GAD Camp

From January 28th to February 1st I, along with a group of about 12 volunteers and 40 kids, enjoyed a phenomenon known as GAD Camp. GAD, which stands for Gender and Development, is a committee within PC Panama that organizes workshops on youth development, HIV/AIDS, and other topics. Their large annual project is GAD Camp, where volunteers apply to have kids from their sites, ranging in ages from 12 to 17, come to a camp site and learn wonderful things, interact and become best friends with one another, and experience something new and amazing. It was a fantastic week.

The first day, students from surrounding provinces joined together in a Jesuit mission type of place in a town called San Felix. Participants mostly did not know each before coming to the camp. As you can expect, they were shy and reserved during the first few days, and especially during the arrival day. Some had a long day of travel (as long as 8 hours!), so our first official activity wasn't until after dinner. We started with introductory games. A highlight from that night was watching the kids play Pass the Orange, where they needed to pass an orange from one to another person without using their hands.

One cultural thing struck me. During the first night, the kids got to know each other by finding out basic info about one another: age, community and province where they live, etc. Many of our participants were indigenous, people who either live on one of the five indigenous "reservations" or live elsewhere and identify as such. However, not one of those who live in the indigenous comarca mentioned it as their province of residence. The name of their community, or their features, clothes, and speech pattern could denote being a member of that community, but not one of them mentioned their self-autonomous indigenous province (Comarca Ngabe-Bugle) as their location. There's a fair amount of discrimination between Latino and indigenous communities (which I touched on earlier with my Teacher Meany Pants). It's just very unfortunate to see that these kids don't often show pride in who they are. That changed pretty quickly, though. A good amount of indigenous girls wore their traditional dresses, known as naguas, throughout the entire week.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of one of our participants in her nagua, but this is what they look like.

Every morning during the camp, we woke the participants up at 6:30am for morning exercise, which included yoga and P90X-style kickboxing. Seeing kids who've never done some of these things was amusing, and also quite encouraging. For the most part, they were willing to try and had lots of fun doing it.

After exercise and breakfast, the fun started. Throughout the week, pairs of volunteers presented on topics, such as Setting Goals, Making Decisions, and Understanding My Body.

Lindsey and I led sessions on self-image and self-esteem. Their attention, as it did throughout the camp, ebbed and flowed.

During the camp, my image of the participants was constantly changing. Whenever they had free time, we gave them the opportunity to play sports or do whatever they wished. Many took advantage of the sports balls. When I watched them I realized something you can forget sometimes. They're still kids. Many kids this age, especially what I've seen here in Panama, have the bodies of men and women. Many will be parents before they are really prepared. No matter what though, watching them play and interact with each other reminded me that in many ways, they are still just kids. Then of course, sometimes when they made comments or asked questions during sessions, their maturity astounded me.

We challenged ingrained gender stereotypes and debunked a lot of myths about sex. The sex workshops were especially interesting. As 12 and 17 are vastly different stages of young adult life, we got vastly different reactions during those workshops. Some may have already had sex, while others haven't started to develop, who may not know what a period is, or an erection. During that session, we encouraged kids to write down questions they were too shy to ask up front. Some of my favorites:

-What does sex feel like?

-What is masturbation and does it cause pain?

-How do you give oral sex? Please help me!!!! (Exactly as it appeared on the card. Does the phrasing reveal urgency? Possibly troubling ...)

-If I love my boyfriend/girlfriend but I don't want to have sex, what do I say so that he/she will understand?

So we touched on some great topics. I also learned some great new words, like foreskin, dry humping and wet dream.

On the first day, every volunteer and participant decorated an envelope, a "tank" for others to fill with nice things, a sort of warm fuzzies activity to boost their confidence during the week.

On the last night we had a sort of closing ceremony, a talent show. Both volunteers and participants performed. It was truly amazing to see how much some had come out of their shell. Indigenous boys and girls, proudly donning their traditonal clothing, sang songs and recited original poetry. Collaborative dances to popular Panamanian and American music happened, and it was a great way to finish the camp.

The camp served as a way for Panamanians to share their knowledge and experiences to us, the Americans, and vice-versa. It was also a fantastic way to really reach the kids in a way we normally cannot. If only it were longer than a week...