Kamp GLOW: Banks = Success! :)

Many of you who read this blog are friends of mine from various camps in Michigan. Therefore, many of you who read this blog know that the following is true: Every good camp starts with catastrophe.

The biggest issue for me going into camp was the complete lack of support. The first issue is being up in the Banks. No other PCV whose schedule was free would put the money down to come help me. It was really pretty disappointing – I guess I sort of lost faith in humanity for a while… but at the same time, I understand. From Santo to Sola is about US$200 round trip, plus whatever it would cost them to get to Santo first from their own islands. That’s a lot. So I held in my disappointment and relied on the non-PC volunteers already here in Sola. The problem with that is that ultimately two backed out almost entirely. Lucy still came every day to do yoga in the morning, and still came to do her health session, which was good, but I was pretty much left high and dry for the rest of camp. So not only did I have to be Camp Director and do all the programming, now I also had to be the one and only full-time counselor. I found myself thinking, “This is why in America we have counselors.”

To top it all off, the thermometer finally hit 100 for a decent stretch of time, one of my Chaco flipflops broke, and my last facilitator had to spend the first two days of camp at the police station because her daughters got into a fistfight (although SHE was the one with a black eye… hm…). But camp goes on!!

It actually went REALLY well, and now that it’s over I’m really happy! We opened Monday. The kids came late afternoon, got settled in, we ate dinner (one of the mamas at school cooked for us), and then we did an opening campfire. The rest of the week we continued with teambuilding games, leadership classes, arts and crafts, sports, a talent show, a movie night, and lots of other craziness. There were twenty girls, ages 13-17, having just finished 7th-11th grades.

It was interesting how some things were JUST like Girl Scout camp, even in such a different setting. Some things were different, for example, instead of a shower room for 7 girls with toads hopping around on the floor, the shower was one single hose in a tiny moldy room with cockroaches crawling around on the walls.

It was much easier than Girl Scout camp in some ways: no permission slips, no health forms, no insurance, no ACA standards, no state laws, no health code…

And some elements were purely Vanuatu: the campers being annoyed that they didn’t have time to bathe three times a day, being at least ten minutes late to every meal, and the “devil” suspected of visiting one of the dorm rooms on the last day (no worries, the girls prayed over that particular bed and it should be fine).

It was also strange being called Amanda in a camp setting, and wearing below-the-knee skirts for teambuilding/sports field games.

I combined a lot of typical Peace Corps Camp GLOW stuff with Girl Scout camp stuff. Come on, after five years I can’t just let it go! So there are now 20 Ni-Vanuatu teenagers who are quite proficient in Dum-Dum-Da-Da! We also learned Dreams and Make New Friends (including the friendship circle, of course). And I included Turtle Time (after lunch rest hour), which was not listed in any sample Vanuatu schedules. But seriously, it’s December – the “crack of dawn” is 4:30 and the sun is completely up by 5:15. Naps are essential to survival.

I’m really proud of myself though. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I’m really excited about the fact that I successfully ran a whole camp entirely by myself, as director AND the only counselor (and didn’t start losing my voice till Thursday!). In the past five years, I’ve worked at two camps and helped out at and/or done trainings at three others… you might say I know what I’m doing… but I’ve never been completely in charge (except for times boss was off camp and I was #2 or 3 in command). I’ve never been a Camp Director. I was really nervous coming into this camp, but now I know that I can do it, and it makes me want to keep doing it when I get home.

Anyway, I realized that if I wrote a blog about everything involving camp, it would be REALLY long. So I decided it might be more fun to write captions for pictures, so that you can see it as I explain it! So come check out the Facebook album for the rest of the story!