CamParfait

10-18

Last week I helped with Dan and Willie's environmental leadership camp. It was tremendous. Suspiciously perfect.
The first known camp of its kind here, it was big news. In fact, a reporter followed everyone around with a tape recorder in their faces the whole time. This was quite awkward during the (cross-dressing!) skits and campfire solos, but worth the nightly readio spot and hour-long summary that airs tonight. Kids were chosen from across the region of Kédougou based on school performance and who was thought to be able to most benefit.
The kids were AMAZING. You know all the problems in US camps? Fights, gossip, homesickness, bullying, not following the rules, hooking up, phone-calls from parents? None of that here! Not even a single complaint about food (which was heavily composed of the cow). Not a single tear-- until they left on the bus. This was so unexpectedly moving. This culture doesn't exactly encourage open greif-- except at funerals-- so to see almost every girls and boy wipe embarassingly at their eyes and turn away-- produces a reaction I don't even have the strength to name.
Hopefully some from this group will return to next year's camp as CITs, since we want to make it annual. Though a bunch of volunteers came to help, the real counselors were amazing Senegalese leaders-- mostly teachers. They did a superb job. Camp activities included fun trust-building and team-bonding games as well as constructing tree nurseries and making/marketing/selling neem lotion. They decorated the bottles and frames for themselves in arts and crafts. One of the frames says "I like Obama." We hiked to the waterfall and source, including the kid with crutches and the girls who insisted carrying their water bottles on their heads the whole climb. We had super cross-cultural dance parties and limbo. As fun as it all was, I'm almost more sad to believe it really was THE Time of Their Lives.
Regardless, it was fun and I think they all took a lot from it.They were so serious about learning, we caught one kid taking ferocious notes as we explained how to roast marshmallows! But I can testify that each of them became more confident and made friends across the region they would enver have otherwise met. I would not have guessed the amount of difference this little thing could make.