You Simply Can't Rhyme With Purple

Dehan doe Wiilkum?!?

I say good afternoon because that’s what time it is in the US, even though it’s almost ten o clock at night here in Ethiopia. Another day has come and gone here in the land with Thirteen Months of Sunshine, and again I look back on the day and wonder how it took so long when it’s already over… Every day seems to inch by at a snail’s pace, but every night when I look back on the day I never seem to know where the time has gone. Proof in point? I have no idea how, but I have already been here in Ethiopia for almost 11 months!

At any rate, you didn’t come to read about my lack of understanding of how time works in this country. You want to know what’s new, and for me that has been summer camp. Over the past six months or so, PCV’s all over have been working hard, preparing and setting up all different kinds of summer camps in various regions. Some of them were environmental camps, some were designed mostly for girls, and others tried to focus on HIV/AIDS and health. From July 29^th through August 5^th, I was lucky enough to get to help out with the Tigray summer camp, a health based camp held in Wukro, about 45 minutes north of Mekele. It was one of the best, most exhausting weeks of my life.

These summer camps are special and interesting for a number of reasons. You see, summer camps are a foreign concept in Ethiopia. No one has them here. So setting it up and recruiting campers can be tough, because Ethiopians don’t really understand what they’re signing up for. Nevertheless, 34 campers trusted in their respective volunteers and came to see what a summer camp was all about. We wanted to really give them something to take home, so every day we had a “theme” that we talked and taught them about. The topics included leadership, HIV/AIDS, the environment, gender roles, nutrition/cleanliness, and more. The sessions were informative but interactive, and the campers really seemed to learn a lot from them. I had the privilege of leading leadership day and several of the cross culture sessions, where we shared about Ethiopian and American cultures, and it was great to see how much the campers really understood and liked what they were learning.

In addition to all that, we had the opportunity to expand the horizons on another important theme: FUN. Simple games that we grew up with, like connect four and puzzles, excited them beyond belief. We couldn’t keep them off of the arts and crafts table, where they had the opportunity to express themselves creatively in ways their schools just don’t allow for. Sports like soccer and basketball they knew, but baseball they’d never even heard of! Our last day was the ultimate lesson in summer camp. We had split the campers into color groups the very first day (I got to lead the color group purple seen on the left, hence the name of the blog), and so our last full day we decided to have a field day complete with sack races, dizzy bat, eating competitions and more. The competition was fierce, but in the end everyone had a lot of fun. Later, we had an American style dinner of tacos and sloppy joes, followed by s’mores around the campfire for dessert.

It was one of the best weeks of my life, and I believe it was so for many of the campers too. On the last day there wasn’t a single bus that pulled away without crying campers. To be honest, I had a hard time not tearing up myself. The excitement of teaching all those kids so many new things… there’s nothing like it. I often felt like I was Aladdin opening up a whole new world to Jasmine, what with the way many of the campers gave me blank stares as I tried to show them what a s’more was or how to hold the baseball bat correctly. And to already hear stories of those campers going out into the community and applying what they learned at camp? Why, there’s no better feeling in the world.