All About Campamentos

So what have we been so busy doing that we haven’t posted a blog for ages? Look below, now suddenly there are two new ones! Well, the last month plus a bit has it has been all about “campamentos”. Even those without any Spanish can probably guess that I mean camps, as in kids, councilors, talks, hikes, dances, ect… A small NGO, Global Mission Development, offered funding for several camps on a variety of topics. A group of us volunteers up here in the La Palma area decided to apply for the funds to give a camp called, Thinking Outside the Box. The short of it is we were funded, and had to actually put the camp together.

As we were preparing that camp, another group of our friends across the way in Morazán decided they wanted some help with their camp and asked me to give a charla on compost and worms. I accepted, glad for the chance to get to head over and see another part of the country.

As the logistics became more finalized we realized that for our camp we would need more teachers than just the four of us, so we started asking for other help as well. We wanted a higher teacher to student ratio, so Katie and I lowered our number of students we would bring to just eight, the other two volunteers bringing kids would still bring five each, for a total of 18 kids invited.

The camp was held over at Lago de Coatepeque near Santa Ana. It is a beautiful caldera lake, like Crater Lake up in Oregon. One of the cool things about having it at a location farther away is that none of the kids, and almost none of their parents had ever been there. Just that alone was very exciting for all of them. It is nice to be able to help them know a little bit more about their own country.

One thing that didn’t hit me until we were leaving (very early in the morning, 5:20am) was how much trust the community members had in us now…letting us take off with seven of their kids, transporting them across the country and watching over them for three whole days. These were adolescents…I don’t know if that made it easier…or riskier! Still all of the parent we had to have long talks with, assuring them that we would take good care of their kids. We also had to agree that they couldn’t go swimming. In the end, they all had our phone numbers, and it is a measure of their concern that every one of them called me that very first evening to confirm that everything was ok, and that their kid was behaving. Cool stuff.

The camp was all about how to think differently. It had three focus areas, creativity, analysis, and logic. The charlas we gave were tough, both for us and the kids. We were introducing topics that they had never thought about, and that were pretty foreign to them, for us, it was having to use vocabulary that we never use to explain all of these new concepts. We were both taxed! It was very satisfying as the kids started to come around, and really get into all of the activities. Katie and I also had the extra enjoyment, watching our kids who are very shy and reserved, mix with the other kids and slowly come out and participate more and more actively! Some of them did some really amazing things given where they started from.
So far, I think that this activity has been one of the most fulfilling thing we have done as volunteers down here. Lots of work, exhausted at the end. But on the way home, every one of the kids asked when we were going to have another one…and that felt good! Katie and I even discussed how it would be fun thing to once a year, to come back down to our community and work with whomever the current volunteer is to just run a camp! Cheers!