C2017: Día 2

Wow! What a day. It seems like what we've been working towards is really coming to fruition. Case in point, as I was writing this last sentence Eric sat down next to me and said, "I really liked the work we did this afternoon." He was referring to the last few hours we spent working on the playground (more on that later) And what I assume he meant in his succinct way was, "It's a great feeling when you can see the immediate results of your hard, physical labor. Especially when you are doing it for a common good."

I think the same could be said for the entire day. We changed the schedule this year because we thought the teen leaders, both American and Dominican, were ready to take over the camp's main activities. And that's exactly what they showed us today. They led all the learning activities while Tanya, Luli and I worked mainly on logistics and transitions. Furthermore, three of the six home rooms were led by Dominican teen leaders Nicole, Thania, and Cailyn with Evan and Luc. Here's a photo journal of what went down: I hope you like it.

Science Workshop:

Charlie and Camila led one of the science classrooms in experiments on buoyancy while Kelli led the other class in some Ph work.

Sports and Games:

Eric and Frandy designed the obstacle course that one group did while the other played some card and board games. 

Art Workshop:

Luc, Eric, and Evan had the students use drawings and playdough to reflect their learning in the science workshop:

Oh. And by the way 20 or so new campers showed up today so we're at 116.  Told you so. Here is one final picture of transition time:

Then, in the afternoon all the teen leaders went to work in the playground with Oscar. As Eric described, they all worked hard and had a great time doing it. It also turned out to be a great bonding experience for all of them. It's funny what has transpired with these Dominican and American teenagers over the last three years. In the first year that we brought teenagers with us they really bonded when we went to the beach. So last year we said, "wasn't that great what happened last year. Let's go to the beach earlier this year."  So we did. And the two groups barely spoke to each other. So, this year we decided not to partake in any social engineering and just let things develop as they would or wouldn't. And then today they all totally bonded while doing this hard work at the park. There was laughing and dancing and sharing of Spanishu slang, and singing. "Despacito" seems to be popular here as well. All while painting, building, digging, and cleaning. Here is what it looked like:

I have lots of videos as well but I can't figure out how to get them in the blog. Guess I'll post them on Facebook. By the way, here's my latest idea. We make a music video of all the kids working and then taking a break to drink a Coke or Gatorade or something. Then we'll send it to them for their new commercial and donate the proceeds to the foundation. What do you think?