Spring Camp

The first week of April was Spring Camp. Youth Development Volunteers work with Moroccan government staff to coordinate week long English Immersion camps. I helped out at one in Khemisset, which is about an hour from Rabat. It was a lot of fun. The kids were great, although very different than the kids I work with in my village. Many of them came from affluent families. Most were very familiar with American pop culture and wore western style clothes. Most were very excited to study English and really enjoyed learning American songs, rhyming games, and anything else I could come up with.

Every morning, I taught an intermediate English class. I had about 14 students from the ages of 12 to 17. While they would sometimes get pretty rambunctious, they would quiet down when I told them to. They loved all the camp songs I taught them, including "Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie jar" and "I'm Being Swallowed by a Boa Constrictor." They also really enjoyed the games I came up with to reinforce my lessons. After they learned fruit, vegetables, and animals (including what they say in English), we played Pictionary. They REALLY got into it. Some even cheated so that they could win! Luckily, I had a very honest boy, Souleyman, in my class who would tell me if his team or the other team cheated. They were pretty funny kids and I'm glad I got to spend a week with them.

In the afternoon, I taught "Art Club." It was a pretty funny title, since we all know I'm not an artist. Luckily, my art club involved making friendship bracelets. All those years of making bracelets and anklets during Swim Meets really helped me out. I was able to teach all the kids how to make them and my club was very popular! Some of the girls even came up to me at 2:00 a.m. the last night to get extra string so they could make more at home!

After art club, the kids played sports and then had some sort of activity run by the Moroccan staff. We were very lucky - the staff from the Dar Chebab (youth center) was AMAZING! They took care of everything and were quick to solve any problems that came up. They were great at keeping the kids entertained and had some excellent activities planned for them each night. In addition to a talent show, they had a game night where the kids had fun games to play. I think the funniest was a game where a group of five boys pretended they were driving a bus. They had to stand up when they went up a hill, lean when going around a corner, etc. One by one, the staff put a wet rag on their chair while they were standing. Luckily, the boys all took it in good fun and the kids loved it. It was pretty funny, seeing their expressions as they sat down on the rag!

Here are some more pictures from camp.

Halloween night! Sarah really got into her costume. (Its a ninja, if you can't tell.) She was hoarse the next day from all her "battle" yells. The teenage boys didn't know how to react. I have to say, I laughed a lot.

Some of the kids waiting for their afternoon snack.

Me teaching the art club how to make friendship bracelets.

Me with Rachel and John, drawing out the schedule for the week. Luckily, one of the staff was able to add the arabic translation for us!