El Campamento
Today marked the end of our “campamento” (summer camp) for the children in the Batey. To close camp, we had a “concurso” (a contest and talent show of sorts) of all the rotations and groups that comprised the fun of the last few weeks. Handing “paletas” (lollipops) to the winning team, the 10-13 year old campers who performed a traditional Dominican music and dance number, Yspaniola’s second annual summer camp came to a close.
During the year, the literacy center in the Batey Libertad is up and running as a great resource for reading and education to empower individuals and the community. However, during these past few summer weeks during the children’s summer break, Yspaniola conducted a summer camp with over 100 of the children living in the Batey. We had four different age groups of children, ranging from 5-12, which rotated among art, music/dance, Deportes Para La Vida (a sexual health program that focuses on education and awareness on age-appropriate topics), and education (which included projects on a variety of topics, including world culture and geography).
Our camp staff was comprised of 20 local young adult volunteers who served as counselors of the groups and as rotation leaders, 15 international volunteers (with university students from Mexico, Canada, France, Spain, and the United States), and local program directors and interns who are staff from Yspaniola. I arrived to the Batey the day before the start of camp, jumping straight into the camp adventures. Three hours within landing in the Dominican Republic, I was already getting my introductory tour from some of the local community members, hearing personal anecdotes about different parts of the community and its history, and learning the social web and construction of all the families and some advisories (such as avoid petting one of the local dogs, Suci, which stands for “sucia” (“dirty”) in Spanish. Matted-down hair buzzing with flies is a clue as to why one should avoid her…). Immediately I fell in love with the welcoming, beautiful Batey Libertad community. I also saw the great need for development and began to realize how I have taken many basic human rights and securities, such as clean water and a sturdy roof, for granted. Latrines stood next to water sources, homes needed much repair after a monsoon season, and children’s eyes lit up at the sight of their picture reflecting back on the camera screen. Needless to say, I am beyond excited to be calling this place home for the next six weeks and can’t wait to see the progress that will slowly happen during this time.
On day one we conducted a “limpieza” (“clean-up”) of the community, followed by breakfast and then organized sports in the early morning before lunch, with fútbol as the fan favorite.
On Friday of the first week, all of the children and leaders painted the community water containers (“tinacos”), shown in the second picture. Although these days differed from the other structured days of camp with rotations, the pride in giving back to one’s community and making a difference in its appearance that these children and young adults felt was invaluable.
Throughout the rest of the two weeks, camp taught the community members and me a few lessons and basic themes:
---First, these introductory weeks were both incredibly rewarding to see the smiles across each child’s face and also eye-opening to a new, completely different culture. In this camp environment, many cultural differences were intensified with the long camp hours and the large group of children. For example, I soon found that “Dominican time” sees time more as a guideline, rather than the American tight schedule. The international leaders and interns soon learned to adopt flexibility and improvisation as a motto, as camp would often start an hour after “scheduled”. In this community, there is also a large population of Haitian immigrants who only speak Creole, therefore my inability to communicate with some of the children forced me to learn to use body language, or newly-acquired Creole phrases to successfully connect with some of the children. However, smiles, laughter, dance and music are all universal. :) Conflict problems differed from past camp experiences, such as the usual hair-pulling to having children throw shirts of red fire ants on each other—conflicts and ways to discipline are very, very different, yet children’s curiosity and desire to play and love proved to be universal. Both working the camp and living in a homestay in the Batey continued to relay many cultural differences as well as luxuries and/or basic necessities that I had often taken for granted in The United States.
---Although from a leader’s perspective there often appeared to be much chaos and lack of organization, this “organized chaos” had a hidden purpose. This camp was much different compared to some summer camps at which I have worked in the States that have a concrete lunchtime of 11:30 am, 25 minute rotations, a perfectly counted number of beads for art, and a distinct hierarchy of organization, for example. With less control in the hands of the older program directors, leadership was delegated to the young adult community leaders. They had a leadership role. They were learning to lead and think critically. They had a way to tangibly make a difference, and the personal growth in each of them throughout the camp was out of this world. By the concurso, age units were a family, with a proud community teen leading as the “papa” or “mama bear”. This blessing in disguise taught my more type-A camp counselor self to let go some of the menial details to look at the benefit of the larger picture.
If I could collect all the smiles that were spread across the Batey these last two weeks, my hands would be overflowing. The children of the community considered it to be a highlight of the year, and they anxiously look forward to next year’s camp and for the reopening of the literacy center, where the local directors and interns, including myself, will be interacting with them once again. These weeks have provided so many opportunities for personal growth (even learning a few new traditional dance moves and all!), and I could not be more thankful for the personal relationships made through this camp experience and for the introduction to this incredibly loving and hardworking community that I am starting to call family and home.