Embassy Camp

7/DECEMBER/2010!!!!

We just finished our weeklong (and then some) camp at a convent on the “skirt” of Mombacho Volcano outside of Granada. There were 5 of us volunteers, 4 nica teachers, and 80 kids. It started out pretty rough. We had gotten no info about the camp until the night before Thanksgiving, so that left all the work until 1 or 2 days before the camp. But even with having a bad start, we all came together and put together a really fun, interesting camp. The kids were UNREAL. They were all so polite, friendly, open, interested, hilarious, creative, and about a million other positive attributes. I was beyond impressed. It really encouraged me to be able to see the potentially brighter future of Nicaragua. Not to throw kids that I’ve worked with this year under the bus, but these kids from camp were so unbelievably attentive and well behaved. I just couldn’t get over it!

Each day we had about 5 hours of English class in the morning, and 3 hours of American culture class in the afternoon with a few hours mixed in for talent show rehearsal, closing ceremony rehearsal, and homework. We were busy every moment which I think kept everyone in line, but it was pretty intense. It was wonderful seeing kids improve their English literally overnight. I felt like such a proud mom every time I saw kids really catching on.

One thing that really struck me during this week was the dynamics between the kids. They came form all areas of the country, including the Caribbean coast. They were so good to each other, so supportive. Whether they were bff with someone or not, it seemed like everyone was so interactive and friendly. I only saw a fraction of a second that I could say that someone was “bullying” someone else. I was expecting quite a bit of drama and/or bad blood with 80 highschoolers. What are they doing here to yield that kind of result? From what I remember, things were just not like that at home. I wish it could have been.

Every night we have some kind of activity. When we had movie nights, I went out running on the steep hill leading up to the convent. With my headlamp, I ran under the gorgeous starry sky. It was so gorgeous, and made me think of Ragnar relay (the only other time I’ve run in the pitch black). One night, Carla and I were running the hill and we saw the security guard with his giant shotgun walking into the darkness. We made sure to tell him we were out there running, and if he could maybe just not shoot us, that’d be just great.

The last night of camp was the talent show. There was a lot of singing and dancing, a few poems, and a skit by the volunteers. We kicked off the show with a skit about us whites coming to Nicaragua, not knowing how anything works or how to effectively communicate. The first scene started off with me in a drenched (sweaty) shirt, a giant bag “getting off the plane” getting sexually harassed and hustled by taxi drivers. I was only speaking in English to everyone. Then I got on a bus where the woman next to me gave birth, then asked me to hold her baby while she paid her bus fare. Jocelyn, sitting next to me, handed me her squawking chicken. I then proceeded to buy a bag of water, tried drinking it, with it exploding all over me. Then I went to the market where I bought tajadas (plantain chips) from Liz and proceeded to get raging diarrhea. I ran to the bathroom and changed clothes for the next round of scenes set in the time period “1 year later”. We went through the scenes again, where I was able to handle them with ease, and speaking Spanish. Then at the end, Jocelyn proposed to me, dipped me, and I said I’d stay in Nicaragua forever. Throughout the whole skit, and especially at the end, everyone was screaming and cheering and laughing. It was so fun!

Our last day we performed our closing ceremony acts and took pictures etc. Then we all had to separate and go our own ways to various bus terminals. Throughout the week, we watched kids make such close friends. There were bromances and friendships being made left and right. The last day everyone was crying because they didn’t want to go home! It was so sad. I hope this week had as strong of an impact on them as it did on me. I can definitely say this was the most fulfilling week of my service to date.



campers walking back up to the convent after playing in a nearby park so that we could exhaust them so they wouldn't wake up at 4:30 in the morning and bug us!!