Yay Kamp the Sequel, Week Three...

After the success of the first two weeks of camp, I was super excited for the beginning of week three - Arts & Crafts Week. I knew it was going to be a good week for my students, and I was really looking forward to helping them be creative, but quite honestly, I was also just plain excited to play with popsicle stick and glue and make friendship bracelets and tie-dye t-shirts.

Like the other two weeks, camp wouldn't have been possible without help from PCVs. Kathleen Keating, Bonnie Wilson, Jesse Fincannon, Kelsey Hull, Alexis Cohen, Kim Joyce, Charlie Djordjevic, Rachel Carter, Laura Durden, Jen Catrambone, and Amanda Brune made Arts and Crafts week a huge success. Jaclyn and I truly couldn't have done it without them.

Our first day was popsicle stick day. We started with God's Eyes in the morning. After doing a small lesson comparing God's Eyes to the Azeri Evil Eye and the similarities is the idea that they are protection, we busted out the yarn popsicle sticks and went to town. And the kids loved it! We ended up with some pretty elaborate God's Eyes with all kinds of feathers and beads and things adorning them. In the afternoon, we made popsicle stick picture frames. This one had been a big hit last year, so we thought it was worth repeating. There were all kinds of different frames made - a few funny looking, but most were just cool! My favorite was done by Agshin, one of the boys in my group this week. Check out the picture, you'll see why!

Day two was tie-dye day. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about how this would go! We warned the kids to wear clothes that they could get messy, we handled everything with care, and as much as possible it was the PCVs' hands that got dyed bright colors. And it was awesome!!! Each group had their own colors, so that all of the kids had the same thing, but they were also "team" specific. The students loved it! We ended up with some really cool looking shirts and a lot of questions from the community around watching us, seeing the brightly colored hands, and finally the pretty colored t-shirts. We had everybody wear their t-shirts for the last day of camp, and it looked awesome!

Day three was drawing and friendship bracelets. A request I had gotten from last year was to have a day of drawing. Seemed like a good idea, especially if we could use it as a way to help the students think outside of the box. Drawing here is pretty much copying exactly what the teacher tells you. That was something we wanted to challenge, so we came up with drawing activities where they HAD to draw their own thing. In Each classroom, we set up a still life for the kids to draw. The trick was that they were each drawing it from a different angle, so they all ended up with a different picture of the same thing. I don't know how successful our message was, but I do think they understood that all of their drawings looked good, even if the weren't exactly the same. After drawing, we did friendship bracelets. One of the neatest things for me about that was that several of the kids who came to camp last year remember how to do it and helped teach the other students. Pretty rad. Oh, and check the pictures to see what two friends from America came to help for the day :-)

On the last day of arts and crafts week, we made homemade playdough. It took a little convincing to get the students to dig in to the mushy blue stuff that they saw made from flour and oil and water, but once they did, they really liked it. They made hedgehogs, snowmen, flowers, spiders, a mini tea set, and my favorite, a reinactment of Sports Week's water balloon fight!

At the end of the day, we had a ceremony to celebrate the end of Yay Kamp. We invited my school director and the students' parents to come participate. Following Azeri custom, we thanked my director for letting us have camp. We also presented him with his very own tie-dye t-shirt. It was a big hit! He gave a speech reminding the students how great this opportunity was for them and telling them to remember it and carry the things they learned throughout the rest of their lives. His speech was about the time I started crying. That was the moment that I really appreciated that this was my goodbye to so many of these kids. Luckily, Jaclyn was sitting next to me and helped me get over my tears without too many people noticing! I misted up a few more times, but it wasn't obvious.

They sang the clean-up song (which I'll be happy if I never hear again!),After Qadir muellim's speech, each of the groups presented something they had learned during camp. performed Boom-Chicka-Boom, team cheers, and talked about their favorite parts of camp. We presented each student with a certificate and group picture. Since it was my last moment with so many of these kids, I took a moment to say good bye and to tell them how much they mean to me. Then we ended the ceremony with cheers and clapping and sent the kids on their way. There were hugs and signatures a few more tears and tons of pictures all around before it was finally done.

Yay Kamp was absolutely amazing. I still can't quite believe how lucky I am to have had such an incredible project as part of my Peace Corps experience. Working with the students and the students leaders and having fun with them and watching them grow was just wonderful. I truly believe that I have had an impact on their lives. I know absolutely that they have had an impact on mine. These three weeks and these students will stay with me forever. To quote Aysel and Arash, third place winners from Azerbaijan on Eurovision, they will be "always in my heart and always on my mind."