Campamento

I spent a week with about 25 teenagers at camp with several of the Lutheran congregations here in Buenos Aires. It was a great experience. I went not knowing much about what we would be doing. The camp started the day my parents left, so I arrived late to camp.

When I stepped out of the car I was greeted with swarms of mosquitoes. I honestly had never seen so many mosquitoes in my life. I had bug spray and I wore long sleeves and jeans most of the week. The mosquito situation improved as the week went on, after the campground came out and fumigated and the weather cooled off. My biggest concern about the mosquitoes was Dengue fever - there are posters all over the place with information about Dengue, the symptoms, and warning people to stay away from mosquitoes.

The theme for the week was sexuality/relationships. I observed the teens here to be very much like my experience with teens back in the States when discussing this topic - same questions, comments, etc. I'm comparing with the youth I worked with at church back in Hendersonville.

The daily schedule was posted on the wall at the beginning of the week, but I think everything except meals happened 2 hours later than scheduled. The first day, I thought one of the evening activities (games) would be cut, but nope. At midnight, we started up a game. This camp was very different in structure than what I'm used to after working at a summer camp during college.

I really enjoyed getting to know the youth from my congregation better as well as meeting folks from the other congregations. I felt very welcomed and accepted by everyone. I wasn't sure how the youth would act toward me, but they were very understanding and forgiving when I didn't understand something or when I was saying something, but didn't know the Spanish word. One of my highlights of the week, for me, was playing cards (Uno, Skip-Bo, and a card game they taught me) because we laughed together, joked with each other and talked. It was a really great group of teenagers.

The biggest challenge for me that week was playing games/doing activities with the entire group. Especially games in which I had to say something in front of the entire group at random/off the top of my head (in Spanish). I am comfortable having conversations with a small group of people in Spanish. If I don't know a word, I describe it and whoever I'm speaking with figures out what I'm trying to say and tells me the word. I'm not comfortable speaking in Spanish in front of a group unless I'm reading something. I get nervous and forget most of the vocabulary I actually know. I participated anyway. Everyone was really helpful and patient.