Monday, July 8, 2013

Here at Camp HEERE!

June 18, 2013



The end of May brought Camp HEERE, along with the end of the school year.  The few days preceding camp were extremely busy and stressful, as I tried to finish my duties as a teacher and simultaneously organize/finalize logistics for Camp HEERE.


Camp HEERE stands for:
Hygiène
Environnement
Éducation
Recréation
Ensemble

I love that all the words are basically the exact same as they are in English, with the exception of “ensemble” which means “together.”  I also am still proud of the fact that the Camp’s name itself, HEERE, is actually Jula word that means “health” and/or “well-being”  --- such an awesome acronym and name for a camp!  Good job, Elijah, in coming up with our camp name!   (In case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced “air-aye” with a slight rolling R.)

This was the second year that Camp HEERE was held in my community, with my CEG serving as our base.  We used the classrooms for our sessions, and we used two of the new still-empty classrooms (one for boys, one for girls) as dormitories.  Thirteen villages were represented, with a total of 64 CM1 and CM2 (fifth and sixth grade) students participating, ages 10-14.  The kids arrived Thursday morning, May 23 and remained at camp for four days, until Sunday late afternoon, May 26.

The girls' dorm room.  The white things are mosquito nets.


Camp HEERE is an environmentally focused camp, created by myself and the other 12 Peace Corps volunteers in my region (all of whom are DABA, aka agriculture/environment, volunteers except for Vida, who’s an education volunteer like me).  With the majority of Burkina’s population working as farmers and cultivators, understanding how to protect the environment is crucial.  Here’s a breakdown of some of the sessions/topics included during the four days of camp:

Hygiène (also includes Health) :  Hand Washing, Teeth Brushing, Always Use the Latrine, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, First Aid, Nutrition
Environnement :  Intro to Environment, The Food Chain, Organic vs. Chemicals, Importance of Trees, Pollution, Protecting the Environment, Soil composition, Small Gardening at Home, Making a Budget
Éducation : Making a Goal, Future Planning, Gender Roles
Recréation : various arts and crafts, tug of war, jumping rope, singing, etc.
Ensemble :  Movie Night, Dance Night, Theater/skits, Reflection Time in small groups

Each volunteer was responsible for co-leading one or two of the sessions, and various Burkinabe homologues and guest speakers also came to help with the camp and lead sessions.  For example, my friend Olga, who is a nurse at the local clinic, helped lead the AIDS session, and 8mars (i.e. his nickname is “the 8th of March”) dressed as a woman for his lesson on gender roles and stereotypes.
8mars and Sara



Boys trying to locate the USA...

Sami and Issouf, the forestier, leading an environment session
hand washing before eating


8mars was pretty good at jumping rope

Condom demonstration during HIV/AIDS lesson with Olga
Nutrition lesson

Molly jumping!
me and the crossdresser...
Olga and me!  She always looks so good!













Me leading a session





I led the Intro to Environment session with Elijah, Teeth Brushing with Vida, Sand Art with Sara, and of course, headed up music time several times a day.  Not to mention the fact that, as the camp was being held at my CEG and in my village, I was the community liaison (along with Molly) and also in charge of food.   I was responsible for our menu, buying supplies, keeping track of the food budget and receipts, and ordering any outside food that couldn’t be made on site, such as yogurt for snack and dinner rolls for lunch.  I’d like to take a moment to brag about how good of a job I did with the food…  Every meal was nutritionally complete with each of the food groups represented, and at the end of camp, I was about 100 mille under budget ($200 USD), despite the fact that we had meat or fish every meal, a hard-boiled egg every morning, fresh vegetables and mangos, two snacks a day, and only ate rice twice during the week!  We each even got to eat a ¼ chicken with couscous and veggie sauce one evening.  I gave myself a pat on the back for doing such a good job at budgeting and ordering an adequate quantity and variety of food – although I do wish that the unused money in the food budget would have went for something amazing, like another ¼ or even ½ chicken for everyone, chocolate cookies for snack, and a box of apples from Ouaga!  (I’m pretty sure most kids have never tasted an apple in their lives – they’re available in bigger cities, but kinda spendy.  Why buy an apple for 250 CFA when you can get 4 bananas for 100 CFA?)  Anyways, yay me for being so good at menu planning and food budgeting…

Supper time!  To and sauce, mhmm mmm
The cooking area.  Also water storage (in the plastic barrels)

Fish boulettes!  I love these things.... kinda like meatballs, but fish flavored.
Some of the gang...





Some of my favorite memories from camp include:

*set-up day of camp, with just us Americans.  We ate tô and fish at my neighbor’s house that night for supper, followed by amazing chocolate cake chez moi to celebrate the recent birthdays in our group.  We then “played” a game of Peace Corps LIFE designed by Molly and me.  Everyone randomly received 3 cards, and whoever had the most points at the end won, or something like that… If you received a card with a person on it, that was worth +3 points.






















*doing morning warm-ups and yoga/balance poses with the kids before breakfast.  Run!  Faster!  Hop!  Stand on one leg!  Don’t fall!  Do “tree pose.”  Jump!  These kids have WAY too much energy, we gotta wear them down….more running!

Yoga!  Sami leads yoga (in blue) and I help (in purple).


*participating in Molly and Sara’s first-aid skit about pink eye, with guest actress Baby Susannah in my arms.  I stole her from her mom, who was helping cook lunch, cuz she was just so darn cute!

*playing my guitar and leading songs









*not getting any shuteye til midnight each night. Light’s out was at 10pm, but we couldn’t convince the kids to actually go to sleep.  “Why do I still hear voices and see flashlights on in here?  Go to bed!”  “But Madame, we don’t want to sleep!  We’re reading our books!  We’re learning about the environment!”  “I don’t care, you can learn in the morning, right now is time for sleeping!”

*finally getting a few hours of sleep outside in my bug hut under the stars, then getting up at the crack of dawn to prepare for the next day.  (The kids couldn’t seem to sleep past 5am each morning: “Madame, is it time to get up yet?”  “Huh, what?  Uh, what time is it?....It’s only 4:45am!  It’s still dark!  Go back to sleep!!!!”)

*The random food/supplies that disappeared.  Perhaps the 5 bags of dinner rolls were stolen/eaten by campers, maybe the cook swiped them, or, my top choice, the genies took them.

*The epic battle between Moringa Man and Moringa Woman versus Madame Mauvaise (Evil Lady).  Moringa Man and Woman want to plant trees and pick up garbage; Madame Mauvaise wants to cut down trees, use chemicals, pollute the air, etc.




*The awesome rain/wind storms.  Yeah, it was annoying to have to grab everything as it blew away and put it into classrooms for safety, and it was quite dusty out, preventing you from seeing more than a few feet in front of you.  But it was awesome.  Molly, Lauren, and I thoroughly took advantage of puddle jumping and dancing in the rain once the dust apocalypse subsided and the lightning didn’t seem to be striking targets right near us.  Rainy season was starting!  Hooray!

*Tug-o-War --- Americans versus the winning team of campers.  We were undecided as to if we should actually try or not, and whether or not our goal was to win, but before we knew it, the “official” had shouted “Go!” and we were losing ground quickly…  So we gathered all our strength and might and tried to pull back…for a minute or so the competition was pretty equal, but we couldn’t maintain it, no matter how hard we tried.  Needless to say, the kids won.  And a couple of us might have eaten some dirt.  Literally.  (Sadly, we actually did try.  We didn’t let them win.  They honestly won.  Those 12-year-olds are so strong!  It’s all that physical work they do, like carrying jugs of water.)


*Dance night with the kids.  An i-pod and small computer speakers placed in a plastic bucket to help amplify the sound.  Some Burkinabe favorites.  And of course some American hits, i.e. Macarena and Gangnam Style.  Molly and I had a blast teaching the kids some basic dance moves, such as the gangnam style horse gallop thing, and step left-two-three-clap, step right-two-three-clap.  I even saw one cute camper who really knew how to shake her bootie go off with a boy from another village, holding hands, making their way to the snack table.  Awww, puppy love.  And holding hands, that’s something you NEVER see here, even in married couples!  But no more of that, said Molly.  Not allowed at camp.  No holding hands.  No love.  No!  No no no!

*The campers’ small groups’ cheer/chant.  Each group was named after an animal (i.e. Les Elephants, Les Serpents, Les Etalons, etc.) and the groups had to present themselves with a short cheer/song.  “Who are we?  The crocodiles!  We eat what?  The serpents.  We eat what? The elephants.  We eat who?  The humans…”    Uh, humans?  Haha okay, well, it’s probably true…?
The Hippos presenting their team chant


*Elijah playing “Pomp and Circumstance” on his trumpet as the kids marched in during the closing ceremony, each student wearing his team sash and the badges he/she had earned throughout camp
My village kids (Lanfiera primary school) receiving their certificates




The Elephants after the closing ceremony, with group leaders Sara and Careth





























Camp HEERE did experience some challenges, from not having electricity (although that’s not really a big deal) to not having a water source (definitely much more of a problem….we had to pay a guy to bring us several barrels of water a few times each day so we could cook, wash hands, drink, shower, etc.).  Sometimes sessions didn’t go as well as we hoped, or guest speakers showed up late.  Further complicating matters was that my good friends and functionaire host family, Augustin and Lady Sawadogo, were getting married the weekend of camp.  That meant that I couldn’t attend the wedding, nor could they (or anyone else who they were friends with, mainly hospital staff since Lady delivers babies), help with camp.  I felt really guilty and sad that I didn’t get to celebrate their special day with them.  Another challenge was that my villageoise host family experienced a death.  The old woman who lived in the house closest to mine died right before camp, so that resulted in me needing to sit in mourning with the family and their friends for a few hours the day before camp started.  Also, my friend Batoma  (daughter-in-law of the woman who died) was in charge of several food items for camp, like making the chicken and fish.  But with the funeral, things got complicated and I felt bad intruding on her and pulling her aside to go over last minute details and money matters for camp.  Fortunately, everything worked out well and there were no major unresolved issues.


All in all, Camp HEERE 2013 was a great success.  We had a lot of fun, the kids learned valuable information, and even if they didn’t…. well, they at least had fun, made new friends, and ate really good food.  Everyone -- both volunteers and campers -- was thoroughly exhausted by the end of the week.  Congrats and good work to all involved!  Also: a big merci to anyone who helped to financially support our camp!  Thanks so much!