Life Uncaged: Summertime Funness : Camp Fortes 2015

It was just March, and now May’s gone, and June has almost run its course as well. I keep thinking, time to update my blog! But I sit down at my computer and the words just don’t come. How to say all these rushing thoughts, feelings, insights, and impressions - they are here one moment, gone the next, like a movie you’ve never seen before playing on fast forward. Nevertheless, here I am, again, writing.

In fewer than two months I will no longer be in Cameroon, no longer be in Peace Corps. That’s good, and that’s bad. Happy & sad. Salt & pepper. Bitter & sweet.

One last big accomplishment: Camp Fortes 2015 was a great success!

(Excuse me for a moment while I go check out what my neighbor, friend, and big sister Carine is cooking downstairs. Smells tempting.)

Okay back to the keyboard. (It was ripe banana beignets, mmm.) Camp! Yay!

It was indeed a great success - not without challenges popping up, not without the normal drama between a bunch of pubescent girls - but a success nonetheless, and one that wouldn’t have been possible without YOU, friends and family who donated to RIDEV and made it happen. I cannot say thank you enough, RIDEV cannot say thank you enough, and the girls cannot say thank you enough. Still - THANK YOU!!!

Twenty six young women participated this year, including three formerly trained peer educators. They learned life skills like communication and decision making. They learned about male and female anatomy and how a baby is made and how to NOT make a baby if you don’t want to. They learned about sexual violence and sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS and strategies to protect themselves from them (including abstinence). They learned about stigma and the pain it causes others.

Listening attentively before starting an activity.

C'est Madame Rebecca!

Those are the things we taught in lessons. But they also learned other, more subtle things - they met girls their own age who have had totally different experiences from them, though they’re separated by only a few kilometers. The city girls learned how different village life and education are, and vice versa. They made new friends. They learned how to take care of themselves without being under the watchful eye of Mama or Tata (Aunty) or Grandma.

What would slumber camp be without some hair styling?

Playing musical chairs between classes.

Friday night bonfire

By the end of camp, they all learned something from the lessons.

• 100% of the girls stated that they felt capable of protecting themselves from HIV.

• 100% could correctly demonstrate and explain the steps of using a male condom.

• 95% stated that they were self-confident.

• 95% felt capable of talking to others about methods of protection against HIV and early pregnancy.

• Over 50% improved in explaining effecting methods of Family Planning and its advantages; defining “stigma”; and naming methods to prevent transmission of HIV.

The girls get bored if we sit around lecturing them
too long - so we get them up and moving with
lots of activities!

Perhaps most stunningly (to everyone else if not to me!), two students got perfect scores on the post-test — including the 12 year old student from Bansoa who everyone said was too little to understand or learn or be a peer educator.

By the end of camp, they all also learned a bit of yoga, found new and lasting friendships, and made memories that will stay with them for a lifetime. There were many tears upon parting — even for their annoying, disciplinarian, self-declared dictator teacher (that would be me).

Many of my students travel during the long school break. They stay with family in Douala or Yaoundé, experiencing city life and learning other family traditions or skills. Since I leave in mid-August, before the “rentrée scolaire,” that means I have already seen most of them for the last time. We say goodbyes, and there are tears, but I hold on to a smile and tell them:

“There will always be people in our lives that come in and then must go. That doesn’t mean the person forgets us or does not love us. I have to leave, but I will think of you often and you will always be in my heart.”

I have this memory of a tall, skinny, gray haired lady who arrived during some health class during middle school at NCS, ostensibly to teach us about love. It turned out to be a lecture on abstinence. First she opened a treasure chest and out popped snakes. I don’t remember what that was supposed to represent. Then came a red paper heart, which she ripped and handed away to each man she had sex with and then was hurt by, ripping in half and in half again until she had only a tiny piece of her heart left because she was a slut and all men are scheming heart breakers, or some such logic. (I also distinctly remember feeling sorry for her children.)

This experience of saying goodbye over and over again to people who have touched me makes me think that rip our red paper heart and give away bits to every person we love and then leave behind. The difference is, that they give us bits of their own heart in return. In the guise of girls’ club and Camp Fortes, I have loved these young women, taught them what I know about life and love and looking to the future. Now I have to let them try on their own, and go back to my own country; but I am leaving a piece of myself with them, and I will carry them with me.