Colonies

Children’s holidays

Photo by Josh Mills on Unsplash

As a schoolchild, I had more than two months of holidays, but my parents had to work. So, I spent about one month at my grandmother’s home in her village and two weeks in a colony at the seaside, which I loved overall. Not because of the sea itself, although I loved swimming. More than that, I was happy to spend time with a large group of children, meet new friends, and have adventures.

The exciting experience began while driving there by bus. Upon arrival, we were divided into groups sharing the same room. I remember specifically the summer when I was seven years old. I was assigned to a mixed group of boys and girls; we were called fireflies and were the youngest on the site. I did not know anybody because I had joined the summer school of another school in my hometown. It was because my grandma was the school director of that school.

A boy named Peter brought a big thick book of local fairy tales, and we read a story every evening before sleep. Initially, our childminder read it for us, but later, we read it ourselves.

We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner at long tables in the garden. I loved being part of this enormous crowd of children. We went to the beach twice a day to swim, and in the evenings, we played in the garden. We mostly played different social games, and I loved joining the bigger girls and boys who were already…