Shooting Stars and S'mores

Katie D.

August 12, 2009 - 11:30 AM

This week the Earth makes annual passage through the Perseids cluster of asteroids, which means that we have a spectacular meteor shower. The show runs from July 17th to August 24th, but peaks tonight, on August 12th. So it's not too late for you to catch some celestial fireworks. Head out of town and turn off the lights: it's quite the show.

I marked this special occasion by working with the American English Institute. I met up with four other Activities Coordinators, bought some s'mores fixings, found some blankets, and packed up our big vans with forty students from South Korea and Japan to go see the shooting stars. We headed out to Dexter Lake, which is far enough from the city to allow for unpolluted stargazing.

Since most of the students were from big cities, some of them had never seen the stars clearly. Imagine seeing the stars for the first time! We spread out the blankets in a big field next to the lake, and watched the show.

The night sky itself would have been worth the trip. It was completely beautiful, with an arm of the Milky Way clearly outlined against the other stars. But then there would be a streak of light and the whole group would "ooo" and "ahh."

Sometimes the shooting stars were small, just little streaks. But every five minutes or so, there would be a giant one, that went almost from horizon to horizon and had a long storybook style tail behind it.

After twenty minutes, though, the clouds rolled in. So we trooped down to the fire pit by the lake and watched the moon rise as the fire got going. Then we instructed the Korean and Japanese students in the fine art of s'mores construction. (Tip for anyone who travels or hosts foreign travelers: s'mores are a universal hit) We really hammed it up, too. We did demos. We critiqued each other's roasting techniques. We got marshmallow goo all over our fingers and faces.

Once the excitement over the s'mores had died down and we were all reaching the peak of our collective sugar high, we divided up into teams and shared some classic American camping games. We played Red Rover, Red Rover for about an hour. It was so fun, complete with "War Cry" competitions. The overwhelming majority of participants were 5'0" young women, all giggles and fake fear. But they got into the game. We developed team pride and worked on the war cries. We all clapped for each other. And we broke the eventual tie by playing a huge game of "Telephone" (passing a sentence down the line) and had a big laugh about the results. A few hearty souls still had energy for another funny American game so we played Duck, Duck, Goose.

Then we wandered off for a while, to see the lake or stand by the fire. I went back to the blankets, snuggled up, and watched the night. The moon was up and was exceptionally beautiful. The stars were amazing. And every now and then another shooting star would flash by.

What a perfect night.