27 Months in Perú: ¡Camp VALOR es lo mejor!

As I posted earlier in April and May, the first weekend of June this year was our Camp VALOR, an all-boys leadership camp held by Peace Corps volunteers in each individual department. Many people close to me (and even just fans of my blog) donated to Camp VALOR, and I want you to know your contribution made a huge impact on our camp! And, due to some other volunteers not being able to make it to camp, I was allowed to bring four boys, where as each volunteer usually brings only two! I was so excited for the opportunity to bring more boys, and very excited about the program for the camp.

I chose the boys based off my own observations and suggestions from my host mom (a teacher at the high school). We selected boys who were good and respectful students and who hadn’t had opportunities to be involved with out-of-school activities/leadership events. They were a little shy, and probably got passed over time and time again for more vocal and outgoing boys who had proven themselves leaders. You should’ve seen their faces when I told them I wanted to bring them to the camp. Just like the girls I brought to Camp ALMA, many had never stayed the night away from their family, or even away from their house. They were beside themselves. And actually, it caused quite a bit of commotion in the school. Word spread like wildfire that I invited certain boys to an overnight leadership camp, and soon I was approached by just about every boy that had the guts to come talk to me.

“Amanda, I heard you’re taking Alex to a camp.”

“Yes, I am.”

This would be followed by them just staring at me. I’m sure they just wanted to opportunity to pasear and goof off, but I invited the kids to my health promoters group if they were so interested in getting involved (and that actually worked for some of them!).

Every camp has a theme that we focus on, and this year it was Camp VALOR the Iron Man edition. One of our 16er health volunteers created an “Iron Man/Iron Woman” program in her site where adolescents challenged themselves with exercise and running/hiking, learned about healthy lifestyles and HIV/AIDS prevention, participated in vocational orientation lessons and read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and also had an element of historical education and literature as they read the Diary of Anne Frank. She had a lot of success with her program in her site, so she proposed to have our Camp VALOR work along this same theme.

Then, a business volunteer and fellow 17er found an NGO who owned a farm and worked with organic farming that would allow for us to have the camp there, and all we had to pay for were our meals in exchange for the boys to help with the work on the farm as they learned about healthier farming practices. This was a great trade-off, as the majority of families in our region work on farms.

I was part of the T-shirt committee, so I played around with a couple different designs to represent all that is part of being an Iron Man before I was asked to incorporate The Iron Man into the design, at which point I came up with this:

Camp VALOR Iron Man shield drawn by yours truly, Amanda Rodgers

And from these beginnings we had one of my favorite and most rewarding events in service!

At the camp we had teenage boys representing a variety of towns in Lambayeque (all from volunteers sites) and after a short meet and greet, they were all split into different teams, separating them from friends and volunteers from their site. For a second camp in a row Zack and I were team leaders together and we were team morado (purple), and there were six teams in total representing different colors.

The camp was a complete success, as the boys participated in different activities to promote the lifestyle of a true Iron Man, which we described as being physically and spiritually healthy, studious, intelligent, respectful, tolerant, caring for the environment, honest, a good listener, hard working, loyal, respectful of women, and responsive to the needs of their community. In other words, a well-rounded, successful individual who did not subscribe to machismo or bigotry.

Some activities the kids participated in over the three-days:

Career assessment exams/Career fair with Peruvian men invited from different volunteers’ sites.
How to make a solar oven and how it works
The nutritious power of sweet potatoes and yams (grown at the farm) and different ways to utilize them in cooking and baking.
Arts and crafts/painting small figurines.
Two-day futbol (soccer) tournament amongst all the teams. This was actually kind of funny, because Zack and I didn’t play soccer growing up, but we had to coach our team. They ended up doing pretty good! And, as you can imagine, the volunteers probably got more competitive than the kids did. Can you say, angry soccer parents?
Presentation on Sex and Gender/Gender equality
Round Robin sessions on goal setting, pro-active lifestyles, team building, empathy, and finding your ideal partner. Britt, a health 16er, and I were in charge of the last session, which we dubbed “The Love Station.” You would be proud of those teenage boys sharing their thoughts on love and friendship and finding the right person.
Organic farming/ composting/ recycling
Our PCMO came to talk to the boys about Sex, STD’s, Abstinence, Fidelity, and the volunteers held the infamous Condom Race.
Campfire with s’mores and scary stories (a very U.S. American tradition we introduced to them), one of my personal favorites.

It was a packed schedule, but it was a lot of fun! Each team competed for points through the futbol tournament as well as with behavior at each session and during meals. They were also able to enjoy a short play each night, Cuerpo de Pasion, a telanovela skit warning viewers of the travesties and consequences of unprotected sex.

By the time the camp was done all of the boys were old chums, and my shy boys weren’t so shy anymore. They talked and talked the entire way home about all the things they had done, the people they’d met, and the more “manly” boy I had brought said, “I got so used to everyone and everything so quickly, it made me want to cry to leave.”

I think you call that Success.

Here are some pictures from camp. I still didn't have a camera yet, so these are all from other volunteers. Thanks Kim and Jade, as I took the liberty to steal these off your facebooks.