90F in the shade, seven sleeping in a room, sharing one bathroom, camp food, two hours of English classes and little to no time to use the Internet, mobile phones or iPods. Not quite a desirable advert for summer camp, I must admit. When kids leave their families for the first time in their lives to travel to a foreign country for two weeks of "English camp" with a bunch of strangers, scary is an understatement. They are put in a room with four or five strange tweens who speak a different language and they have no chance whatsoever of changing that room no matter how much they cry and . . . wait . . . this is for TWO WEEKS?! Their reactions range from, "okay, that's why I'm here . . . let's speak ENGLISH!" to, "This is stupid. I don't have to do this. Who here speaks MY language?" to eyes welled up with tears saying, "I want to go home!!!"
Presented this way, none of it sounds fun at all. It's a wonder any of them stick around beyond the first night. It's a fine line to walk. OF COURSE I want the kids to come to camp and have fun. They're kids . . . it's camp . . . but the objectives of this camp go much much deeper than simply fun. My team's mission is to provide enough opportunities for these kids to interact, cooperate, learn and have fun together in ways that require them to communicate . . . not to speak English, necessarily, but to communicate, and hopefully by the end of the two weeks, the majority of them will be in the, "Let's speak ENGLISH" category. And even beyond speaking English, my goal is for them to trust each other, which given the history of conflict that exists between these kids, is more than almost anyone could ask. Bumps in the road come in the form of big 13 year-olds that pick on small 12 year-olds, national pride, crushes and broken hearts, too much rain, too much heat, illness, hospital trips and plain ol' teenage angst.
But thanks to a pretty amazing team, most of those bumps got ironed out. I am going to quote one of my camp counselors, Ildi, who was at camp for the first time this year:
"Everyone was a little cell with their own worlds. - Interesting, unknown worlds, with their own history, habits, culture...- And these little worlds could find a path formed by the energy that love can give us to get in contact and start sharing feelings, trusting in each other, being a strong community, a family - 'cause I felt the intimacy, which a family could have, in our camp community -and i think the kids felt the same and it could give them life-long experiences."
I can't help but wonder to what extent these two weeks will prove to have given the students "life-long" lessons. They go home and miss camp terribly for a few days . . . until school starts and they see their usual friends who know nothing about this camp experience and the camp experience sort of melts away.
Unfortunately, what happens after camp, I have no control over. I do believe, however, that a large part of what happens at camp I do have control over. I have control over the atmosphere, making students feel safe and comfortable and enabling them to trust me and everything that happens at camp. Trust, it's the key link, I think. They trust almost no one when they arrive and without trust all that exists are walls. My job is to give them reasons to trust enough to step out from behind their walls. I guess if something can last, it would be the experience of learning how to trust and believing in that.
The picture was sent to me by the same camp counselor, Ildi. It makes me think of freedom, a journey and taking chances. It reminds me of trusting your own instincts. It reminds me of the kids. Without trusting themselves first, they can't really trust each other. They came a long way in two weeks and I trust that they will carry it on.
