Camp, rain, and bugs... then PARTY!

We had another Panamá Verde camp earlier this month. There were 4 communities involved (aka 4 volunteers who brought/sent kids from their sites). We went up to the national park in a town called Barrigón. I´ve been there before, once for a week during training and once for a regional meeting outing. It´s beautiful. We picked the first week of February because we figured we´d be enough into summer by then to avoid the rain. Boy howdy were we wrong. It´s summer every else in the country. But still raining at the park. Up in the mountains as it is. But this week not only did it rain, I think we were in a hurricane. For four days. Not only did it never stop raining for four days, the wind was ripping of the zinc roofs around our cabin (but luckily not the roof of the cabin we stayed in) and knocking people (like me) off their feet. And just so wet. Things that were dry and kept in the cabin somehow got damp anyway. We asked the kids a day early if they wanted to leave and they all screamed NO! Screw the rain. They were enjoying socializing and getting to know the other kids. And playing games games games. We had environmental activites planned but as they were mostly outside activites we didn´t get to do really any of them. So games it was. For four days. As I´m lazy, I´ve decided to copy the post of a fellow volunteer who was there, Kayla. She´s got her own blog she wrote this on. Sums it up pretty good.
1. Plan for rain. Did I say rain? Plan for a storm that will rip the roof right off the cabin and hurl it down into the steadily growing lake of mud. Plan for mud.
2. What do you do with twenty-five teenagers in one little cabin for three days? DANCE PARTY! And never underestimate the seductive power of a fifth grade girl in a mini skirt.
3. Wanna win their hearts? Fart and poop jokes are the ticket.
4. When planning, ask all the questions you never thought you’d have to ask: Um, is the only room in the park that fits thirty people going to be under construction the week that we are hosting thirty people in the park? Um, when you say that there is electricity in the cabin do you mean that there is electricity but we can’t use it unless we bring copious amounts of gasoline to run the generator?
5. Planning is for punks.
6. Did I say summer camp? There is no summer here; just wet and even wetter is gusty spurts.
7. Every camp needs a little fat kid to say stupid stuff and make everyone else look relatively grown up.
8. Make sure to limit talent show acts to one hour each unless you want to watch marathon versions of improv soap operas.
9. Yes, this is camp and it is cold and the water is like ice, but every Panamanian kid present is going to take two showers a day (minimum) and they will get up at 4:30am to make it happen. So schedule in showers.
10. Schedules are for suckers.
11. Nobody’s going to talk to you about “liability risk” around here. So let the kids hang from the rafters if they want to! Create mile-high human pyramids! Toss ‘em around a bit! Relish in the risky ‘cause back in the U.S. even Red-Rover has been deemed too dangerous.
12. When all else fails, put in your earplugs and let the dance party roll on....

So that was camp. All in all, still incredibly successfull. Love camp.
At the last camp I acquired parasites in my stomach and had to go to the city the last day to get them diagnosed and to take the appropriate pills to get rid of them.
This camp... I didn´t have to leave early for anything and though I was fine and dandy. Till the spot on my back got worse and had to go to the doctor last week. Bugs are bad. That is all. (Don´t worry, not too bad. I´m fine and all.)

But now... the party is coming! Carnaval starts the 20th! And goes through the 24th! For that time I will be staying at a fellow volunteer´s house who lives only minutes from the biggest party in the country. I will be wet again for four days, but this time voluntarily. :)