The World According to Youth Activities

The World According to Youth Activities

One very big thing that you will notice when you are working on board is the multitude of nationalities you will not only be working with on a daily basis-  but also learning to live with! I never knew I would ever make so many friends from so many countries. I ended up learning SO much from them and realized that I was more than a little ignorant about their cultures as well! (Yikes!)

What you might notice after a while though, is that certain jobs on the ship tend to  correlate with certain nationalities. Yes, I know what this sounds like, but this really seems to be the case. I don't know if it's any kind of specific racial selection, maybe it just turns out that people from certain countries just tend to choose certain jobs in general. Or what I've also heard... Disney only hires from certain countries for certain jobs. 

For example: Most of the Disney mainstage performers and characters tend to be American. Most of the workers swabbing the decks and engine rooms come from the Philippines. Many of our Dining room servers came from Europe or Latin America. A lot of the Galley cooks were Indonesian and Indian. Chinese people did all our ship laundry. A lot of those hunky gorgeous lifeguards were South African or Australian.

All of these of course have many exceptions in their department...but is it just a really odd coincidence?

In Youth Activities...we have a similar situation:

Of all the Counselors I have ever worked with, they tended to always come from the same bunch of countries: Brazil, United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Mexico, and South Africa. It kinda makes sense because a lot of these are large countries with a lot of English speakers...but so are many other countries around the world! 

When I first started, this is what the Youth Activities staff makeup was by nation:

22 - British (English/Scots/Welsh)

13- American

8 - Brazilian

6 - Mexican

5 - Canadian

4 - South African

3 - Australian

5 - (Other countries)

In terms of Management, this was usually made up of Americans, Canadians and the occasional Brit.

After a while, you start to learn a lot about your extended international family, especially a lot of their national quirks :

English people were very quick to point out spelling differences and use different terminology: "bin", "queue", "trainers". Also much more likely to complain about the food we were eating and disappear to have "a cheeky fag" (smoke!).

Scottish counselors had big accents and bigger personalities. Often exceptionally passionate people if you could understand them when they didn't slow down!

Americans usually seemed to be easygoing and turn into Managers after a while. Also more likely to be the Ent Hosts (Youth Activities Entertainment Host/ess) running the programs. Also the subject of a lot of American jokes everyone else liked to throw around.

Brazilians were friendly and fiercely proud of their country and would bond together to show it. Would make sure they pointed out that in Brazil they spoke Portuguese, not Spanish (even though they probably could if they really wanted to). Liked to complain about the food in the Crew Mess whenever it was too spicy.

Mexicans were the nice people you would go to if you actually needed to find a Spanish speaker, and were often all females who were friends with everybody on board. Also the girls in the department who always  seemed to have a lot of luck with romance on board!

Canadians sometimes actually did talk funny with the way they pronounced "sorry". Liked to talk about snow and take pictures of sunny weather to show their families. Always made sure that you knew the difference between themselves and Americans. Also probably speak French, so make sure you know where they are in case a French-speaking child comes up!

South Africans had very different accents but were usually very fun and all the other South Africans on board seemed to know each other from home somehow. Always surprised you when they suddenly spoke Afrikaans and are handy with introducing you to the fit South Africans working on Castaway Cay.

Australians could always be heard from across the room with their distinct voices. Unsurprisingly the life of the party, there would always be one that brings the Vegemite and educates the rest of the staff.

(The other countries kind of fell inbetween, and no one really knew how they ended up getting a job in the department!)

That just warms the heart doesn't it?