This is a report from Camp Sizanani (Zulu for "help each other") after our second South African camp, our first for girls. It was for 150 girls and was for 13 days ending on April 8.
The big excitement for me was finally being at a girls camp. My camping career has been with boys exclusively, as my daughter Cathy still reminds me, with a gentle edge in her tone.
Of course, there were other unknown factors, too; such as whether girls from the extremely male-dominated South African society would respond to a camp experience and whether we could find strong South African women counselors to be good role models in empowering the girls.
We changed the program and the format from the January camp. Most visibly, we increased our camper group from 100 to 150. To manage this leap, we changed sites moving to a particularly beautiful spot in the Magaliesburg Mountain range, about 20 minutes from our original site.
Called "The Retreat," it is superbly located on 1000 acres and includes a game reserve for zebras, various bucks, and baboons, rolling hills, nice accommodations, good food, and, most important, a managing family, the Hutchinsons, and a food and maintenance staff, that is helpful and dedicated to what we are doing. What a treat to work with such people!
We expanded the Life Skills program. Last camp, we had a wonderful man who worked with youth at our partner organization, HIVSA. He would meet each day with each of the six groups of 16 or so for discussions.
This time we had six instructors who met with the girls in two groups of 14. Jointly headed by Tomeka, a former Peace Corps Volunteer from Kenya , and Priscilla and Hadi, two HIVSA counselors, they discussed dating, emotional and physical abuse, gender roles in South African society, HIV/AIDS, sexuality, and opportunistic diseases associated with HIV. With the use of flip charts, role playing, and lively small group discussions, the girls were electrified by the new knowledge and by the possibility of having choices in their lives.
We added Drumming and Dancing as a way for the girls to express themselves more creatively in the realm of performing arts. To that end, we hired three men (the two women who were part of their group had to decline at the last minute) whose abilities were evident from the bus ride to staff training.
Before the bus was out of Johannesburg , the staff, most of whom knew one other person at most, were literally dancing in the aisle to the beat of captivating, pleasingly compelling, transformational music. It was so immediate and present that even those of us who hadn't grown up with an appreciation for the melody of the drum, were going in the aisle for a turn.
This helped set the tone for intimacy and sharing that was further brought out in staff training.
Before virtually every training session there was drumming and dancing in the training room. One evening, I arrived to see two of the drummers dancing at a break dance clip, with acrobatics and great precision and passion. It was the best of flamenco combined with Lord of the Dance, but, truly, it was unique and defies any metaphor. They went on for about 20 minutes and then started teaching those interested in how to do some of the steps. Very interesting and very considerate of them.
One drummer, Lebo, confessed that he has a speaking problem and that he never learned to speak till he was 7 years old. It takes him a while to get thoughts translated into words. I told him it wasn't terribly important, as his thoughts seemed well-expressed by his drumming, but it might be a breakthrough for him to get up and speak those sentiments to the group. Much to his credit, he did and it was a wonderful moment as the group also appreciated the honor of being brought in on his secret.
I realized as training went on that the pioneering energy of the first camp was unique and could not be repeated. It also made me realize how quickly one takes success for granted.
Of course, for the many new staff it was a terrifically exciting time. Of the 36 staff, 28 were new. Of those 28, 8 were Americans, including Bev, the former longtime Camp Executive for Fresh Air Fund, who was in charge of staff training and was Program Director for the 13 days of camp. She never lost her smile or her patience--a truly remarkable woman.
On the last day of staff training (Friday) I went to Johannesburg to be there the next day both for the registration of campers at the bus and to see the after camp program of Kids Clubs in action. As we allow the children only one session at camp, we want to continue our involvement with them through biweekly clubs that meet on Saturdays for about 3 hours. It was a hot day, but there were close to 50 boys who showed up to play basketball, soccer, talk about Life Skills, plan a theatrical event, and have a snack, which, I was reminded, might have been their only meal of the day. They seemed rather unsurprised to see me, but acknowledged me with hugs and high fives. I was excited to see this part of the program in action.
Arrival of the campers went relatively smoothly. We ended up with 147 girls arriving at camp (we had hoped for 150), but they were not the 147 whose names we had. In our haste to place them, we failed to notice that a couple of 10 year olds were inadvertently placed with 12 year olds and a couple of changes in bunks was made the next morning. It was both gratifying and upsetting to see that strong allegiances had already been made. The tears and upset that followed was only too reminiscent of camp in the US .
That was better than the evening of the second day when the Child Welfare Society brought 15 girls to drop off. I was pleased at my diplomacy in convincing the 5 Board members who accompanied them that it would be in the girls' best interest to wait till the next camp in July when they could be there from the beginning and not feel they were causing bunks to change or otherwise starting on the outside.
The girls were wonderfully enthusiastic. They were like sponges in their quest for learning and responded well to every new activity. Once again, swimming, after an initial fear of the water, was extremely popular. We had some life jackets which proved quite reassuring to the largely non-swimmer group. Once they saw they would be supported by the jackets, they loved it, squealing with joy as they made their way across the pool.
The girls seemed to speak better English than the boys and also seemed to have more clothes. Their friendly demeanor and ease of creating fast friendships was remarkable and a tribute, I thought, to the superb counselor staff.
A few days into camp, the 15 year olds started squabbling. Some of the 13 year olds argued about which girls had the right to teach a dance from home. Some of the staff had to learn what it took to be a responsible bunk counselor, and especially a co-counselor, so the more responsible one wasn't left with all the work. After all, we didn't have live-in co-counselors in January.
The next day, the girls had their haloes straightened out and were back to being wonderful. They were neat, cooperative and a lot of fun. They sing and cheer; they laugh and share; they squeal and giggle.
The session had its share of pathos, too. The stories of the girls were often heartbreaking. We only had 9 girls who were known to be HIV positive. I stress "known" because so little testing is done of children until they become symptomatic for fear of stigmatization of the child and the family if the results are positive.
One of the 15 year olds, who was HIV-positive, was raped by her HIV-positive father as a young girl. (There is a myth that a way to get rid of HIV is to have sex with a virgin.) He has since disappeared and the mother died of AIDS. The girl was taken in by her aunt who treats her worse than a servant, more like a slave. People were looking into a way to prevent the girl from returning to the aunt.
While this was not typical, it was not the only story like it. When things were going too normally and it seemed as though we were just running a "normal" camp, it helped to bring these stories front and center to keep our perspective on what we were providing.
The progress of the girls was enormous and extensive. Swimming and Life Skills were the most obvious because the distance to be covered was the greatest, but the others were outstanding, too.
In Nature, they planted seeds, dug a water catchment basin, strung out different foods to see what animals or birds would eat them, made sachets out of rosemary and lavender, created leaf prints and colored them, and taught the girls how to make a cooking fire and how to make that all important camping food of 'smores (marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers).
Arts & Crafts included a wall of colorful letters written to friends and family that will go home with the girls. They have also been painting the representation of what their group is called, e.g., Antelopes, Bees, Cheetahs, Dolphins, Eagles, Fancy Star Girls, etc. They made bracelets and necklaces out of various things, with the most popular being made of straws. The staff truly knew how to make something lovely out of nothing. The girls also made picture frames for their poetry, face masks, maps of their home area, bed identification tags to put on their beds here and at home, and other paintings.
Mid-session (after one week) we had a special day of "Olympics," horseback rides, talent night rehearsal and games. We also had a "poikey koss," an Afrikaans stew, where every bunk had its own black pot and a bunch of ingredients to make a meal. There was meat, onions, carrots, potatoes, tomato paste, and a few other things. The results were amazingly different for each bunk and everyone had fun preparing it and doing the cooking. It took about 2 hours to create and cook and was consumed with gusto.
The horseback rides were interesting. Most girls had never been on a horse and were pretty scared, but very few elected not to ride. It must have seemed very scary as there were four full-size horses. The girls were quite thrilled by the time they dismounted, acting as if they had been riding for years.
Visiting Day was the same day as Olympics. The bus with the parents was delayed in getting started because the driver was afraid to go into Kliptown (the squatter area where about 30% of our children live) and when we finally got parents to go in from the bus, the Kliptown parents used excuses that they weren't ready yet and no one came.
In any event, the bus was full and some people ended up driving their cars because they could fit no one else on.
All of this was good news and bad news. The girls loved having the visitors; the place got moderately trashed and the men, of whom there were about 20 (none came to our first camp's visiting day--only women), drank quite a bit both on the bus and when they were at camp. Nobody got obnoxious, but several people were observed going into one of the rooms and a counselor's cell phone that had been charging was taken. We're working on recovering it. (A problem when you have electricity in the bunks!)
The day was nice. Lots of happy parents and campers, but the ones who were not visited were quite upset and many of the ones who were visited showed some homesickness after the parents left and into the next day. We are thinking of not having Parents Visiting Day and inviting them instead to the Kids Club so they can see what goes on and be closer to home.
The girls had talent night and much of the singing was spectacular. Their harmonies are incredible. I never get tired of listening to them.
I had forgot to thank the girls at breakfast for the great talent displayed the night before and I went around to each table to thank them. You would have thought I had given them the winning ticket to the lottery. They beamed and then clapped for me. At each table, the same pattern was followed.
While we haven't yet seen the fruits of it, we were covered by the Johannesburg Star, the largest paper in South Africa , and BBC-TV and radio. The BBC crew came around 9:30 and stayed till around 5:00 pm . We are hoping for an interesting story from them. They are focusing on two girls, one of whom they visited in her home before camp. They hope to visit the other after camp. They will choose one to follow in their story.
Despite having loved the girls, I was somewhat overwhelmed by having so many for so short a time. I wasn't able to learn enough names to feel as though I was an intimate part of their camp life. There are many with whom I have a friendly hug or high five relationship and they probably don't see me as removed: but I do. In June, I will probably return only for the training piece, and only for that because we will probably have a new person coming and I'd like to help her out. We will try to have the local staff do more of the programming and administrative part of running camp. I will spend the time looking into new sites for future camps starting next year. As the new head of HIVSA is a woman from Limpopo Province and HIVSA has a bunch of new health clinics in this very rural area, we thought it would be interesting to face the challenge of a camp with a rural population, where language and diversity are real issues, but HIV/AIDS is still a big problem.
The last two days of camp had some big thunderstorms. Luckily we were able to get in a nature walk up to the hills in the nature/game reserve, but we had our final campfire canceled due to wetness. It was really OK, because we had just had a talent show in the afternoon. The whole camp participated and it was wonderfully spirited and well-done. Good make-up and the limited props and costumes we have were used well.
We went to dinner from the talent show, having been met with a heavy thunderstorm at the end of the show, The girls picked up the cue and had some singing and games that they organized. Very orderly and very spirited.
At dinner, we recognized the kitchen crew and gave some instructions for the final day. Well, the dam burst and everyone went around hugging and crying and saying good-bye as though we were leaving right after the meal.
The last day was a bit anticlimactic, but the feelings were once again evident. Although the buses left by 9:45 , once they arrived, the girls realized that the end was near and lots of tears flowed again.
We were told by one of the counselors on the bus who came back for the staff evaluation sessions and party that the girls were crying all the way home and, only when they were near Soweto , did they start to sing.
It was lonely and very surreal at camp without the campers. The suddenness and horrible finality of the end of camp leaves one wondering whether it ever occurred. I remember now why we have Post Camp at Winnebago, It's sad to have a sudden, giant void.
It was agreed that the camp was great for the girls and all were strong on the concept and the way in which it was carried out. Next time it should be even smoother.
Some contributions that were different: Peter Martin, working for the Minnesota Twins, got them to give baseball caps from various teams and water bottles to the children; the Reston Regional Library contributed more children's books than I could carry with me on one trip to stock our fledgling, but very popular, library; Ellen, Bonnie, Lynn and Jenny, brought bathing suits, shampoos, and soaps enough so all the girls could be outfitted and kept clean; and Bev who brought a variety of board games. There were also several ex-Winnebago campers from the U.S. who gave paper route, bar mitzvah funds, or other savings just to be involved. My wonderful law school roommate, Bill Penick, and his wife, Julie, gave beyond generosity.
The fact is, we needed every dollar that any of you gave. We spent it all on the program. So anyone who gave, know that your contribution was well-used and that we could not have had the camp without you. We truly used all the money on the bare necessities of having camp. Fortunately, a couple of vendors are waiting for final payment of some debts, but they are confident, as am I, that it will come.
If any of you have ideas for creative fundraising (Ken Propp mentioned that there are organizations that will take your old car and arrange for a sale with funds to go to a charity of your choice), please let us know. If not, we will happily accept any old-fashioned gifts of checks (make payable to "WorldCamps") or credit cards (Visa, MasterCard or Discover).
We have been honored to be accepted to present a poster exhibit at the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok in July. 15,000 people working in HIV/AIDS worldwide will be in attendance.
But, please, this is when we need your help. We have two camps of 12 days each, one for boys and one for girls, this summer. The cost of one camper at camp for two weeks is $500. We need $150,000 to pay for the two camps. We hope to be in the Foundation pipelines by the end of the year, but for now we still need immediate support for what is turning out to be a wonderful project.
Thanks for your interest. Any assistance you can provide will be most appreciated.
