Tuesday, June 17, 2014

June is karan

Karan is the Amharic word for crazy, and I can't think of anything better to use to describe this month.

The first weekend was my local Camp GLOW. It's a PC worldwide activity that stands for Girls Leading Our World and is a program that focuses on teaching life skills.  For Huruta, I really specialize it and use it as a university prep camp. Last year I invited 20 girls, but this year it got expanded to 35 campers and included boys and girls. So GLOW stood for Guiding the Leaders of Our World.

It was a hectic three days (that unexpectedly turned into four with a student program that took hours to get started) that included human knots, bus races down dirt roads, a field trip, and lots of nervous giggling. But the last is to be expected when you introduce 12th graders to condoms and pull out penile models.

I worked with a local counterpart, but also had other help with individual sessions. A PCV from another town to teach safe sex to the boys and a female health office to assist me. Recent grads who work for the government to explain their time in university.  We taught them how to set goals, resist peer pressure, resolve group conflict, how to stay healthy, and did a lot of leadership and communication exercises. Originally we were going to visit a university to give the students an idea what to expect when they start in the Fall, but plans had to change and instead we visited a farm in Assella that focuses on sustainable farming. If I wasn't leaving so soon, I'd try to make one of the solar ovens they have.

It was great fun, and then this past weekend I went up to Bekoji for a TOT (training of trainers) for a massive, week long camp that I'm going to do with several other volunteers.  Schedule planning, rule making, checking out the facility.  This camp will also be June, starting the 28th, but with a younger target than my own. 8th graders, and all girls.

I'm looking forward to it, I loved doing the big camp last year. Camps in general are great, I feel like I'm teaching skills that are needed by everyone and for everything, not just something specific like tests or preparing Ethiopians for the rare encounters they'd have with English speakers.


And then, back to Huruta on July 4th and then leaving it 20 days later!  

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