Guys GLOW Camp

After running my first camp in Botswana last August, I knew I wanted to do as many as I could during my service. I loved camp as a kid and an adult, and it’s a unique experience for both kids and adults in this country, because it’s still kind of a new idea.

GLOW stands for girls and guys leading our world. Typically camps focus heavily on girls, because female empowerment is lacking here, to put it concisely. But honestly… you can empower girls and women all you want, but if you don’t include boys and men, not much is going to change.  You have to empower women to work towards gender equality, but you also have to work with men to support and respect women. I have lots of thoughts on this, and that’ll probably be a separate post.

Last Wednesday I made my way out of my village, fought with a grant website in Letlhakeng for several hours, and crashed a fellow volunteer’s place in Moleps for the night. I caught the 6am bus to Maun, arriving a little after 4. Another volunteer got on my bus about 2 hours into the trip, so I had company and conversation to make the trip go faster. We got a taxi to Trevor and Lindsey’s house on Lindsey’s NGO compound and hung out for a little while as other volunteers showed up. We met the rest at a sports bar for dinner. I’m not sure when I’ve been that hungry in recent memory, but I definitely ate 2 dinners.  And I wasn’t the only one that did. Guess munching on the bus wasn’t enough for us? Anyway. We all stayed at Trevor and Lindsey’s, colonizing their floor and creating some funny conversations about sleeping arrangements. Things overheard:

“Apologies if I wind up spooning you in the middle of the night.”
“Can we really fit 2 people on that?”
“Can I move the coffee table into the pantry? I know that’s random, but it’ll give us more floor space.”
“Sure. People can sleep in the pantry too if they want. People have slept there before. Actually, people have had sex in our pantry.”
You know you’re a PCV when…

Friday morning we migrated to Trevor’s NGO where the camp was to be held. Some volunteers cleaned a bathroom that hadn’t been used in YEARS (I don’t know what happened there, but you should never have to use a spade to clean a bathroom, let’s leave it at that), others pitched about fifteen tents, we put together 60 hygiene kits for the guys, and various other setting up stuff. One neat thing we did was plan games the whole group could do, including eleven hearing impaired students. All of the students attending went to the boarding senior secondary school and were between the ages of 16 and 21, and these hearing impaired students came from there and the rehabilitation center  (Lindsey’s NGO) which works with all sorts of disabilities.

The students were supposed to meet at the school at 4:30 to walk over, but things got messed up and they got to the camp around 6 instead. The boarding students had to be walked to and from the boarding school each morning and evening, while the day students camped at Trevor’s NGO in all of those tents we pitched.  The food was catered by the ministry of education/alcohol levy, and while it was good, it was often late and they ran out several times. The norm, basically… you plan as much as you can, and random things will still go wrong. This wasn’t catastrophic by any means, so Becky, the other PCV in charge, and Trevor, basically shrugged and made things work. We also only had 2 bathrooms, and despite labeling them, constantly had boys in the girls bathroom, so we just sort of had to knock and shield our eyes every time we went in, just in case.*

The first night we watched a STEPS film called One Life, One Love and had a discussion about the themes of the film, a big one being multiple concurrent partners.  We made group names and posters, and played a lot of get to know you games. I was in the yellow group, and we decided to be team United. Except that got combined with mustard, which was the color of our shirts, (Becky nicknamed us Colonel Mustard previously, the other groups being Mrs. White, Miss Scarlet, and Mrs. Peacock), and we became Mustard United. By far one of the best group names I’ve ever had, I think second only to the A.D.D. Puffy Muffins, but that’s a story from college for another time.

Saturday was full of different sessions, including safe sex, gender based violence, sex and communication, alcohol abuse, and safe male circumcision. The first session had some awkwardness with the facilitator, but the rest were great, and all led by Batswana, which was fantastic. There was also some free time for sports and we all made collages. I definitely played a game of volleyball with no net, on pavement, until we literally could not see the ball because it was so dark. We’re kinda lucky we didn’t knock over the food table in the process.

Later that night we made a bonfire and the guys had what us women called “boy fire” for a while, where the male PCVs talked with the students for an hour or so. Us women were a little jealous we couldn’t hang out by the fire, but we were hearing snippets of a really good conversation, and knew this was probably the most important part of the camp, where the guys could just talk openly about things that don’t get talked about enough. For instance, one topic that the guys mentioned to us later was knowing the difference between lust and love. I think back on all of the awesome experiences I’ve had at campfires, some really defining moments in my life, especially as a teenager, and I’m so glad the guys led that fire time. I got to walk back to the boarding school with students both nights, and had some really great conversations with students as we walked. Everything from where I was from in America, to what they wanted to do after they finished school, to differences in different faith denominations. These guys are bright, and inquisitive, and so fun to talk to. I miss that in my village where the language barrier gets in way of my bonding with my students.

Sunday we let the students have a football match while we cleared out of the way for a local church to have their services in the NGO building. We also had to chase kids from the church away from our food, and I almost had a heart attack when a five year old tried to dart under a car as it was backing up to chase a ball. I grabbed the kid as the car stopped, but EEEISH. We did some extra babysitting. Our students had sessions on hygiene and leadership under a big tent outside, and ended with an official ceremony where the students got certificates. There was much picture taking and hugs as camp ended after we ate lunch.  Once the students left, we cleaned up, took down all of the tents, and celebrated a successful camp. Later that evening we had a big Braai (barbeque) at Trevor and Lindsey’s.  I was the only volunteer from my intake group this weekend; almost all of the others were Bots 14s. A really fun group, who have invented a game of catch called One hand no body (which I swear is going to evolve to people getting beaned in the face) and had everyone trying to light a match with the box on your elbow. Good times were had. I got to hang out with a lot of people I didn't know well before that I hope I get to hang out with a lot in the future!

Monday I got the 6am bus again, which dropped me in Moleps a little after 3. I didn’t make it all the way back home, but spent the night at Aileen’s since I couldn’t get a hitch all the way to my village. Today I finally made it home, exhausted, but with the high that only comes from hanging out with friends and camp. :)

*The boys in the girls bathroom were students, not PCVs. Thought I should clarify that ;)