Tranductor

Jul 18, 2019

Getting Ready for Campamento 2019

Well, here we go again. Campamento 2019 begins in a little over a week.  We're spreading our wings a bit this year - with two camps. One in Madre Vieja (as always) and another in Las Galeras in the SamanĂ¡ peninsula on the other side of the island. This is a beautiful seaside community that we've visited many times - and even brought the teen leaders there in 2016. We love the peace, beauty, and friendliness of Las Galeras and hope that we can give back in some small way with the running of our camp. It is bittersweet as many of the teen leaders from the past aren't able to join us this year but newcomer cousin Sarah will take up the slack.

Our plan for the camp is to focus on art and literacy and then add on a softball component for the girls. Baseball, as is quite well known, is super popular in the D.R. but really only for boys.  We thought we'd do a little gender equity work and see if the girls want to play some softball every day after camp - taking advantage of Sarah's expertise. To support this endeavor, Sarah and a friend of hers ran a softball equipment drive in their hometown of Cheshire, CT.  We shipped 6 big boxes of the equipment they gathered to the D.R. a few weeks ago.

On a related note, we've been working with a woman named Ana Reyes in Las Galeras who works with the mayor to set up the camp there.  She contacted the principal of the local school and got us permission to run the camp there and promises that she'll be able to gather up 20 to 30 campers for us. I imagine that will happen but I have this recurring nightmare that when we get there there won't be a camper in sight. As always, I'll just have to have faith that it will all work out in the end - after all it usually does in the D.R. - one way or another.  OK. That's it for now.  See you in Las Galeras.