Dwight Mission South

I think it's pretty common knowledge that I love camp! I've spent every summer of my childhood and adolescence at Dwight Mission Presbyterian Camp and Conference Center and a subsequent 3 summers of my young adult life on the staff there. You could say that place has had just a little influence on my life.

So when I heard that part of my work here in Peru would be to help put on a camp for children and adolescents who are victims of abuse, I thought great! something I'm actually pretty good at and I know what I'm doing. Starting in about October I started preparing myself for this camp. I quickly found, however, that a lot of my good old stand-by actvities like songs and energizers did not translate well. I even ran into a few problems with the simple games I was planning.

Vocabulary word of the day - Fogata = Campfire

First of all the budget for our camp wasn't much, so I had to stick to games that used little to no materials. All in all this wasn't too difficult, I can probably name you 10 different types of tag games right now, but once again I was having problems in translation. It wasn't exactly the words that were getting lost, but the actual concept of the game. I began working with my Spanish tutor in trying to translate these games for the camp, and even explaining them to him was difficult. Think about trying to explain the concept of "It" - I can tell you it's a lot harder than you think. My tutor and I ened up settling on the word "chaser" for "it" I begin to explain some of my games, classics like elbow tag, blob tag, wink, look, etc.. Then my tutor starts asks me things like, "so what's the point?" "Who wins?" and my personal favorite "how do you punish the people who lose?" Apparently here in Peru there is a very big culture of competition, especially within the Collegios (schools). So I had to explain to him that where I come from, we don't emphasize competion and that everybody wins, the fun is in just playing the game, Jesus loves you, etc., etc.

I eventually get some games and team-work activities selected and translated and I begin work on my next project for this camp. TIE-DYE! For me camp is not complete without tie-dye. Even if we don't make it with the kids, the staff all has to make a shirt or something by the end of the summer. Because of this unspoken rule I have quite the collection of tie-dye in my wardrobe and a few of those items made it into my suitcase for my year in Peru. After weeks of wearing my tie-dye some people at work begin to ask and compliment my colorful shirts and I tell them I made them at a camp of mine back home. This gives us the idea to make tie-dye with the kids at our camp. So I work it out with my parents to donate some good quality Dharma tie-dye supplies and bring it up with them when they came for their vacation in January. I spend the next month or so writing out and translating the instructions for various basic tie-dye designs and I hope and pray that the campers will be able to understand me and this whole venture will not turn in one big colorful mess.

Finished tie-dye hanging up to dry

Our first camp for adolescents started on a Monday. I was assigned the counselor for the Los Viajeros group - "the Travelers." Our theme for the camp was "Mi Amigo Dios Y Yo" or "My Friend God and Me." It's cheesy I know, I didn't come up with it. But our Bible theme was the story of Moses and God bringing the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. As counselor I did many regular counselor things like helping my group with Bible study time (I even sucessfully led a bible study for the whole camp!), following them around and participating in activities with them, joining them for meals, etc. But it was a different experience for me to add small child wrangler to my list of counselor duties. In my group, two of my campers had children - one was about 2 years and the other 10 months, so part of my job was to take care of the little tots while their moms participated in the camp activities. It was definitely one of my favorite parts of this camp (we had 7 babies/toddlers, all under about the age of 2 1/2 at the camp) but not something I ever really imagined myself doing in a camp setting with adolescents.

My girls! Friendship bracelet power!

Monday was also the day that we started our tie-dying! In the afternoon, each group rotated through various activities, one of them being tye-die. It was at times a difficult process explaining all the steps included in making tye-die, not because of the language barrier but because none of them, including the other camp leaders, had ever really seen tye-die much less made it. So I had a fun time explaining things in small simple steps. It was a long and at times tedious process. But despite all the headaches and little hiccups, I knew that it was all worth it when each camper unfolded their shirt and shouted, "Mira!" (look!), and beaming with pride showed off their art work to everyone. As much as this whole process kinda stressed me out, it really made me happy to be able to share this with these campers.

The Camp Leadership in our awesome Tie-Dye!Sorry I can't show you pictures of the campers, we'll just have to wait until I get home.

The next week we did the whole camp thing over again. This time with younger children with ages ranging from about 5 to 11 or 12. We did many of the same things as the week before, tie-dye included. Even though this camp was a whole day shorter, dealing with all the little ones really spent my energy so much faster. But they were really great and of course super cute. And I would like announce right now that I've fallen in love. His name is Cesar, he's 5 and about the cutest little butter ball you could ever find. So if I arrive home with a small child in tow, you know why now, haha.

This camp was one part of my work here that I was really looking forward to because it's an area that I have a lot of experience in and it was an opportunity that I felt I could really contribute. Now that it's all said and done, I can say that I'm pleased with the work that I did, and happy that I was able to sucessfully lead a bible study, games, team building activities, and of course the tie-dye. So for me this experience was one of accomplishment and a milestone in my Spanish progress. But the whole thing ended up being pretty different than what I imagined. I expected that since we have such a unique group of campers that we were working with that we would tailor the lessons and themes to be relevent for their lives and situations. But it actually was very similar to a normal camp experience that one might have in the United States.

After the camps were over, everyone in my department took some time to celebrate a job well done and to discuss and evaluate the camps. So over some delicious pollo a la brasa we talked about having the themes and discussions being more relevent. In the past they have apparently done more psychological themes, but this year opted to do a more biblical theme. I suggested that they combine the two. For me it would be all too easy to use God's word in the healing process for these kids. But there is also something to be said about giving these kids a break, and a few days to be normal kids, and have a camp experience that would be just like any other.

Anyone care to share your opinion on this? Which do you think would be better? A camp that is designed to specifically address the abuse that each of these children have experienced? or a camp where the children are allowed to be normal kids for just a few days and have a chance to take a break from their stressful home lives?

For me it's something that I really debated during and after the camp.

I think as with most everything in life there is a middle ground here. The very capable people I work with here at Paz y Esperanza can surely find a way to balance out normal kid time with using the camp as time to address issues, foster healing, and build confidence in the campers. I think that this camp is one of the best things they have going in the program, and I just pray and hope that they are able to utilize the unique opportunity that a camp experience can provide to really change these kids lives.

Thanks for reading this exceptionally long blog. I hope that this gives you all a little more insight into some of the work I'm doing here. I recently returned from a most amazing mid-year retreat on the beach in Northern Peru, and since returning have been busy with regular steady work here, which has been really nice. I'm about to start working with a couple of individual cases, a couple days a week, and also with the kids in our shelter at the farm one afternoon a week. So once I get those projects up and going, I will definitely update you all on that and how everything is going. Thanks again for following me and please don't hesitate to post any and all thoughts, questions, and comments you have, because I check here regularly if anyone has commented and it helps to know that I'm not just writing this for my parents, and Debbie my site coordinator, haha.

A little slice of paradise in Mancora, Peru.

P.S. - If you haven't done so already, check out the new photo albums on facebook. Links are on the side and you can access them even if you aren't on Facebook, so go check them out!