Ancash has ALMA

Camp A.L.M.A. PCVs and Participants

I’ve gotten a lot of requests (and about a million emails from my dad) to update my out-of-date blog. I have been meaning to write about the completion of Ancash’s Camp A.L.M.A. which probably has been the best part of my service to date. At the beginning of May, the Ancash volunteers held a leadership camp for adolescent women in Yungay and each volunteer brought two young women from their sites. We had 3 jam-packed days of activities ranging from self-defense class to condom races to a play on gender equality. It was an incredible experience, which I have written about in detail below (maybe too much detail). Feel free to read as much or as little as you like!

Day 1- Friday
My girls and I left Huarimayo around 6:30 a.m. for our long journey to the campsite, which meant 3 hours to Huaraz and then another hour and a half to Yungay. To my amazement, the girls were there before me and told me I was late (I was at the meeting place at 6:22)! We hopped in our taxi and made it to Huaraz where we ate a quick tamal, coffee, juice breakfast. We ran to our PC hostal to pick up the supplies I had left there. The girls wanted to get shower sandals so we carried everything to the market in order to buy flip flops. Then we piled into a jam-packed combi and rode to Yungay.

We made it to the campsite about 30 minutes before the registration time, but a few volunteers were already there with their girls playing volleyball and awaiting the arrival of the other girls. Callie numbered and posted schedules on the cabins and then we sent everyone to their designated cabins. I ran to set up the registration table before the rest of the girls got there. At the registration table, all the girls got nametags, notebooks, pens and pencils, and a schedule.
At 1 p.m., most of the volunteers and the girls had arrived and we sat down to lunch. You could tell all the girls, and the volunteers, were nervous and feeling a little awkward. We had shakwi, a typical potato soup, with rice and lentils and salad. We then jumped into the introduction and a few dinamicas to get things started. We played human bingo and then divided up into our communities and made a poster about our communities. Each volunteer and their girls presented their community. It was really nice to hear the stories about where the communities’ names come from. One of Claudia’s girls even sang a huayno song about Huantar that she wrote. After the presentations, we took a group photo with all the volunteers and their girls.

Christie leads a teamwork exercise

Then we proceeded to Christie and Jason’s activities. They did a bunch of interesting activities, such as trust falls and blind-fold walks. Jason even designed a low ropes course. The girls definitely enjoyed being outside in the sun and the teamwork activities. We had a quick snack of bananas and soda crackers, then proceeded with Callie and Kaitlyn’s feminism charla. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to site on their charla but I did read the posters the girls made about the amazing characteristics women have. Afterwards, we divided the girls up by birthdays to mix things up and sat down to dinner. We had a vegetable tortilla with rice and two different kinds of mashed potatoes. Unfortunately, it wasn’t super filling and some of the girls were still hungry and the owner of the site didn’t make as much food as he was supposed to. We survived though, and moved on to Jess’ recycled art activities. The girls made awesome wallets out of milk, wine, and juice boxes. They also made picture frames with recycled magazines. We thought the girls looked exhausted, but the majority of them worked on their projects until 11 or so. We ended up not showing the movie, Planet Earth, because we thought everyone would fall asleep, including ourselves. We finally sent all the girls to bathe and go to bed but I think they would have preferred to stay up chatting all night. The awkwardness and shyness wore off really fast.

Tie-dying with the girls

Day 2- Saturday
Saturday started off with yoga with Callie and James. The girls loved it! We thought they wouldn’t want to get up so early for class, but my girls actually woke me up around 5:30. It was really awesome to see all the girls in the work room doing the different yoga positions which I’m sure were completely foreign to them until that morning. After they were sent to their rooms to bathe and get ready for the day we had a typical breakfast of bread with jam and butter, Quaker, and a hardboiled egg. We only really ate for about 20 minutes, but the other 40 we had put in the schedule for breakfast was good time for the girls to do their own personal things. It turned out that my room had flooded during breakfast so we didn’t have water at the camp most of the day while they fixed it. We also did not have hot water from that point on. Fortunately, I did get one shower, a hot shower, over the weekend.

At 9, Claudia gave a really useful vocational training charla. I got to watch the girls fill out pretend resumes and one of my girls even asked me if she could have my phone number for one of her references. After the charla, we did tie-dye! The girls went crazy for the tie-dying. Erica and I led the activity, even though neither one of us had done it since high school. Thank goodness the directions worked out and the shirts came out amazing. Erica did a great job of designing the shirts with our very own ALMA logo. While the tie-dying was going on, the guests for the career panel showed up. Since this was my activity, I had done all the arrangements with the guest speakers. Two of them ended up not showing up at all even though they said they were coming, but it ended up working out great with the 5 that did come. Our regional coordinator Nelly, a psychologist from Caraz, a social worker from Marcara, an agronomist from Sihuas, and a teacher from Mancos came. We had the girls pretend they were newspaper reporters and in 5 different groups, the girls interviewed one of the professionals. Then the girls had to present the professional and the professional filled in any missing information. As I walked around during the interviews, there was a lot of great discussion going on. This is what I wanted as opposed to the girls falling asleep during powerpoint presentations. This activity lasted about an hour and a half and then we moved on to lunch. At lunch, the professionals sat at each of the 5 big tables and the girls had to go to one of those tables. Then the volunteers filled in. We ate vegetable soup, quinoa, rice and salad.

Condom Race

For an hour after lunch, Emily worked with the girls on friendship bracelets. They loved it so much they didn’t want to stop when it was time for Suni’s famous sex talk. Dr. Suni, our Peace Corps doctor, did an incredible sexual education talk with the girls. In an area where sex is hardly discussed in a health/educational manner, it is hard to even broach the subject. We were all a little afraid about what the girls were going to think- if they were going to be embarrassed, frightened, shocked, etc. It ended up being one of the biggest successes of the weekend. We had made a secret question box during lunch so the girls could privately ask questions which turned out to be a fantastic idea. The girls got a lot of discussion going with their questions and Suni answered all of them in a professional, delicate, easy-to-understand manner. She even got the girls up and going with a condom race. All but one girl participated in the race, which consisted of two teams of 16 girls and each girl had to run across the yard to a dildo, put a condom on it, take the condom off, and run back. It was absolutely amazing. The girls were grossed out by the lubricant, but at least they got to see and touch a condom for the first time. At the end of Suni’s talk and powerpoint presentation (complete with graphic photos of all the common STDs), she gave away a pin she got from her travels in South Africa, a key chain from Panama, and Eat, Pray, Love written in English. She encouraged the girls to go and study and become the engineers, doctors, English teachers they want to be. It brought us all to the verge of tears. Suni is such a great doctor and motivator and there is no one else who could have done that sexual education talk. It was such a great opportunity for the girls to open up and ask the questions that no one asks in their communities and perhaps no one knows the answers. Suni clarified a lot of myths for the girls, which is definitely going to be a really positive thing that the girls take away from the camp.

After the talk, the girls had dance class with Claudia. I watched from outside as Claudia and Brian taught the girls salsa, meringue, cumbia, and danced huayno. It was adorable to watch. The girls took a quick break to wash up then went to dinner. Kaitlyn had written adjectives on each table and filled a box with tiny papers with the adjectives. Each girl took an adjective and sat at that table where the dinner discussion was centered around that adjective. For example, I picked creative, and at my table we talked about how the girls are creative at school and how we as volunteers are creative at our jobs. It was interesting to hear what the girls are already doing in their schools to be creative- marches, dances, writing songs. It was an excellent idea to have a guideline for dinner discussion. Dinner was spaghetti with red sauce, garlic bread, and fruit salad. Again, the quantity was not quite enough for the girls and many wanted more (including myself). The quantity of food would need to be upped for the next camp.

Cast of Gringos Saludables

After dinner, Colleen and Kaitlyn led a talk on gender equality. Then, another major highlight of the camp took place- the Gringos Saludables play. We used a script based on a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Brian was the director and he and the entire cast did such an amazing job. It was hysterical! The girls laughed the entire time, and so did I. I think it was my favorite part of the weekend. After the play, we had a discussion around the bonfire that Callie and Jason built about gender equality. We introduced the girls to smores and they thoroughly enjoyed them. There was lots of singing too- the girls sang huaynos, Brian did an Elton John solo, and the volunteers did a rendition of My Heart Will Go On, the Peruvian National Anthem, and the U.S. National Anthem. It was a good time by all. We then retired for the night.

Day 3- Sunday
The final day of ALMA started with an awesome personal defense class led by Colleen and assisted by Brian. The girls were amazed by Colleen’s martial arts skills, as was I. Later a lot of them asked her about the moves. We let the girls change for breakfast, then we all ate together in the comedor. We ended up changing the schedule at the last minute because one of the guest speakers, Elsa, a psychologist from Caraz, gave a diversity talk with Christie. They presented one of the girls that Christie brought, Yessenia, a girl with special needs, and talked about what it means to have special needs. It started a really great discussion with the girls and was one of the most interesting talks I was able to sit in on. I’m really glad we ended up changing the theater games we had planned for this talk.

Afterwards, Kaitlyn led a volunteerism charla and got the girls brainstorming what they can do in their communities when they get back after ALMA. We had a popcorn and orange snack break which was delicious but messy. We then gave the girls about 45 minutes to fill out an evaluation, pack, get their tie-dye t-shirts, finish art projects, and exchange emails. The volunteers did some clean up during this time, which was easy because nothing was really dirty. We ate a final lunch together with our own girls, lentil soup and locro de zapallo, and then did a clausura ceremony. We gave each girl a certificate and the group photo we took at the beginning of camp. It was really cute to see everyone in their tie-dye awarding their girls their certificates. I think I butchered the pronunciation of their names, but it makes up for all the times I get called Sharon in site. We then ate cake together and got ready to leave. We probably should have left some time for yearbook-type signing because at the last minute the girls were asking us to sign their notebooks and write them advice. It was super sweet and made me feel really proud of what we had put together. Then my girls and I made the long trek back to Huarimayo and San Marcos. We left at 2 and got home around 7:30.

Christie and Yessenia

Everything turned out great and better than we had even planned. Thanks to the creativity and ingenuity of the volunteers, any problem that arose was resolved and new ideas were thrown in at the last minute to improve what was already planned. I couldn’t have asked for a better Camp ALMA and I love my Ancash PCVs for that. It was the first time any of us has participated in Camp ALMA and the first one that Ancash has had since 2006. We had a really good post-camp discussion and what could be improved for next time. Future ALMA Ancash camps are definitely going to be great. Thanks to all who donated to our project and for making our Camp ALMA a huge success.

The Camp Counselors