Summer Camp Week 2: ABLE

The camp at which we held ABLE, Sahil Istrahat Merkezi (Sahil Rest Center), sits on the shore of a large lake, with several rowboats which customers can rent for several hours. Across the way from the camp is a beach area and further around, a large house, rumored to belong to the president or some other high government official. At night, the entire shore in front of the home would light up.

We arrived around noon, and the boys were sorted into their teams, and their rooms. We mixed the boys up so they were forced to interact with boys from different rayons. After we ate and got settled, the boys had to work together to choose a team leader, name, cheer, and symbol. We ended up with the Red Dragons, White Lightning, the 12 Winners, and Fireland Gang. During all of this, I and another PCV, Drew, were hard at work setting up a scavenger hunt that would lead the kids around the camp and then to the bonfire for the evening. At the bonfire, all the kids wrote something they didn’t think they could do, and then threw it in the fire. Afterwards, the musically inclined PCVs busted out the guitars for some rockin’.

The next day was my baby, the challenge course. I had worked for a few summers at a summer camp that specialized in outdoor activities and team building. The highlight was always the challenge rope course, and when I found out that ABLE’s challenge course guy had left, I jumped at the chance. To prepare for the course, I scoured my old camp handbook for potential activities. We ended up with 10 activities including trust falls, a Spider’s Web, Nuclear Waste (renamed Caspian Clean-up), the human knot, and a Lava Walk, among others. A PCV manned every station, enabling me to float around, running interference, supporting and taking pictures.

One of the highlights, for campers and counselors alike, was going camping. Each night we took a group of 16 boys out to a field near the camp, taught them how to set up tents, and built a campfire, for s’mores, and more importantly for the camping experience, scary stories. The s’mores went over well, the stories decidedly less so. By the end the boys had talked to each other enough so they knew it was coming, but every night the boys still jumped several feet in the air when the “murderer” came stumbling out of the dark at the end of the story.

Another highlight was swimming. Some of the boys were nervous, having never learned to swim, but the swim area we set up was shallow, and not an issue in the end. This was truly a return to summer life for me. There are times during the school year, when I am trying to plan conversation clubs that the kids will actually learn from when I don’t feel particularly qualified to be here. But at this camp, particularly when running the challenge course and when lifeguarding, that I felt truly comfortable. Lifeguarding, and the particular persona that the job entails, came back to me in a flash. There truly is power in that whistle.

Every day we kept the kids busy. If the kid isn’t tired for a week afterwards, the camp’s not doing its job. Every morning started with morning exercises—wheelbarrow races and stretching and the like, and then, for the boys that hadn’t followed the rules, punishment: push ups, sprints, and other pain-inducing exercises administered by Jake, who seemed to be having almost too much fun with it. We had local guest speakers come in every day, talking on such topics as project management, social engagement, human rights, gender, conflict management. The FLEX/UGrad alumni who served as camp counselors and translators each ran sessions on volunteerism, community, teamwork and leadership. On top of that, we played football (American), ultimate Frisbee, and capture the flag. The final full day was marked by a counselors vs. campers game. In short, they got the camp experience, and then some.

Switching it up a little bit was a visit on the last day by the new Peace Corps Country Director, and the US Ambassador. Both were welcomed happily, and the Ambassador spoke well to the boys, and challenged them to use what they had learned and to be open minded as they move into the future.

One of the greatest parts of the camp was working with the Azeri FLEX/UGrad alumni. These students are all people who spent a year or more in the US studying at an American high school or college, and have impeccable English. More importantly, they really get it. That ambiguous, hard to grasp “it,” which, as much as we preach certain ideas to our students, remain decidedly theoretical. But these students have seen those ideas which are so simple to us: creative, critical thinking, volunteerism, teamwork and fair leadership. They are more important than us, and the more students in Azerbaijan like them, the better work we’re doing. The more work they take on, and the less we’re involved, the better. The strange realization is that the sign that we’re doing a good job is that we do less work. In requiring the students to plan and complete a community project upon their return from camp, they’re going in the right direction. It just takes baby steps.