Week 4 - My Great Disappointment...

So, I go into Week 3 of Camp Jane feeling like the queen of the world. I am truly a successful Peace Corps Volunteer. I have this project that is being incredible. I have tons of enthused, happy kids showing up for my camp. Every week, I get more kids. I have volunteers coming from all over Azerbaijan to help me. My camp is awesome, I'm awesome, the world is good.

Then Tuesday came. As I walk into school to get set up to begin the day, my director stops me. Now, my director is great. Seriously. He is kind, supportive, interested. The second week of camp, he arranged for all of the kids and PCVs to go to a play at the drama theater for free. He is a truly one of the best directors a PCV could ask for. That being said, I'm kinda mad at him now. Because, when he stopped me on Tuesday morning, it was to tell me that Camp would be over this week. What?!?! I asked him all kinds of questions – Why? But it is supposed to go for another week. We talked about this in May, you said it was good, what changed? What?!?!

Well, they are installing an new heating in my school. The entire school is getting torn apart. Ok, ok, great. A heating system is lovely. Maybe I won't have to teach in my coat and hat and gloves next winter. It is completely reasonable not to have kids running all over a construction site. But couldn't this have been thought of and planned for back in May?

I think there is another reason too. Now, this is just my perception, but I do think it influenced the decision to end camp, rather than try to relocate it or work around it. Azerbaijan is preparing for a national election in October. Schools will be voting sites. The preparations are all starting now. As these preparations are going on, bigwigs stop by every so often to check things out. And it looks really bad to have a bunch of kids running around and playing at the school when they stop by. Seriously.

Anyway, all my protestations came to nothing. Camp would be over on Friday. And there was nothing I could do about it. How did I handle it, you ask? Well, I pretty much threw a several-day-long temper tantrum. When I got up to my classroom, I threw some stuff, then I cried. I pulled myself together to go start the day with the kids, but all day I had to take some timeouts to go hide the fact that I was crying. My friends got me through the day and picked up my slack when I couldn't handle it.

After Camp was over for the day, I went home and cried some more. I had a friend call me and talk me through it. Then I went to Tom's house and my friends helped me get drunk. Not necessarily the healthiest choice, but I NEEDED it. I wallowed. It was just not fair. I had worked SO hard. I spent months planning and preparing for a 4 week camp, not a 3 week camp. And the last week was going to be drama – the theme I was the most excited about getting to do. Why does that have to be taken away? NOT FAIR!!!!!

And then, slowly, with the help of my friends, I started to process. They jumped in and decided that we should do some of the drama stuff during our week so that I could do at least some of it. They told me that is wasn't fair, but look at my successes, not my failures. They helped me find ways to get out of my moping and see the good and be positive.

I found the little things that could be the silver lining – no more house guests (i love my fellow PCVs, but 3 weeks straight of people can get a bit old), I can sleep as late as I want, because I won't be having guests I can sleep naked again (it is REALLY hot here), I don't have to play Miss Mary Mack or jump rope, the list goes on and on.

I know how lucky I am – I had a really successful project and this, while it was big, was really the only roadblock I had met along the way. This is the first time I “failed” - and a lot of PCVs have an uphill battle everyday. I am truly lucky that this was as successful as it was.

And then I started thinking about the three weeks I did get to have of my camp. And the impact I had on these kids. Every week, I had more kids come to camp. The first week, some of them were shy, scared to speak English or try new things, and accustomed to being told what they are doing wrong rather than what they are doing right. And by the third week, they were enthused, outgoing, daring, and happy. I look through the pictures that I have of camp – and they just make me smile. The monsters had fun. And these three weeks will probably stay with them forever. I achieved my goal. And that is good.

Don't get me wrong, I still think it sucks that my final week was taken away (although I have LOVED getting to relax a week early). But, I can see it with some perspective now. I did something incredible this summer. I changed the lives of these kids in a really good way. Isn't that what is really important? So, yeah, I'm sad that it didn't go exactly as I had planned BUT I am so proud of what I did accomplish. And, hopefully, next year, I'll get to try again. Inshallah.