Camp a comin'

19:45 13 February 2009

With only three days until the Winter Camp I am helping run starts, surprisingly enough I am feeling well and prepared. Today I went with Lorenzo, the main monetary force behind the camp and its ostensible director, to the Karakol bazaar in order to buy all the supplies necessary to outfit a week-long health, arts and sports camp. The sessions we have planned out include a great variety of different classes, from Mexican folk dancing, First Aid, Dodgeball, Rhythm and “Stomp” to Yoga, Leadership skills, AIDS education, and Proper Stretching. The sessions are being led by an assortment of Peace Corps and JICA volunteers, employees of the Red Crescent Association, and the leadership club I help out with even designed a session especially about health issues which I am excited to watch as I have been too preoccupied with administrative and logistical problems to focus on content issues (ironic, no?).

The biggest problem for me, as the camp is being held in my village, is coordinating the homestay situations for the out of village participants. It is difficult enough to coordinate a camp for forty people, but when thirty of them don’t even live in your village and will need to eat, sleep, and live somewhere during the camp, it becomes a logistical challenge. Luckily, so far it seems as if everything is going quite smoothly and I am looking forward to the camp. The past month has been good but has become routine in teaching, I am hoping the camp in the middle of the longest school session will help prevent my work here from becoming monotonous.