used to have more cultural activities. Language classes, language clubs, fire chats, summer cultural camps, exchange students, cultural days, tea ceremonies… covering from China, Japan, to Russian and France and Argentina. These were all organized by the Northwest Language & Cultural Center (NWLCC) – especially thanks to the work of the late founder Josette Hendrix, her Program Manager Maria Ellis, and a network of teachers and volunteers that together built a micro international community on Whidbey.
I was only here at the tail of this period as we moved here in 2020 when the pandemic was at its peak and NWLCC’s activities were largely reduced. However, I have heard enough of locals talking about these cultural events with fond memories, seen enough of their huge photo archives, and be involved enough in the organizing of their last camp and language clubs, to understand their indelible legacy – and to realize what a loss it was for the community when Josette pass away and NWLCC was subsequently dissolved.
WILASC was founded, in part, with the inspiration to continue NWLCC’s mission to bring more global cultures to the island. Last year, we started with a Chinese and a Spanish camp to great success (many said they considered them their best camps of the summer!) This year, we are fortunate to have Maria Ellis offering to hold a Russian camp for our kids to continue to this tradition.
Maria wants to bring back some of the beautiful activities that she and NWLCC had back in the days to impart the love of her culture: teaching Cyrillic writing, cooking Russian foods, playing Russian games, and even Zoom exchanges with friends in Russia! (how cool would that be for our children to converse with children in Russia real-time, maybe catch a glimpse of where they live or go to school, in such a far-far away place???)
You might wonder why Russia now, amidst the current political climate that make the country unfavorable to many. However, it would have been unfortunate if we reject learning about a culture because we don’t like its politics, or to limit our understanding to a few stereotypes that we see in the news. (I should know – for decades the only words that came to Americans’ minds about Vietnam were “war” and “communist”- which was such an unfortunate reduction of a country with abundance of history, culture, and delicious food!)
It is our hope that such camps and exchanges would help our children strengthen their capacity to understand and appreciate cultures and people in different places. We can’t wait to take them on an adventure to learn about and celebrate the rich Russian culture, with its beautiful legacies expressed in vibrant stories, beautiful crafts, and delicious foods.
We are welcoming more students to join this Russian culture with us, so please sign up and tell your friends. Thank you for supporting our mission to building more cultural diversity on Whidbey.
Hai Anh
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