Finally a camper that I have lots of stories about. Sandra Benninger, from Canada. She and I continued to the same family after the camp was over so we got to know each other very well.
We have keep sporatic contact over the years. I love to hear from her. She is married to her High School sweetheart and has 2 beautiful children. She is a teacher and is training for a principal position. I am sure she will get it. I remember the first day I met Sandy. A group was talking and I joined them. I noticed right away that she spoke English more like me, so I asked what part of the US she was from. Bad move! She is from Canada and very proud of it. When we were with the family, whenever she said that she was from Canada, someone would always say "Isn't that part of the USA?" She would get so angry. I thought it was funny but she did not. "We have our own country, our own flag, our own talent." She was a good representative for Canada. She had little Canadian flag pins that she gave people. I have one. She also had stickers from Ontario, the Canadian province that she is from. Bryan Adams had a hit song then and they played it a lot on the radio. She always pointed out that he was Canadian.
When Sandy and I lived with the Passotti family at their house on Lago di Garda, we had a lot of fun. We shared a room and the first night, we were so tired that we slept until 3 in the afternoon the next day. The mom, Francesca, was so worried that we were ill or something. We had not slept much at the camp the last few nights so we were dead tired.
We would go exploring around the town of Toscalano/Maderno but we did not know how to get the gate open to the house, so we climbed it. Sandy got a nasty cut on her leg. She was always getting scratched or cut. She said that she can never forget Italy, she has all the scars to remind her.
Once we did not tell the family and we got on a bus to Salo. We wanted to go shopping. We had no idea what we were doing. We somehow got tickets to the bus and got on one. Then we didn't know how to make the bus stop where we wanted. We couldn't find a bell or buzzer anywhere. So we just got up and walked to the door when we wanted to get off. Funny. The Passotti family was very nice, it is just that they wanted to relax and lay by the pool and we only had 2 more weeks in Italy and wanted to explore, so we all did our thing and were happy. Here are some pictures of her.
There is one already of Sandy on the post of Peter Mitterhofer below. She is in the print shirt getting out of the bus. Here are some from our stay with the Passotti family. The daughter's name was Maria Vittoria Passotti and all of her female friends were away on holidays so she introduced us to all her male friends. The one pictured here was named Tarcizo. Please post your comments about Sandy. Sam, if you read this, love ya!
1 comment:
Hi Everyone:
It has been great reflecting on our times in Italy. We were so young. I can hardly believe it is 20 years since we spent that summer in beautiful Italy together. I continue my teaching career. I am about to start year 10 of a full time job.
I teach 1 section (class) of both the Community Living (CL) class and the ACTIVE class at one of the high schools. CL is the group of students functioning at a JK/SK level with either physical disabilities and / or cognitive delays. Kids with this profile can remain in high school until they are 21. In our room in the fall we will have 12 students ranging in age from 14 (gr. 9) to 19 (gr. 12+). There are a few in wheelchairs (MS, CP etc.) and a few with Down Syndrome. There is a large range in terms of needs and abilities. This past year there were 6 girls and 1 boy. We are intaking 5 new students in the fall (3 boys, 2 girls). We teach them life skills - hygiene essentials, money management, street safety, cooking and those sorts of things. Many things that would take you or I 10 minutes takes them significantly longer if they are able to do it at all. They are a joy. We celebrate small steps like when one can tell us their phone number. This will be quite a chore for most of them. In September it becomes harder. Because the phone company is running out of numbers we now have to start dialing the area code as well as the 7 digit number. From June until now, if you don't, it gives us a recording and then puts the call through. In September, they won't put calls through. So, a phone number of 658-1234 now has to be 519-658-1234 or it won't go through. This will be hard for our kids to adjust to.
ACTIVE is kids working at about a grade 4 or 5 level. They are high school age but significantly delayed in terms of cognitive ability. I have CL class period 2, period 2 is Program Support (PS), period 3 is ACTIVE and period 4 is my planning time. PS is me monitoring a room where kids come from their classes for extra help and the opportunity to use the technology. It can be quiet and it can be very busy. It all depends on the day. I have no planning to do since the kids come from their scheduled class and are ultimately the teacher's responsibility.
I have 2 kids boy aged 6 and a girl aged 4. My husband travels alot so I fill my evenings after work with special kid time. After they go to bed, I head to my sewing room. I make many of the clothes my kids wear (pjs, shorts, dresses, pants, blouses and button front shirts for my son), make for gifts when they go to birthday parties, make Christmas and birthday gifts (table cloths and table runners, dresser scarves) and have just nicely began to make a few things for myself. It helps the time pass.
I hope this finds you all well. Take care.
Sandra from Canada
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