First a BIG shout out: Thank you so much if you donated for this camp! You have helped bring a new experience to these kids’ lives that wouldn’t have been possible without your contribution. Every day I ask them, “Yaxshi vaxt kecirsen?” Are you having a good time? And they always respond with an “Ele!” Super!
Saturday June 5, 2010: First day of Training
We had asked our most responsible older students to be counselors for the camp. Our first day of training we asked them what it meant to be a leader, gave them basic methods for working with children, explained what American summer camps usually consisted of, fed them pizza and sent them on their way.
Sunday June 6, 2010: Second Day of Training
We finalized camp rules (Number 9 was Give us ice cream everyday. We had to scratch that one.), taught them basic first aid, gave them a list of situations and had them prioritize, put them in their pairs to get to know each other. Fed them ice cream and sent them on their way.
Monday June 7, 2010: First Day of Camp
In the morning, I panicked a little when only 8 kids showed up. More than thirty had signed up. But with our counselors included we had about 25 kids to play games with. We did name games, sang Boom Chick-a-Boom, went over rules and headed over to our field. We played kickball, made a flag, did a group sit, and did the human knot.
Tuesday June 8, 2010
This day we started with a competition of Over Under, where you get into groups, line up, and pass a ball alternately over your head and under your legs. Throughout the field you could hear the word “qac! Qac!” “Run! Run!” being yelled to teammates. Then we played Sharks and Minnows, a simple tag game, Cat and Mouse (which the kids renamed Tom and Jerry) and SPUD. SPUD is not really a competitive game. It is loved by American kids but we learned really quickly that non-competitiveness does not really fly with Azerbaijani youth.
Wednesday June 9, 2010
This was our American games day. We taught them baseball, which they loved, then tried football which they did not. It also might have been the heat. It was only the third day and we were reaching 100 degrees already. We couldn’t get the kids out in the heat for longer than 15 minutes at a time and had to stop for several shade and water breaks. I’d also like to add right here that I have the worst tan lines ever right now.
Thursday June 10, 2010: Carnival Day
The last day of camp for the first week! This was Carnival Day. We had intended it to be like a fair in America. We set up a bunch of different booths like a friendship bracelet making station (no summer camp is complete without friendship bracelets), origami, a pebble counting jar, bowling, throw the pine cone into the basket, and a What’s in the Box? We cut holes into boxes and I put various things into them for the kids to feel without looking such as a sliced tomato, toothpicks stuck in an eraser, a pine tree branch, and a cotton ball. Then throughout the day we had various little races like egg on a spoon race, three legged race, and flour sack race. At the end of the day everybody was wearing bracelets and went home with certificates for completing week 1.
What was great about these kids was, unlike American kids where you constantly have to provide them with something to do, if they had some down time, they would just pick up a ball and start playing volleyball together. It was so easy. They didn’t ask what was next or if we could end break. They just played. No complaints. And since we didn’t have as many kids as we had expected, we couldn’t break them up into groups and have our counselors be counselors. But regardless some of them actually took what we taught them in the training and used it. They helped along the younger kids as if they were in a group they were leading. After the first week, the ones who had only signed up for that one said, “I’m coming back for the rest of camp.”
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