Last week Steve was a facilitator at a youth camp for 40 kids from the eastern half of Panama. They ranged in age from 12 to 17. Each child was nominated by a Peace Corps volunteer, so they came from a wide variety of places, but mainly from rural areas. There were fifteen children from The Darien, the province which borders Colombia. Many of these were from the Embera tribe, one of the indigenous groups in Panama which have their own autonomous area called a comarca. Almost all of the children were spending their first night out of their village and away from their family. Quite a few of them had never met people from outside of their province, so they had a lot of new experiences all at once. Some of them had a great time from the beginning, and some took a while to get used to the camp, but they all made tremendous strides from the time the camp started on Monday afternoon until they went home on Friday morning.
The kids were split up into four groups, each with two facilitators. Here is the pink team with their banner which they created as a group.
There were lots of activities, ranging from yoga at 6:30 am to a tug of war on the last day.
There were several sessions on topics like self-image, self-esteem, values, goals and making decisions. Also covered were preventing STI's and HIV/AIDS.
One of the activities was to take care of an egg for 24 hours as if it were a newborn baby. They had to take it with them wherever they went. Any babies left alone were snatched by the duendes (warlocks). At the end of the 24 hours the team with the most eggs left won. Each child decorated his or her egg.
This Embera girl made a pipe cleaner cage to protect her "baby".
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| Albamilia and her egg |
Each group had to make a tower out of plastic straws and tape. The highest one won.
There were opportunities for cross-cultural exchange. Here an Embera boy decorates the arm of a boy from our school in Chepo with a design that is typical of his tribe. He has already decorated his own face.
These skirts are from the Embera tribe.
This Embera girl decorates her T shirt.
Here are some fun pictures of individual campers:
On the last night there was a talent show. Steve and Alison dressed up as the popular tipico duo Samy and Sandra.
Here is the whole group
There is a great 3 minute video on the web about the camp. It contains many of these pictures and some fun video clips.
Heather was in Panama City while Steve was at the camp. She was part of a team planning an educational leadership conference for Peace Corps volunteers in the Teaching English sector and their Panamanian counterparts. The goal is to empower the Panamanian English teachers to be leaders and to train them in more communicative teaching methods. The conference will take place towards the end of May.
That's it for this week.
Steve and Heather
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