2.15.2007

I´m a camp counselor...ah, identity crisis!

I WROTE THIS A LITTLE AFTER THE POST BELOW:

A word of advice: if you select kids for “leadership potential” by interviewing them and seeing who responds the most articulately and intelligently, you get a group of independently-minded savages.

OK, I exaggerate.

But not by much.

We started the Environmental Workshop for a group of 16 kids I selected last week, mostly 11-year olds. The first day went relatively well, despite that the kids imitate their parents and arrived an hour late. I tried a little game on them to test their creativity and teamwork abilities. They split into two groups, and using only what they had on them at the moment, see which group could form the “longest line”. Some kids started opening their notebooks rather than simply placing them closed shut. Some of the boys even took off their shirts to make a longer line, which is when two of the municipal elected officials decided to come in to take a look. Oops. I did another activity to warm them up. First, they introduced themselves. Then I made them do a second round, but in a loud voice. The person who presented themselves in the loudest voice won a point for their team. I didn’t think it would work since kids here aren’t used to being silly, but it worked out better than I thought. Most of the girls just introduced themselves at an audible volume – as opposed to inaudible. Some of the boy just made a face as if they were shouting but what came out was still a hesitant, pre-pubescent plea. Only Fernando, who is THE only black boy in the entire town, gave me a strong presentation that matched my own shouting. That was the first activity to get them ready to do plays and theatre.

The next day we took them to the Mangroves to do a few learning activities. Of course, they only wanted to play. I tried really hard to get them to observe, discuss within the group and figure out some differences between shorebirds and songbirds. One of the girls told me that shorebirds seem more friendly (“amigable”), which I liked. We were getting somewhere. Unfortunately, the rest of her group was wandering off like sheep. Another girl figured out that the white shiny stuff on the mangrove leaves is salt. Girls are definitely smarter than boys…

After I couldn’t take the wandering kids and the vicious mosquitoes anymore, we took them to an area of ankle-deep water, despite the fact that I promised an overprotective parent three times within one week that her only daughter will indeed, NOT enter the water. I figured if she yells at me, at least her daughter got an afternoon of happy memories. Plus, her daughter couldn’t have drowned unless she shoved her head in the mud. Luckily, this girl was one of the few who didn’t cut her feet on the mussels in the water. Despite the protests of my fellow Peruvian facilitator, César, “they’re fine, they don’t need band-aids”, my North American instinctive fear of overprotective parents made sure to wash out every single one of their cuts, throw some antibiotic ointment on and bandage it up before leaving, even though I knew the band-aids weren’t going to stick to the wet feet of children. I don’t want any parents knocking down my door. Despite that, I did actually receive one concerned mother at my door…Fernando forgot his soccerball in the truck. However, cutting short the educational activities turned out to make it a more memorable afternoon. Some of the boys found a fisherman’s net full of crabs. César took advantage of the opportunity to teach them that it’s important to let the little ones go. All the kids got really into freeing the little crabs from the nets and tossing them back into the water. And then other kids tried to get out the big ones, which they then tossed live into their Tupperware that used to contain their lunch to bring home to their parents to cook. I don’t know who the net belonged to, but he didn’t get a catch that afternoon….

I never wanted to feel like a camp counselor, but I guess that’s what I signed myself up for. I’m not going to miss this experience, but I don’t think I’ll regret it either. I’m going to start them on theatre activities soon. Thanks, mom and dad, for the theatre and dance classes when I was a kid!

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