Okay, these are my final comments on camp/life in general for now:
Should any of you like to knit, and be looking for a cool project, I can now highly reccomend mother bear. I've seen the faces of the kids when they get their bears -- they were passed out at breakfast on the last day of camp, while some counselors spontaneously began to sing Christmas carols -- and it was just one more moment at camp where suddenly the room was full of happy, crying, singing people. Awesome.
My computer has what I'm going to euphemistically call the chicken pox (and will studiously avoid call "being dead") so while I have tons and tons of photos of camp and thanksgiving and lots of fun things like that -- well, it may take a while until they make it online. Dammit.
And finally, Camp Sizanani has a website at www.worldcamps.org if you want to see pictures of camp activites in general, even if I myself do not happen to be in them.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
In Which I Become Mariah Carey
I just got back from two weeks at a girls camp in the Northwest province (a girls camp which I blessedly was not in charge of, but only helping out at, I might add). Its an amazing program called Camp Sizanani ("Helping Each Other" in Zulu) that takes kids from Soweto, the big famous and extremely poor township outside of Jo'burg, and brings them to essentially summer camp for two weeks. They do Sports, Arts and Crafts, Theater, Adventure, Swimming, and -- crucially -- Lifeskills. The whole camp is designed around lifeskills, actually, with each activity being specifically focused on increasing self-esteem, communication, empowerment, and all the good stuff like that. So of all the above activites, imagine Becca goes to camp to help out, what would I obviously be doing?
If you answered swimming, you were too right (and blindly guessing). I originally went with the intention of doing Lifeskills, I mean thats my 'thing' right? However, it turns out that one of the major and unexpected skill deficits of the South African camp counselors was the ability to swim. Nobody knew how to swim, yet counselors were needed to teach swimming. A conundrum. And there I was. Suddenly in the pool four hours a day for nine straight days when I thought I'd be teaching all about gender roles and HIV instead.
It was amazingly fun. About 98% of the girls had never been in a pool, never been in a large body of water of any sort before, and to see them progress from outright terror to enthusiastic swimmers was such a blast. One girl, of whom I was particularly proud, told me that a number of years ago she'd spent four days in the hospital after nearly drowning in a swimming pool. But she got in the water, even though I could see how scared she was, and by the end of the nine days she was splashing around indistinguishable from the rest of the kids. Thats bravery.
I was also in charge, along with two other girls (one another PCV, one a South African) or a cabin of 14 13-14 year old girls. Oh my god, what an age. I was reminded why teaching middle school is considered a punishment in the states. It was a little bit funny, though, to watch them vascillate between being the little girls they had just been, who only wanted to have fun, and the adults whom they were pretty sure they should be -- and much too cool for any of that fun stuff. You could see the battle in their eyes, and it was hard to get too mad at them for anything. In fact, they were all incredibly sweet girls (even the ones who pretended not to be) and I think we all surprised ourselves on the last day with how much we were going to miss one another.
The whole experience, in fact, is hard to summarize except for by describing the last day. On average, in a moment to moment sort of way, it was herding girls from one place to another, teaching lessons, eating bad food, attempting to enforce lights out, solving arguments, attempting to wake them up again in the morning, and generally two weeks of exhaustion. That was moment to moment though, that was the surface. I think on the last day we all sort of realized what we had created in the meantime. During those moments, or inbetween, something really cool had happened.
The closing ceremony of Camp Sizanani is a lot of singing and speaches and poetry around a campfire, followed by a bridge or tunnel of camp counselors which all the girls walk through, stopping one by one for a hug and special message from each adult they'd interacted with over the past 9 days. Not only was there not a single dry eye anywhere, I don't believe there was a single person who wasn't a sobbing mess that night, especially including me. It was amazing. Girls talked about what a life changing experience they'd gone through, about what they'd learned and the bonds they'd made with the other counselors. They mentioned how they'd love to come back and be counselors themselves next year (and quite a few actually do), and generally affirmed Camp Sizanani as one of the best things that had ever happened to them. It was really beautiful.
One of the images that I'm left with, the one that sort of expresses camp to me, happened towards the end of our time in the pool. We'd progressed beyond kicking and putting our faces in the water (well, most of us) and had moved on to actual moving-our-arms, kicking-our-legs real live swimming. I had the girls swim to me one at a time, always backing up just a little bit, but always right in front of them where they could see me. My constant litany was "its okay, I'm right here, I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you, you're safe." and I think I said it more than was necessary, because to be able to promise that to a child here is a luxury I won't often have again. So I said it a lot, and I think it was comforting for all of us, and especially healing for me. But we swam out, or rather I walked back and the girl swam to me, until finally I stopped with my back against the rope that demarcate the shallow and the beginning-to-be-deep ends. Then I would stop the girl, and hold her up, and point back to where we had come from -- about 15 feet. "Look! You just swam that whole way, all by yourself, you swam that far! Aren't you proud of yourself?" And inevitably the girl would turn around and her face would break out into a look of awe. In the process of getting there, I don't think she'd realized where she'd been going. And all of a sudden, she'd really accomplished something. Something that a week ago had seemed almost impossible. That one look, when she looked back and saw just how far she'd come, thats Camp Sizanani for me, and something that I think is going to stay with me as one of the highlights of Peace Corps.
If you answered swimming, you were too right (and blindly guessing). I originally went with the intention of doing Lifeskills, I mean thats my 'thing' right? However, it turns out that one of the major and unexpected skill deficits of the South African camp counselors was the ability to swim. Nobody knew how to swim, yet counselors were needed to teach swimming. A conundrum. And there I was. Suddenly in the pool four hours a day for nine straight days when I thought I'd be teaching all about gender roles and HIV instead.
It was amazingly fun. About 98% of the girls had never been in a pool, never been in a large body of water of any sort before, and to see them progress from outright terror to enthusiastic swimmers was such a blast. One girl, of whom I was particularly proud, told me that a number of years ago she'd spent four days in the hospital after nearly drowning in a swimming pool. But she got in the water, even though I could see how scared she was, and by the end of the nine days she was splashing around indistinguishable from the rest of the kids. Thats bravery.
I was also in charge, along with two other girls (one another PCV, one a South African) or a cabin of 14 13-14 year old girls. Oh my god, what an age. I was reminded why teaching middle school is considered a punishment in the states. It was a little bit funny, though, to watch them vascillate between being the little girls they had just been, who only wanted to have fun, and the adults whom they were pretty sure they should be -- and much too cool for any of that fun stuff. You could see the battle in their eyes, and it was hard to get too mad at them for anything. In fact, they were all incredibly sweet girls (even the ones who pretended not to be) and I think we all surprised ourselves on the last day with how much we were going to miss one another.
The whole experience, in fact, is hard to summarize except for by describing the last day. On average, in a moment to moment sort of way, it was herding girls from one place to another, teaching lessons, eating bad food, attempting to enforce lights out, solving arguments, attempting to wake them up again in the morning, and generally two weeks of exhaustion. That was moment to moment though, that was the surface. I think on the last day we all sort of realized what we had created in the meantime. During those moments, or inbetween, something really cool had happened.
The closing ceremony of Camp Sizanani is a lot of singing and speaches and poetry around a campfire, followed by a bridge or tunnel of camp counselors which all the girls walk through, stopping one by one for a hug and special message from each adult they'd interacted with over the past 9 days. Not only was there not a single dry eye anywhere, I don't believe there was a single person who wasn't a sobbing mess that night, especially including me. It was amazing. Girls talked about what a life changing experience they'd gone through, about what they'd learned and the bonds they'd made with the other counselors. They mentioned how they'd love to come back and be counselors themselves next year (and quite a few actually do), and generally affirmed Camp Sizanani as one of the best things that had ever happened to them. It was really beautiful.
One of the images that I'm left with, the one that sort of expresses camp to me, happened towards the end of our time in the pool. We'd progressed beyond kicking and putting our faces in the water (well, most of us) and had moved on to actual moving-our-arms, kicking-our-legs real live swimming. I had the girls swim to me one at a time, always backing up just a little bit, but always right in front of them where they could see me. My constant litany was "its okay, I'm right here, I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you, you're safe." and I think I said it more than was necessary, because to be able to promise that to a child here is a luxury I won't often have again. So I said it a lot, and I think it was comforting for all of us, and especially healing for me. But we swam out, or rather I walked back and the girl swam to me, until finally I stopped with my back against the rope that demarcate the shallow and the beginning-to-be-deep ends. Then I would stop the girl, and hold her up, and point back to where we had come from -- about 15 feet. "Look! You just swam that whole way, all by yourself, you swam that far! Aren't you proud of yourself?" And inevitably the girl would turn around and her face would break out into a look of awe. In the process of getting there, I don't think she'd realized where she'd been going. And all of a sudden, she'd really accomplished something. Something that a week ago had seemed almost impossible. That one look, when she looked back and saw just how far she'd come, thats Camp Sizanani for me, and something that I think is going to stay with me as one of the highlights of Peace Corps.
Like the Pantages, But Not at All
One of the first things we did at camp, by which I mean within 30 minutes of picking up the kids in Jo'burg, was go and see the Lion King. I don't mean we rented the movie and popped some popcorn -- or even projected it onto a convenient wall after dark. I mean 1800 children, their families, the camp counselors and directors, and four extremely happy Peace Corps Volunteers went to a local performing arts center where Disney had essentially donated the entire 1pm matinee of the South African production of the Lion King musical to Global Camps. This was not what I expected when I signed up for camp, but boy was I happy about it.
I'd seen the Lion King before, years ago in LA (for somebody's birthday, as I recall), and I'd remembered it being pretty awesome. So-so music (especially the weird fillers not written by Elton John) but AMAZING costumes. The Lion King is all about the visuals, the unbelievable puppets and characters and scenes that the artists have created. Thats what I remembered. Of course, the major difference between when I saw it with Tess and when I saw it two weeks ago were the 1800 children from Soweto who had never seen anything like this before in their lives. That and the fact that we were seeing it actually in Africa gave it an incredible depth. Here they tweak the languages of the songs quite a bit, which is fun. A lot of the original music was written in Swahili -- the parts that weren't in English, of course. Here they've instead switched a lot of the Swahili for Zulu, and also managed to fit in I believe all 11 official language plus Khoisan, a language which consists almost entirely of clicks and whistles which very few people speak anymore. The kids loved it.
In fact, the kids loved all of it, and while getting to see the Lion King was a wonderful experience on its own, getting to see the Lion King with all those kids is probably going to be my hands down best musical theater-esque experience ever. They were literally leaning forward on the edge of their seats, applauding, laughing, pointing, yelling, clapping and occasionally even singing along. (Hakuna Matata, especially, was a hit. Though according to the little girl next to me who apparently did in fact speak Swahili: "It means no problems not no worries." How can I not love seeing the Lion King in Africa?) When the performers came out for the final curtain call, the kids went wild screaming and applauding for all their favorites -- all except for the man who played Scar, who got perhaps the longest and loudest "Boooo!" I've ever heard. The poor guy. Once I stopped laughing I felt a little bad for him.
I'd seen the Lion King before, years ago in LA (for somebody's birthday, as I recall), and I'd remembered it being pretty awesome. So-so music (especially the weird fillers not written by Elton John) but AMAZING costumes. The Lion King is all about the visuals, the unbelievable puppets and characters and scenes that the artists have created. Thats what I remembered. Of course, the major difference between when I saw it with Tess and when I saw it two weeks ago were the 1800 children from Soweto who had never seen anything like this before in their lives. That and the fact that we were seeing it actually in Africa gave it an incredible depth. Here they tweak the languages of the songs quite a bit, which is fun. A lot of the original music was written in Swahili -- the parts that weren't in English, of course. Here they've instead switched a lot of the Swahili for Zulu, and also managed to fit in I believe all 11 official language plus Khoisan, a language which consists almost entirely of clicks and whistles which very few people speak anymore. The kids loved it.
In fact, the kids loved all of it, and while getting to see the Lion King was a wonderful experience on its own, getting to see the Lion King with all those kids is probably going to be my hands down best musical theater-esque experience ever. They were literally leaning forward on the edge of their seats, applauding, laughing, pointing, yelling, clapping and occasionally even singing along. (Hakuna Matata, especially, was a hit. Though according to the little girl next to me who apparently did in fact speak Swahili: "It means no problems not no worries." How can I not love seeing the Lion King in Africa?) When the performers came out for the final curtain call, the kids went wild screaming and applauding for all their favorites -- all except for the man who played Scar, who got perhaps the longest and loudest "Boooo!" I've ever heard. The poor guy. Once I stopped laughing I felt a little bad for him.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)