BiH Summer Kamp!

A hodgepodge of updates and stories from my time at the John Paul II Youth Center ("Nadbiskupijski centar za pastoral mladih Ivan Pavao II")

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Freidensweg Izlets!

Photos from our two excursions this past week to Vrelo Bosna and Bijambare, a nature area near Sarajevo famous for it's caves.

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Freidensweg Service Projects!

Photos from our last week of service projects. The projects I helped with included a program for elderly women living in a monastery retirement home, cleaning the house of Carata, and landscaping at the Ivan Pavao II Centar in preparation for our big musical next Sunday, Go4Peace! 

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Danas Je Divan Dan!

When this is how kampers misspell your name how could every day not turn out "GREAT..."?!

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One day before Freidensweg began some of the volunteers and me rented a boat to celebrate Jonathon, one of the German volutneers, final days in Bosnia! Lizzy, Diana, and myself compared it to Minnesota lake-life except with mountains and no other people in sight.

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The weather was absolutely perfect each day and I was able to visit Blagaj, the Eko Centar (where Jake is working), and Medjugorje.

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After Animators camp I was lucky enough to be able to travel to Mostar for a few days to visit Jake and explore the city a little more than when I had visited back in mid-June. 

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Freidensweg & Go4Peace

*I apologize for my delayed updates! Above is an assortment of photos from the past few weeks. I will add descriptions to them as soon as I am able.* 

During my final 2 weeks in Bosnia I will be in Sarajevo participating in two international camps. Freidensweg and Go4Peace. More detailed updates to come, but my WiFi options during these camps are incredibly limited due to our scheduling. 

Be sure to keep an eye out though because after the first three days this is already my favorite camp of the summer. During this first week we have 62 participants from America, Germany, Slovenia, and Bosnia. It's incredible to be surrounded by so many different individuals. Each day we split up into 12 workshops and travel to our sites to perform various service activities. Activities range from renovating houses still destroyed from the war, constructing handicap accessible facilities for families with disabled members, landscaping local children's futbol fields, visiting elderly in retirement homes, to weeding gardens in a nearby monastery...time outside of our service projects is spent reflecting on what it means to become an international family and how to bridge peace in our daily lives. 

It's been a wonderful and hectic few days and I'm excited to share more soon!

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Food of Mostar!

During a few free days in between kamps I went on a trip to visit Mostar once more. The last time I visited the city was with the Little Milestones kamp back in June. That time, however, I was only able to spend a few hours in the city so I was excited to get the opportunity to go back, visit Jake, and explore the city a little more! 

*At this exact moment I'm leaving Sarajevo to go celebrate one of the German volunteers final days in Bosnia Herzegovina, so more on my adventures from Mostar soon!*

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I apologize for the delay in updates! Time has been a precious thing lately and will only become more sparing as I near my final 2-weeks with the Mladi Centar.

Let's backtrack a bit to July 8th when our final 7-day kamp at the Skobaljskoj Gračanici parish was held (from here on out we will be spending our time in Sarajevo). This particular kamp is called Animators and it is "youth for youth". This kamp has been running for seven years and is what I would call a "well-oiled-machine"....if you can use that expression for summer kamps? :)

The participants had every day jam-packed from 7am-11:30pm. Listening to workshops on communication, how to lead children's choirs, how to organize creative activities, dances, field trips....the list goes on and on! Each day you could see the kampers wake up a little more and more tired  but continue to express positivity and excitement for the opportunity Animators presented them. One girl told me this kamp was her "once in a lifetime" kind of experience and as the participants received their certificates of completion at the end of their time together I could see she was exactly right. After a week of intensive workshops and learning the kampers are moving on to impact and teach others in their home communities the importance of youth development.

My role in this kamp was very different from the previous three kamps. In the first three I aided in the logistics and participation of all workshops. At Animators however Lizzy, Diana, and myself were in charge of the kitchen. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner....and of course regular coffee/tea/snack breaks. My favorite part of three American girls being the only people allowed in the kitchen was trying to figure out what someone was asking for when I did not know the word in local language. That, and when the participants would ask for a lighter saying, "Can you give me fire stick?". I learned many valuable vocabulary words throughout the week and they will definitely come in handy during my final two weeks with the centar. 

Being in the kitchen also offered lots of free time which I filled with stints of reading, journaling, reflecting, and chatting with the participants who needed to take a quick break. 

Highlights of my time at Animators include: watching the final World Cup match, playing volleyball with the participants, learning multiple dances to various children's songs, and making pancakes on our final morning. 

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"Would You Like Some Ice Cream?"

This evening Diana, Lizzy, and I decided to go for a walk. A while into our hike we ran into our friend Domingo, a little boy from the area. (He's learning English in school and loves to practice with us.) He was also out for a walk with his Grandpa and younger brother. We chatted for a short while and as we began to part ways he calls back to Diana "Would you like some ice cream?". She said "No, thank you". He calls to me "Would you like some ice cream??". I replied the same. Finally he asks Lizzy, "Would you like some ice cream???" Lizzy shakes her head.

Domingo and his family left to walk back to their car and we commented on how they probably would've had to take us to the store to get ice cream anyways, and that we would have been inconveniencing them if we had said yes. I did however feel slightly guilty about not taking the invitation to spend time with a local family, since we rarely get this opportunity when kamps are running. 

My guilt didn't get a chance to fester long because no more than 10 minutes had passed before we heard a car coming back up the road. It was Domingo and his family, who sure enough, had gone to the store anyways and bought us and themselves ice cream treats. It was this simple act of community and kindness that touched me most as the kids passed us our ice cream through their rolled down car window. 

This is my favorite aspect of international internships. Being able to spontaneously experience the community and the culture in ways money can't buy. You won't get these memories through buying entrance tickets, audio guides, or any amount of souvenirs. These experiences are made just through being present, and often times they're the ones I cherish most. 

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One of the kids from kamp just sent me a video he made to remember his experience by, he did a great job! The song playing in the background was the "call song"during kamp and was played a bagillion times a day to signal when we should wake-up, meal times, and the start of any activity/game. 

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“It’s easy to get lost in our own heads. It’s easy to allow the thoughts and worries and plans and hopes to take on their own lives and control our minds in such a way that we lose sight of all that’s around us in any given moment. It’s difficult to allow those thoughts and problems to take a back seat in our lives in order to be completely aware of what’s right here, right now. Perhaps there’s a person who really could use you to take a couple of moments to pay attention to him or her; perhaps there’s a cool breeze that’s going to calm your spirit with its amazing touch—but only if you actually notice it.”-Tom Walsh

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During our final days of Offline we took a field trip back to Jacje and the Bugonjo pool. We toured a history museum of the Franciscan monastery of St. Luke in Jajce. In the basement of the museum is a skeleton believed to be the last king of Bosnia, Stjepan Tomašević.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon at the Bugonjo pool. There's only so many hours you can spend swimming in cold water and before long the kids were literally begging me to lead them in Zumba. I can say they made our trip to the pool stick out in my mind and an experience I will always remember. At first we just danced along with the radio until pool management learned we had choreographed moves to certain songs. With our song requests on hand they blasted our music over the water park speakers. We even made it onto the Bugojno pool's Facebook page!

In the evening we returned to kamp for a barbecue and karaoke.

This was my favorite day during Offline because I was able to truly feel and experience the friendships and community that developed during our time together. 

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The start and end of our third kamp, Offline, passed by in the blink of an eye! Most of the team leads from the first Little Milestones kamp came back to lead Offline as well. Diana described it as having "the gang all back together again" and she took the words right out of my mouth.

Offline was a 5 day kamp that focused on getting children off the internet and to focus on the people and real-life taking place around them. On the very first day all of their phones were taken away and the picture above shows the status update they posted onto their Facebook pages. It goes something like this:

"Dear Friends,

I would like to inform you that for the next 5 days I will be devoting my life to people. I'll "post" by talking face-to-face, I'll "like" through hugs, and I'll "comment" through conversation. My eyes will not be glued to a screen, instead I will use them to read music and sing. If you need me, wait 5 days..."

The days following were spent completing activities similar to those implemented during the first kamp. There was a day of workshops on additions: alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling, and internet. Followed by a day of flag painting in preparation for opening ceremonies of the Olympic games that followed that evening. This day also happened to be the Fourth of July. This is my third year celebrating the fourth away from home and I would say what I've learned is how memorable and enjoyable any holiday (or even any regular day for that matter) can be when you go out of your way to make it special. We decorated our arms and t-shirts in USA colors, baked 4th of July sugar cookies for the kids, ate watermelon, and had a bonfire in the evening.

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Photos from our final days at Freidensgrund! 

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Here are a few photos from our second Freidensgrund field trip to Rama! It was a gorgeous day and we spent the afternoon visiting their town history museum and relaxing near the lake.

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The most beautiful rainbows I have ever seen just appeared after a rainstorm we had this evening. There was even a (whoa) double rainbow!