Summer Camp 2.0

It is hard to believe that in about 7 months, my official service completion date will arrive. Last Summer, Antonio and I partnered to have a six week stint of Summer Camps. It was only about a month after coming to our site assignments. Antonio’s school told him that they would not be needing his service until September, and my school basically gave me carte blanche to do what ever I wanted, just that they wanted me to do extensive camps. As Antonio was not content to be bored out of his mind for three months, and neither of us could go anywhere until mid August, we decided to plow through. To say it was a roaring success is an understatement.

But as that Summer drew to a close, I looked at Antonio one afternoon as we sipped iced tea at one of the hipster lokals in the city center and said to him, “You are not going to want to do this again next Summer, are you?” “He choked a bit on his mojito inspired iced tea, and said, “No.” I had sensed this, mainly because I knew that Antonio wanted to do a lot of traveling during our “free time” next year, and our first Summer in Berat basically came out of a sweet confluence of events and schedules. It was sickeningly hot that Summer, and I was researching farm stays in Norway as a strategy to beat the heat the next year. But as the time wore on, and the realization that the Summer of 2018 would be my last in Berat, as well as the constant questions from the children as to whether or not we would have a camp, I decided that it was in my best interests as well as the children's to do yet another marathon Summer Camp stint.

This year, we had a good group of Peace Corps Volunteers in surrounding villages that were a short bus ride away. Berat’s newest Peace Corps Volunteer, Nick, was also game to join me as he, like all new volunteers, was looking for activities to fill up the days. Antonio participated when he was in town, as his Summer was filled with travel around the Balkans with other volunteers and a visit from his mom. Another plus this year was the presence of Pricillia, a European Union volunteer that had been stationed in Berat to help with tourism and river restoration. Pricillia has actually been our fourth unofficial Peace Corps volunteer here in Berat, joining our weekly pot lucks and helping out on various projects.

I sent out a tentative schedule to all the Berat Regional volunteers inviting them to come when they could. It was a lot of fun once again, and what added to the experience was that Berat, as well as all of Albania, was having a very mild Summer. We had torrential rain storms almost daily, that would sweep in and leave after about an hour, making the air fresh and cool until August. When the heat did come, it was not the stifling 100+ for weeks on end as it was last year. In so many ways, my experience in Albania has been one of being in a peaceful bubble. While the rest of the world is burning or blowing up with terror attacks and political instability, here in Albania things have been quite mellow, but then my lack of language skills also made me ignorant of the local political turmoils, which for the most part, I was glad to not be aware. The Winter was mild this year compared to what many were experiencing in 2016, and the Summer has been as well, when compared to places like Greece, Portugal and the UK.

I am never quite clear who gets more out of these camps, me or the children. We had some repeats from last year, but also quite a few new children. As with last year, the majority of attendees were boys, who were really game for anything I might suggest. Nick bought a basketball and played with the children when he was in town, and even tried to teach them baseball with a broom stick and small plastic ball. What resulted was an interesting fusion of soccer and baseball in the end. After several attempts of trying to get the children to understand the concept of letting players run around the bases without being blocked, Nick asked them if they would rather play basketball. This was immediately responded to with a resounding “YES!” 

My Albanian language skills are still quite rudimentary, but I can limp along with simple declarative sentences and questions. This year, one of my repeat campers, Frankie, took it upon himself to be my translator. I would say a short sentence in Albanian, such as, “we will go inside and work on a project.” Frankie would then turn around and repeat my Albanian sentence verbatim, in Albanian.

The format was similar to last years camps, in that we met Monday through Thursday from 8 - 10 am and followed a different theme each week. As we are still trying to assemble the garden, one week was spent in garden based activities. Thanks to one of my counterparts, I was able to secure the delivery of soil from a local farmer. The children were told that he would arrive at 9 am with the soil. Thanks to Frankie, the instructions were given out twice, so no one was confused. I was asked in 5 minute intervals from 8 - 9 am where the farmer was, and when he arrived, it was as if a swarm of ants descended on the truck. Frankie of course took it upon himself to direct the truck as it backed into the school yard, and the children, farmer and maintenance personnel took the 50 pound sacks of rich soil out of the truck.

The real fun started when they had to bring the sacks up three flights of stairs and down a long hall to the roof garden. I kept trying to get the children to partner in groups of five to lift the bags. Frankie let me down at this point, as he was trying to lug one of the bags up the stairs with one other child. What ensued was a glorious chaotic mess of bursting bags, screaming teachers and maintenance workers, children instructing each other on the best way to push dirt up stairs, and trails of compost on newly mopped floors. We got onto the roof top garden and then the bags were opened into the beds with many, many hands helping to spread out the dirt over a layer of small stones we had collected earlier that morning. 

We had a River Camp with Pricillia, where there were lessons on the nature of the local River Osum, and how it’s path manifested. We learned about the issues of pollution for the river, and spent one morning picking up trash along the river bed. After creating about 15 large plastic bags full of trash, the children collected stones that we would be painting for the garden. As boys will be boys, they were not content to walk along the stone banks, and insisted on jumping onto the sand banks. Frankie did this with zeal, and popped up with mud covered socks, his shoes being sucked off in the process. I implored him to get his shoes, and he refused. Thankfully Pricillia intervened, taking off her shoes and digging out Frankie’s shoes, which were about 6 inches underneath the wet sand. We did watercolors that week, and the productions by the children as well as Nick and Pricillia were really quite beautiful. 

As the Fourth of July fell on a Weekday this year, I decided to have a Camp America. We made American flags out of construction paper, the stars being multicolored small squares. The next day, Antonio, Nick and I scored the computer room so we could do a power point presentation on our respective states. Nick, being the tech genius, thought he could have used internet that day to download his presentation on Chicago, but we apparently chose the very day that all schools had their wifi turned off for the Summer. Antonio and I had the old fashioned way of using a flashdrive, and we had the children color maps of the US, and our states of Illinois, Oregon and California. Being me, my presentation was on Mexican Food, which I think went over quite well. We had an old fashioned Fourth of July celebration where our Peace Corps Country Director Kate Becker joined us. Watermelon, pasta salad and peace cobbler were enjoyed by all. I commandeered two young American tourists I met on the bus to join us, and several out of town Peace Corps volunteers helped out with the celebration. 

One week was spent in a Heritage Camp with the EU Cities project. This camp was with older children and featured many activities celebrating Berat heritage. There was stone and wood carving craft sessions, walks in the local mountains, and several days at the Culinary High School where participants worked with students and teachers creating traditional Berati foods.

We had a honey camp, tasting honeys from around Albania, learning about pollinators and how hives are constructed. One week was spent on geometry and nature, and we had a final party where we enjoyed some food and the children received their coveted certificates.

The camp season finished up with what was supposed to be a camp with French Scouts and Albanian High School students doing various projects and cultural exchanges, sponsored by the city and in cooperation with the French Alliance of Berat. The day before the camp was to begin, Pricillia, Nick and I went to city hall to talk with the organizer. We met in his office, (weeks of planning went into this camp, numerous proposals and so on, which I had written and re-written with budgets and material requests.) We sat down and were told by the very gentle, soft spoken city representative that the funding had not come through for the camp, and did we have any ideas on what to do with the scouts? I burst out into laughter, while Nick looked annoyed and Pricillia’s eyes became quite wide. No problem, we will work in my gardens.

This year there were only three French Scouts, as last year there had been about 10. They stayed with Pricillia, and worked with local Albanian high school children and Peace Corps Volunteers on clearing out the herb garden, the vegetable garden and starting on my desired historical garden in one of the church gardens in the Castle. Every evening the French Volunteers would have language lessons and games with the Albanians. We went on an herb walk with my Herbalist counterpart Demo Keli, enjoyed an evening picnic with Antonio and his mom, Mehgan (a Peace Corps Volunteer from a neighboring town) and her mom and aunt who were visiting, and of course Nick. Trips to the local canyons and beaches were spontaneously created. For no money, the camp was quite full of activities.

The highlight of the French Camp for me personally was when I was trying to commandeer a truck to transport completed wooden garden beds that would not be used on my rooftop garden. Nick called me one evening to check on the activities for the next day. I asked him if he thought it would be possible to carry the beds by hand up the one mile 60 degree incline to the castle, he said “no problem.” So the next day, I was armed with numerous one-liter bottles of water, and had made an apple coffee cake. Nick and Conner, another Peace Corps Volunteer from a neighboring village, led the charge to take the beds (4 x 12 feet) down three flights of stairs, and walk a mile through central Berat, and up the steep hill to the Castle garden. 

As the group of Albanians, Peace Corps Volunteers and French Scouts made their way through the city, I marveled that I had actually inspired these young people to do this task. Watching the Berati citizens slack jawed glazed eye silence as they witnessed a human train of three large wooden garden beds slowly make their way through morning rush hour traffic was a sight to be seen. Nick said later, “to have the man selling leeches on the corner give you strange looks was interesting.” 

I followed, huffing and puffing, making sure people had water and snacks. We put the beds in the church garden and proceeded to gather rocks to line the bottoms, and then dug up soil to fill them. My plan is to fill them with local herbs and flowers. We started to clear a garden in another church yard, and this year because school will start a week later than usual, will have a “Late Summer Camp” to finish these gardens with local school children. My plan is to create a Castle Garden club with elderly residents and my school children so the gardens can be maintained.

The social exchanges between the Albanians and the French was very sweet to witness, though I must say the French were harder workers in the garden department. It was also very touching to walk through the forests behind the castle and watch the Albanians and French marvel at nature together, sharing names in their respective languages for plants, picking grapes and figs along the way.

Obviously, the last few days of the camps, I was exhausted. Luckily, it was not too hot. But as I walked through the streets of Berat each day, which always makes me catch my breath when I see the beauty of the mountains and the traditional architecture, I became wistful. This was my last Summer here in this historic beautiful city. It was full, chaotic, fun and often frustrating. I tried to savor each moment, as these will now be sweet memories.

The children became quite spoiled by my baking for them on a regular basis. One day, I was too tired to join on a hike, so I dropped off a bag of apples and several bottles of water with Connor and Pricillia to dispense as needed on the mountain. I promised the French and the Americans lunch at my place afterward. Pricillia brought back most of the apples, telling me that the Albanian children were expecting baked goods and did not want the raw fruit. Frankie asked me one day, if I would “cock, “ to which I responded, that yes, I would “cook.” He told me that I was a good “cooker” and continued to the end of the camps to repeat all of my Albanian sentences so that his friends would be properly informed.

Frankie (center)  enjoying the close of summer camp festivities

I am glad I stayed in Berat this Summer, as I get older, connections and experiences are becoming more precious. At our all volunteer conference, we had an Albanian speaker tell us how important just being present to the children is to them. I hope in some small way through the myriad of activities, that the children know their being is cherished by me, and that some new experiences will open their eyes to new possibilities.