There and Back Again

After spending 15 and a half months in Tonga, with a 10 day sojourn to Asia as my sole time spent out of the country, I was finally coming home to the US. As I stepped onto the first of several flights, numerous thoughts flashed through my head – was I ready, had I changed, will other people have changed, what will it feel like?

I soon happily discovered, within minutes of landing in the San Francisco airport, that culture shock is overrated. I was back. I was home. When I returned to Florida and saw all of my family and friends, it was as if I had never left. If anything, Tonga felt like a world away, as if I had dreamt the last 15 months and that the Peace Corps had happened to someone else. Have I really been gone for so long? It sure didn’t feel that way.

My time in the US was amazing. I spent two weeks in Florida spending time with my family, hanging out with friends, eating all the food I had dreamt about for the last year, especially Chinese food, going to the movies, and studied and took the GMAT. It was an incredible time, and I was continually blown away by the support I was given by everyone back home and the impressiveness of the questions I was asked. It was truly a meaningful homecoming.

I spent the last ten days in New York City, meeting up with all my best friends from college, having an incredible New Years Eve, and seeing family that wasn’t in Florida. One of my biggest fears before leaving for Tonga and joining the Peace Corps was losing touch with the people that I cared most about, but it has been extremely rewarding to see that in a world where you can video chat with someone from thousands of miles away, that even if you haven’t spoken in over a year you can still pick up just where you had left off.

Volunteers are often warned that returning to America during your service can have two effects; it can reenergize you or it can make you more homesick and wish for your time to end. I am absolutely in the former camp. Coming home was the perfect experience, and though I was sad to leave everyone behind, I was excited to return to Tonga and the home that I have made for myself here. I still feel that I have unfinished business to attend to over these next 9 months.

When I returned to Tonga, I had a few days to kill before our mandatory PC training, so my host brother Sione and I hopped on what is claimed to be the world’s shortest flight – only ten minutes! – to make the 60 km trip to the nearby island of ‘Eua to see Sione’s sister and my host sister Kalo. Kalo is the only doctor on the entire island and we stayed in her house across the street from the hospital. My first act upon arriving, after already having given my host mom Faiana presents of pictures and picture frames, and Sione the slippers he had requested, was to bring out the gift that Kalo had asked for from America – two bottles of tequila.

The first few days we wandered around, watched a lot of movies on Kalo’s computer, and attended two church feasts. On the last day, Friday, Kalo took the day off from work and we journeyed around the entire island. Before I get in to where we went, I first have to mention some interesting facts about ‘Eua. Though it is only 60 km from the main island of Tongatapu, ‘Eua is by far the most unique of all Tonga’s island groups. While the rest of Tonga was formed 10 million years ago, ‘Eua was formed over 40 million years ago and is therefore completely different. Its topography is almost mountainous, it is much cooler than the rest of Tonga, and it is the only island that remains mostly natural forested. Walking around ‘Eua it’s hard to believe you are still in Tonga, as you drive under pine trees and listen to the chirping of the birds flying by. Only a few thousand people live on this absolutely gorgeous island.

Our first stop was to the far southern tip of the island to Maui’s archway. The archway is a giant cave the opens up into the ocean, creating a land bridge and a stunning view. Legend has it that the Polynesian god Maui formed the archway by thrusting his spear into the side of the island. As you can see in the photo below, it is pretty spectacular. Unfortunately we did not see any of the wild horses known to roam the area, but our next stop was to this forest clad, prehistoric-looking sinkhole. No one knows how deep the sinkhole goes into the island, but I like to think if you followed it far enough that it would take you to a world where dinosaurs roam (Note: My theory has yet to be scientifically proven).

Next, we traveled to a large Ovava tree that is over 800 years old, and has massive roots extending in every direction like a labyrinth of snakes from its enormous trunk. Like the giant Redwoods and Sequoias of California, the Ovava tree inspires awe that any living thing can be that big and that old at the same time. Our last stop, before heading out on a 3-hour ferry ride to the main island, was to the northern edge of the island for a spectacular lookout view. As Tonga is the first nation west of the International Date Line, the lookout claims to be the first sport to see the sunrise every morning. Each year, numerous tourists come to the spot on January 1^st, to be the very first person to welcome the New Year into the world, and the location was said to be quite crowded when we all awoke to the new millennium over a decade ago.

As this post is already too long, I will save my time in Tongatapu and my first week in Vava’u for next weeks post. All I can say is that it was an amazing host family reunion – I see Sione periodically but I hadn’t seen Kalo in over a year – and my continuing relationship with my host family has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my service. We had a great time hanging out and exploring, and I’m still trying to convince them to come up to Vava’u for a visit. Thank you all for reading and please enjoy the beauty of ‘Eua in the photos below.

Maui's Archway

At the southern edge of the island with Sione and Kalo

The never ending sinkhole

In front of the Ovava tree with Sione and cousin/tour guide Pesi

The northern edge of 'Eua, where the sun first meets land every morning

Camp GROW & GLOW – It Finally Happened

Wow! Where do I even begin? The past 6 weeks have been so eventful that I barely know how to start. As I type these sentences I feel like I need to take a step back, collect my thoughts, inhale deeply, and just write. However, there is no time for that – I have neglected this blog for far too long – and I simply have to pick a place to begin. I have thus made the executive decision to go back to mid – December to talk about the 4 days of Camp GROW and GLOW in this post, and I will update my blog in a few days with a brief description of my time in the US, my trip to the island of ‘Eua with my host family, and my week long Peace Corps training on the main island.

First, before I even begin, I want to thank everyone who made GROW and GLOW possible. To all of my family and friends who contributed to the project, I remain incredibly touched by your generosity. I and the other volunteers strove to live up to those contributions, and in my humble opinion I like to believe that the camps, made possible by your generosity, did make a difference. I hope I will be able to show everyone that in the following paragraphs. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The morning of December 9^th started off with nervous anxiety – would the kids come? Were we capable of leading a 4-day camp filled with 13-year-old kids? Did we have the right speaker’s lined up? Trying to retain a calm exterior, I was undeniably excited yet anxious. Walking around I tried to make sure everything was ready for our campers’ arrival, willing them in my head to just get hear already, fearing they wouldn’t, and inevitably somewhat fearing they would. Slowly but surely, however, the kids began to arrive. The camp had begun.

Now the hard part began. The other volunteer, Joey, and I had spent months developing GROW, along with Mandy, who focused on the girls camp GLOW, but now we had to step back, ensure the arrival of our speakers, and work more as facilitators as our 4 Tongan counselors, all under the age of 21, took control. The camp ran smoothly from the very beginning. The first few hours were spent playing getting to know you games (the campers came from a myriad of high schools and didn’t all know each other) and discussions of the expectations they would have as campers. We told them that the onus was on them to make these four days special, that the more they participated and contributed the greater the experience would be.

The rest of the first day was spent with our two guest speakers, nurses discussing sexual education and healthy life styles, such as nutrition and exercise. Though the topics we’re a bit weighty for a first day, the kids were dynamic, continually asking questions and enjoying a friendly game of healthy food bingo. After a filling dinner, one of our counselor lead a session about goal setting and decision making, which made the kids, for possibly the first time in their young lives, begin to think what they wanted out of their high school experience and beyond. One of our goals was to challenge their thinking and see how it evolved over the course of the four days. For bedtime, we watched GI Joe on the projector.

I promise to spare you the tediousness of going through a play by play of all four days, but I just wanted to provide an example of one day in the life of the Camps.

There were of course numerous highlights to mention:

1.     On the second day, Tuesday, the boys of GROW and the girls of GLOW came together for the first time to listen to a speaker from the environmental NGO in Vava’u and then head out for an beach day and bbq at a Tongan-owned resort.  In case any of you were wondering if teenagers in Tonga differed from their American counterparts, this will quickly answer your question. When they boys learned we were going over to see the girls, they all rushed to put on their best clothes, swabbed on deodorant, and bathed themselves in cologne. I learned later, that the girls similarly took showers, brushed their hair, and dressed up a bit. Of course, when they actually were around each other, there was little interaction between the two sexes.

2.    We had an incredible array of compelling speakers who offered great presentations for our kids. We had a court judge and the head of the University satellite school in Vava’u discuss women’s rights and domestic violence. The Deputy Principal of the Catholic High School lead a session on post-secondary school educational opportunities. A wide variety of government ministries and companies brought the campers into their places of business for several hours to stress the wide range of career opportunities available to them in Tonga. And last but not least, our counselors each lead individual sessions on anger management, drugs and alcohol, decision-making, critical thinking, and goal setting, which they performed exceptionally well.

3.    Perhaps, most importantly of all, relationships were made and friendships established. The boys of GROW and the girls of GLOW left with lasting memories, a few lessons in their head, a desire to bring back what they learned to their communities and schools, and forged shared bonds with a new group of people.

If I come off as to much of a homer for this project, that is because I am. Not everything worked out as we would have liked – we were hoping for a larger number of campers, one of the nurses did not show up for her presentation, and we have to tweak our career day event – but on the whole the other volunteers and I, the counselors, and the campers were incredibly happy with how the week went. We took a girls camp, GLOW, that we knew nothing about before coming to Peace Corps and continued it’s growing legacy in Vava’u, and developed GROW, a boys camp to run parallel with the girls camp for the first time in Tonga.

As is often the case in Peace Corps, I have grown a lot through the process of developing this program and in many ways feel that I got more out of it than even the campers and counselors did. It was truly a special week for me.  Many of you may be asking me what is next and that is a great question. Our next steps are to continue to meet with our male and female campers to discuss how to continue to use the lessons they learned over the 4 days of the camp and how to bring these values to their villages and classmates. We also have to begin planning for GROW and GLOW 2014 next September, which will be one of my final acts as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Thank you all for reading. Before I leave you to the photos, I want to say one last thing. If I seemed to take a disproportionate amount of credit for the camp in the previous paragraphs, I want to dispel that right hear. Yes, myself and other volunteers spent months of hard work developing this project and making it feasible, but the true credit lies with two groups of people: The people back home who made this all possible by donating to GROW and GLOW, and the incredible Tongans who housed the camps, fed us, spoke to our campers, served as counselors, the parents who trusted us with their children, and the students who arrived as campers. The true success of the camps and their future is reflected in our thanks to the first group and the indomitable spirit of the second. Thank you all.

Playing a quick energizing game

One of our counselors, Mafi, leading a session on Anger Management

The GROW boys with the classic Tongan pose

our first meal

Healthy Food Bingo

Drawing an example of a healthy meal

Two counselors (Hepi in red and Mafi in black) going over decision making scenarios with the campers

A Tongan Thanksgiving

Another year, another Thanksgiving celebrated in Tonga. In an interesting twist, we celebrated on the same day as my birthday. In the US my birthday can never be on Thanksgiving as the 28^th is the latest the holiday can possibly fall on, but as we celebrated on Friday the 29^th, I was fortunate enough to enjoy my birthday by eating my fill on one of my favorite holidays with many of the friends I have made during my time here.

Hosted at Don and Norie’s, it was an international affair. Eleven of the 13 Peace Corps volunteers were able to attend, including all 6 of the new recruits. Three of the Australian volunteers attended as well, one arriving with her Dutch boyfriend and her visiting mother. Last but not least, a Japanese volunteer celebrated her first Thanksgiving with us, a 20 year old American friend of ours who lives in Vava’u came, and a Tongan girl about my age who is leaving on her Mormon mission to Idaho in a few weeks joined to finish the party.

The food was plentiful and delicious – it was as if we combined the American need to overeat on Thanksgiving with the Tongan culture of food that has inevitably rubbed off on us. We had many of the Thanksgiving staples. A turkey that we had brought from the main island, stuffing, mash potatoes, and cranberry sauce. We even added our own twist to the staples with spaghetti and meat sauce, salads, green beans, latkes, pumpkin soup, vegetable fried rice that I had made and so much more. As tradition would have it, I ate way too much of the food, especially the turkey which I hadn’t eaten since last years Thanksgiving, and was absolutely stuffed.

We didn’t say what each of us was thankful for but it still felt like a true Thanksgiving. Just with a Tongan twist. One of the volunteers even made place cards with each of our names on them. Due to the heat and the lack of space, we laid down mats outside of the house and sat on the floor Indian style. We laughed and we joked, a bunch of people from all over the world bonded together through their lives in Vava’u. To finish the night, and in a moment that surprised and deeply touched me, Norie, who is an amazing cook and baker, brought out a chocolate cake for me with 24 written in candles. Not expecting such a celebration, I was profoundly happy and thankful for the new friends I have made in Vava’u and their ability to surprise me even after all this time.

Now, in a short list, here are some of the things I am thankful for:

1.     The incredible way Tongans say goodbye. When you say bye to a person you say their name then shout eeehhhhh!!!! Afterwards. They reply with io but it sounds more like yyyoooo!!! And then they do the same for you. It goes something like this. Sifa eeeeehhhhh!!!!!! YOOOOOOO!!!! Soni eeeehhhh!!!!! YOOOOOO!!!! It is spectacular and I am totally bringing it back to America.

2.    The ease and safety of hitch hiking – it makes not having a car no problem and I meet someone new every week

3.    The Tongan use of umbrellas – always as shade in the sun but never in the rain

4.    Living in a tropical paradise

5.    Continuously seeing the phrase “twerk” online, but being blissfully ignorant of the dance move as the internet is too slow to download youtube videos

6.    Roast pig severed over a skewer

7.    Tongan generosity, my school, and the three villages I reside in

8.    All of my friends and family back home who have supported me so much since the moment I left for Tonga

In others news, this week was our school graduation. As is the Tongan custom, many of the parents attended the ceremony that included a short prayer, a welcome speech by the principal, and the lining up of the kids from the best performing student to the worst in each class. I was hoping we would just announce the best student, but in the end we decided to reveal their exact class placements. As the kids’ names were called, parents would come up and tuck dollar bills into their shirts or place a necklace made of candy over their heads, a Tongan staple. It was a somewhat brief and anticlimactic finish to the school year, but I did feel a sense of pride watching my students complete my first year of school.

Also, this will be my last post until possibly mid-January. Next week, Monday through Thursday, will be Camp GLOW and GROW. The next day on Friday I am flying to the United States. When I return to Tonga in January and after I attend a training on the main island, I promise to write about what I hope will be the success of the camps and anything else interesting that had since happened to me.

Thanks for reading and see you all in America soon.

The birthday cake

Thanksgiving Tongan style

Take Two

I am now entering an interesting time in my Peace Corps Service. Though I have long since passed the one-year mark – 15 months next week – things are finally starting to repeat themselves. Last year, I spent my first two months in training living with a home stay family, and did not arrive in Vava’u until mid-November. When I arrived here last year, unsure of what I was doing and slightly overwhelmed, the class 6 exam was long over and an incredibly relaxed atmosphere had enveloped the school. School was finished by lunchtime. The teachers and I sat around getting to know each other, while the kids played cards and patiently passed the time until they had to practice their cultural dance at the end of the day. There was a definite pattern. It was unstressfully chaotic with kids flying left and right and teachers not caring less, but it was also my indoctrination, my welcome if you will, into my future life as a primary school teacher in Tonga.

One year later, I am right back where I started. The class 6 exam is over. While school has been much more structured than last year, and the kids do not practice their cultural dance nearly as much as we are doing the same dance as the year before, the similarities remain blatant. This sense of déjà vu was particularly strong last week during our regional Tongan Culture day. Last Wednesday, the four schools of the East Region came together to show off the dances they have been practicing for months in front of the Ministry of Education officials, the teachers, and many of the parents.

The Tongan Culture Day last year was the first significant Tongan event I had ever participated in. Helping my kids prepare for their dance last year, I inevitably stuck out as the only non-Tongan in a sea of Tongans. My Tongan was much weaker then and I was still so new that I couldn’t yet tell who was from my village and who wasn’t – an extremely important distinction in a country where knowing where someone lives matter more than knowing their last names. While daunting might be too strong of a description, I was definitely alone at the event in a very literal way.

This year could not be more different. I, after countless regional events, know all of the parents from each of the villages and most of the kids as well. My Tongan has gotten to the point where I no longer embarrass myself. And, this time I wasn’t alone. A newly arrived volunteer now works at one of the schools in my region, making me stick out slightly less, and provide someone to speak English with occasionally and for me to pass on the little advice and understanding I had to offer.

Well, now that’s enough about me. Back to the kids! Back to Tongan Culture Day!

The school was decorated for the event. Flowers were everywhere. Leaves were plucked to wrap around the pillars supporting the school. The children were at their most adorable, wearing traditional Tongan clothes over their school uniforms. The parents’ spread mats everywhere they could find shade – under a tree, behind a water tank, next to a bus, and in front of the school. The kids were ready to perform.

The scene was set. For the next hour four schools, including my own performed their dances. While not as varied as last year’s, when one school dressed their boys in lime green wigs and women’s clothes, the students performed very well. They danced gracefully as the girls performed the ta’ulunga and the boys grappled with fake wooden spears. The teachers and the parents stood behind the dancers, singing the back up music and banging on their “drums.” And of course, adults walked around stuffing small dollar bills into the students’ clothes as a gesture of support and praise for the performance.

As my words cannot accurately portray the dancing or bring to life the actions of the precocious children, I have posted photos below. As always, thank you for reading and I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

GPS Koloa

Placing money in the shirts of the performers

My students after they finished their dance

GPS H'alaufuli

The Lu Cook Off

For those of you who are a bit tired of my lu centric posts, I apologize, but with school winding down and Camp GLOW & GROW ramping up, lu has played an outsized role in my last few weeks. Those of you who did enjoy my previous post on cooking lu at school hopefully will continue to do so. This post, however, is not about a cultural experience, but rather a fun little contest among the Peace Cops Volunteers.

For the last several years the volunteers up in Vava’u have hosted a lu cook off with the winner walking away with a small trophy. Though we failed to hold the competition last year, we decided we could not make that mistake again and so last Saturday the newest and greatest Peace Corps cooking rivalry in Vava’u was hosted at Don and Norie’s, the American Baha’i couple who generously let us use their house.

There were five competitors including myself. The rules were simple. Everyone had to use the traditional lu ingredients – lu leaves, coconut milk, and onions – but beyond that the goal was to make the best tasting lu imaginable. Any ingredient that you could come up with and that you thought would add to a winning dish was admissible.

With the goal of winning on all of our minds, we spent the morning shopping for ingredients before arriving at the house at 2 pm to begin cooking. Everyone tried to maintain the surprise, as each of us made our food in separate corners of the house before walking over to Neru’s house, a Samoan friend of ours, to wrap the food in the lu leaves, to cover the entire dish in banana leaves to help cook the food and protect it, and to throw the meal in the underground oven.

An hour later the lu was finished, a dining arrangement was set up on the floor of the house, and the lu was spread out for the judges to taste. Each dish was varied. I, with my incredible culinary talent, kept things simple and made lu sipi (lu with lamb), as lamb works incredibly with lu and is by far my favorite meat for this dish. To top it off I added some tomatoes, green peppers, and cucumber to toss in a little more flavor. Another volunteer made a pseudo stir-fry in their lu, combining rice, vegetables, chicken, and chili sauce culminating in an intriguing blend of lu and curry. The third volunteer decided to eliminate meat, a risky and very un-Tongan venture I assure you, and added soy sauce and eggplant to the coconut milk and leaves to make a surprisingly spicy and tasty dish.

Our volunteer leader molded minced beef into seasoned meatballs and threw them into his lu, creating a hamburger with leaves as buns rather than bread. And finally our last competitors made an interesting coconut and chicken stew to top everything off. The judges tasted each of the food and quietly deliberated. As the judges were pondering their heavy burden, the rest of us passed around the abundance of food and ate potluck style.

Once everyone was served. Don and Norie announced their judgment. The winner and champion of the Lu Cook Off 2013 was the eggplant and soy sauce lu, but there was a surprise. In an upset for the ages, and much to the chagrin of the other competitors, my lu came in second place with Don even revealing to me later that if he was judging by himself I may have won. Assuredly, no one was more surprised than I was – I pass along all credit to the lamb rather than myself – but I have to admit I will certainly enjoy my bragging rights for a few weeks at least.

All of the lu tasted pretty good, and it was really fun to take something that is so undeniably Tongan and add a little of our own personal and American flair to it. As an added bonus, several of the new Peace Corps volunteers were able to attend the cook off, giving us a chance to get to know them better. Several days before the cook off, 6 new female volunteers arrived in Vava’u for the first time to begin their service after two months of training on the main island. It has been fascinating meeting the new volunteers, as it seems like one giant flashback. Every question they ask, all of their obvious nervousness, reminds me of what I was like just one year ago, and has allowed me to realize how far I have come during my time in Tonga.

Thank you all for reading. I foolishly forgot to take pictures during the cook off – I am hoping to retrieve a few photos from another volunteer – but I have uploaded some more photos from the day we made lu at school. Hope you all enjoy.

preparing the leaves

the whole process

Crushing the coconut into milk

placing the lu in the umu

Counselor Bonding

Slowly but steadily progress on Camp GLOW & GROW is moving along. Our schedule and curriculum have been finalized. Speakers have been approached to lead sessions ranging from healthy life styles to family planning to environmental awareness to women’s rights and domestic violence. A catering contract has been created and signed. The campers, the essential part of the program, are signed up, and we expect a good showing for our parents meeting tomorrow. And, as pertains to this blog post, our counselors have been chosen.

We – volunteers – like to immodestly and optimistically proclaim many inspirational and profound lessons that will emerge from Camp GLOW & GROW, but one of the less discussed anticipated impacts of the camp centers on the counselors. Though the main subject of the camp are the campers, the Form 3 boys and girls, the aim is also for the counselors to learn the same information as the campers from the speakers who come, while simultaneously improving their leadership skills by being responsible for the campers and leading sessions themselves. The goal is very much to instill confidence in our counselors so that they understand that they have the ability to accomplish anything they desire.

For the girls finding counselors was easy. Each of the female staff has long been a part of Camp GLOW, either as a former camper or counselor. They are all old pros of the camp, and observing the enjoyment they receive from helping and their clear appreciation for Glow’s goals has been one of the most gratifying parts of my work so far. Since the boys camp is new, there were no former counselors to fall back on and we instead chose 4 boys – two 19 year olds, and 18 year old senior in high school, and a 16 year old sophomore in high school – who we know and whom we believe exemplify the attributes we want in our counselors. We had our first meeting 2 weeks ago to explain to them their duties and go over the schedule, but the real fun, and in some ways the true start to the camp began last week.

Last Saturday, an American couple who owns a sail boat that they run charters off of graciously offered to take us and our counselors on a day sail, free of charge, as a fun way to bond before the beginning of the camp. We were only too happy to accept the incredibly generous offer, so at 9:30 in the morning 4 Peace Corps Volunteers, 4 Camp Glow counselors, and 4 Camp Grow counselors embarked. Our goals were two fold: to instruct the counselors in greater detail about their responsibilities and to have fun.

I won’t bore you with all the nitty gritty details, but will instead state what we did broadly to show everyone reading and those who were so amazing as to contribute to the camp where your money will soon be going. Lead by Yamiha, an amazing Tongan counselor in her early 20’s who has been part of Camp Glow for its entire 4 year history in Vava’u, we went through the schedule with the counselors to explain what their duties would be and what the camp would look like. Speaking better Tongan than any of us could ever hope to achieve, Yamiha made everything click for our counselors.

The rest of the morning was spent sailing to one of the islands, enjoying a little swimming in the beautiful waters to get refreshed from the hot Pacific sun, and then back to work. The next part of the meeting was to teach the counselors little games or “energizers” that they would play with the campers at various times to keep them engaged. Anyone who has attended a camp or worked for a business with a particularly conscientious HR department would recognize these games. One of the games, called kwa (said as if you were a ninja), consists of everyone standing in a circle, while one person points to someone yelling kwa, who then raises his hands in air saying kwa, while the two people next to him pretend to slice him in the stomach while also saying kwa, and this keeps going until someone makes a mistake. It is incredibly silly, but everyone always laughs and enjoys the game, and it is an easy way to break the ice or rejuvenate yourself after a long day.

The last part of business, other than swimming, snorkeling, and enjoying some fantastic American food (PESTO!) was explaining the bridge model. The bridge model, an essential part of Camp Glow and one that we have adopted for Camp Grow, defines the critical thinking and decision-making sessions of the camps that we believe are so vital for both the campers and the counselors leading the sessions. The bridge model consists of two islands, the ocean, and a bridge drawn on a piece of paper. The first island stands for where they are now, such as High School students, inhabitants of Vava’u, sons and daughters. The second island represents where they want to be in the future, such as high school graduates, teachers, doctors, good husbands and wives. The water signifies all the potential dangers that could stop them from reaching these goals, like illness, unwanted pregnancy, drugs, and alcohol. Finally, the bridge encompasses how the students will navigate these potential risks through concepts such as good decision making, studying, and hanging out with good role models. The bridge model represents the core of the camp experience, and this description is expanded throughout the four days. The counselors seem to really understand this concept, and are eager to teach it themselves next month.

The rest of day was spent talking and playing a few other energizer games. It was a truly amazing day. We were able to spend some quality time with our counselors, get to know each other better, and learn a little bit in the process. It was one of the best days I have had as a volunteer, as it combined a fun experience with work that I am truly passionate about, and I cannot express my gratitude enough to the American couple who took us out on their boat. It was an amazing offer and a great day.

Thank you all for reading. Before I get to the pictures, I wanted to state that for those of you who read last weeks post about rugby, my school region won the rugby tournament. You can see a photo of the winning team below. As for the other pictures below, they were taken by Mandy, another volunteer, with her terrific camera skills and her great camera. Thanks to her for sharing these with me and please enjoy them.

The Camp GROW Counselors

Discussing the bridge model in the shade

playing one of the energizers 

The winning rugby team and the 2nd place net ball team!

         

Camp Grow & Glow Staff 2013