Happy Campers

I spent the good part of the last week helping out with a camp for Ecuadorian girls which took place in the beach town of Canoa. Peace Corps Volunteers are able to nominate girls from their communities that are between the ages of 15-17 to attend Camp ALMA, a leadership camp. The Peace Corps Gender and Committee, which I am a member (and actually co-prez) runs the entire camp---from planning, finding funds, supervising, teaching, coordinating travel, etc. It is quite an undertaking when you consider that the camp includes girls from all over the country. I was responsible for escorting four girls from the Oriente region of the country to the camp. Without getting into a protracted explanation of the logistics, I’ll summarize by saying it involved getting up at 4 a.m., getting on five different buses before finally arriving at our destination at around 7:10 p.m. One of the girls had travelled a day and a half just to get to Puyo to go with me. Despite having a very sore behind from the looooong bus ride, the camp was really, really cool…and it was at the beach, so what’s not to love!

The girls were really great and represented the cultural diversity of the three distinct mainland areas of the country…at one point I was helping with an activity with three girls: one from the coast, one from the sierra and one from the oriente. Very cool. Some of the girls had never seen the ocean before, so it was really neat to be with them as they got their first glimpses of the beach. Some had never even travelled outside of their province, so this was a huge opportunity for them to see other parts of their own country.

At the start of the camp the girls were really quiet and somewhat timid. But, by the end of the camp the girls all had a dozen new best friends and they cried when they said goodbye. It was really sweet. It brought back many fond memories from when I attended summer camp with my cousin in Michigan, 4-H camp at Camp Palmer, and church camp at Lakeside. Summer camps and day camps are the types of experiences that we Americans take for granted and are part of every other kids’ childhood; yet camps just are not common here, so this was a very unique experience for these girls. We were able to pay for all the girls expenses—including all the bus fares to get to Canoa. We packed a lot of different things into the camp—the activities ranged from information sessions on sex ed, small business, environmental ed, trafficking in persons and immigration…plus activities included hiking in a local dry forest reserve, making jewelry out of tagua (vegetable ivory), playing games on the beach, and doing skits. It was a really rewarding (albeit a little exhausting) experience. I already got a call from one of the girls who attended…she just wanted to say hi…and thanks again.