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.
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