Mini-camp in Agas

I have yet to fully acclimate to the Romanian system of knowing that everything has a way of working out. This mini-camp was a 3-day experimental exercise to test how kids (my students) would react to the types of activities we have planned for some week-long camps in the summer. The camps are being held in a little village, Agas, up the valley from my town. When another volunteer and her Romanian friend contacted me about approaching some of my students about a mini-camp, I immediately agreed, thinking about how fun summer camp seemed when I was a kid. Little did I realize how difficult it would be to encourage kids to attend the activities.


After two afternoons of team-building exercises and self-reflection, five students and I boarded the train early Saturday morning for the half-hour ride up the pretty countryside for a day of work on the farm where the camps will be located. A lovely breakfast spread was late out on our arrival and after enjoying some salata de vinete, snitel and juice (suc), we had a few warm up activities, including a water balloon toss. In keeping with our theme of working together in a rhythm, we worked in a team to paint fences, walls and doors as well as the pagoda that was being built especially for the camp. We were also able to create a dirt and stone path leading to the bridge that crossed the stream in the yard.


Spending a beautiful day out in the sun doing work in which you can see the outcomes of your effort, was almost as enjoyable as spending the day listening to and conversing with some of my teenage students. These kids amaze me every day. They are so full of life and energy and sometimes they have such insight that it reminds me that even from halfway across the world, we are not very different at all. I got to spend the past few days discussing books, music, television, family, self-image, teamwork, aspirations and goals with youth that come from such different life experience than I do. I hope they got as much as I did out of our mini-camp because they are truly what make my service worth every minute.