G.O.L.D. Camp

Jess writes:

As I look back at our recent blogs, I realize that I actually missed a pretty great two-weekend activity prior to leaving for our visit to the States: The 2010 Peer Education Camp. Since we were super caught up in pre-visit plans and spent our first couple return weeks just laying around missing AC and flush toilets, I never did get around to mentioning our time at the so-called “GOLD Camp”. So here goes…

Thembalethu hosts a program for 14-16 year old students who are nominated by their fellow learners to be “peer educators.” This program, sponsored by the South-African based G.O.L.D. (Generation Of Leaders Discovered) Program emphasizes the importance of leadership, smart decision making, and the importance of transferring knowledge from student to student. Each year, Thembalethu puts on a two-weekend camp for its newest Junior Peer Educators (JPEs – the new “nominees”) to learn about life orientation, lesson plans, and being role models. As the newest volunteer additions to Thembalethu, Adam and I (as well as Heleen, a short-term Dutch volunteer) were invited to join and facilitate the activities. In short, we had three primary roles:

1) “Guest Star Judges” – A name generously given by the Peer Education Coordinator (and Thembalethu’s Deputy CEO), Cleopas, to us. Basically, we were responsible for awarding points to the ‘teams’ of JPEs based on G.O.L.D. goals (i.e., leadership, teamwork, creativity, etc.) and, most importantly, for their presentations at the weekend-end Talent Show.

2) “Ask The Volunteers” – A mid-day lesson brake based on a make-shift question box designed to allow the JPEs to ask any questions they wished of the volunteers (within reason, of course) about ourselves, our countries, etc.

3) “The Obstacle Course” – To supervise the afternoon, team-challenge obstacle course and to award winners, as well as additional points based on the aforementioned G.O.L.D. goals.

Needless to say, this was a pretty easy job – with all the perks of getting to oversee the “fun” activities of the weekend camp!! But specifically, each of our functions had its own highlights:

For example, being the “Guest Star Judges” meant that all the teams were always in a constant competition against one another to win over our attention… So whenever a session started and we entered the room, each team would begin to sing, dance and try to outshine their counter-teams. This usually ended in a completely chaotic scene of roaring song, crazy dance, thunderous stomping, and stupendous table thumping, but it still made us laugh every time at the sheer amount of enthusiasm displayed!! (And of course we always awarded points!)

The “Ask The Volunteers” responsibility was always the most interesting, since many of the questions we were asked – while similar each weekend – each had their own unique, and quirky spins. For example, the most common question pertained to what it was like to live in the United States. However, it was always asked in some great manner resembling, “What is it meant to live in the US where you live where you are from?” And usually, this was followed with something similar to, “And please do you know Mr. Obama or Beyonce?” Ha! I loved these ones!! Another particularly popular topic was the cost of flying to the United States from South Africa, or vice versa, and the cost of other amenities such as cars, houses, school, etc. And in general, there was always a random smattering of completely off-topic and non-question related additions, such as, “I love you! You are so fun! I can go to the US with you now?” We usually got hugs from a lot of those same learners as well – so adorable!

And finally, our role as supervisors of “The Obstacle Course” was perhaps the best of all. Not only did we get to watch all the kids attempt a fairly challenging course – with obstacles ranging from the basic monkey bars and balance beams to cargo nets and cross-tie rope walks – but we also got to witness many of them at their best, and sometimes their worst, but always trying to work together. On so many occasions over those two weekends, while watching all eight of the JPE teams compete, there were times when we were so completely excited when a team would figure out a trick to help eachother out or finally, finally, after many tries, manage to get all of their team members over an obstacle. Of course we yelled and cheered for them while they went through the course, but I feel like more often than not, it was those little thoughts to myself – those, “Yes, there you go, come on, you’re almost there…!” – that were the greatest of all. And sure… it might sound mushy, but it was truly great to see those kids work together to get something done!

And to top it all off, each weekend ended with a presentation by each team that they had practiced for the previous two days. The teams were told to make it fun, creative, and inspiring and they really did a great job at putting together some awesome creations! Most involved some form of song, dance, and skit – each with their own style, but many with very entertaining dance moves and surprisingly funny jokes in broken English! But one group in particular, the “Better Lifestyle Team”, put forth the best presentation of all: beginning with a ‘stomp’ routine that turned into a dance routine, transitioning to short series of teamwork challenges (think circular “trust falls” – pretty impressive!), and ending with few songs that culminated in a soft background hum while a few of the members stepped forward to do spoken word about why the youth of this country are so important and about how South Africa has the potential to move away from its past and more forward to a better future. Yeah… I won’t try to hide the fact that the skit performed by that team was pretty incredible.

So all in all, the weekends we spent with the JPEs at the 2010 Peer Education Camp were truly great – a fun way to meet the Peer Education learners, spend more time with Thembalethu staff, and perhaps, for the first real, tangible time, to feel like something we were doing was actually making an immediate impact on someone’s life. I remember telling my parents that during the camps I had a couple of those “warm and fuzzy Peace Corps feelings” while hanging out with a lot of those kids – to see how happy they were to eat tons of really good food, to stay up late in their huge bunk beds, to play all afternoon on a super cool obstacle course, and to take pride in their new roles as leaders – to see them not only have a good time, but to step up to a new challenge… and to be a part of that. It was a great two weekends!