Peace Corps (in Ukraine at least) hosts a lot of summer camps. Some focus on English ability, some on HIV education and prevention. While many cover a broad swath of interests, others isolate a particular sliver of nerdiness like Model UN or Roman history. Girls only, boys only, debate camp, and soccer + AIDS testing: the choices are as varied as they are numerous. To staff these mega camps can be, by some reports, a stressful nightmare week filled with misbehaving children and headbutting with Ukrainian directors, or it can be my experience.
Camp MAKE (Multiculturalism * Action * Knowledge * Empowerment) is one of those camps painted in broad strokes. Over the 10 days, we taught everything from East Asian dance to Simon and Garfunkel, water colour painting to CPR, environmentalism to speech writing, improv comedy to American football. We also rocked their collective socks with a series of team building challenges, making them perform acrobatics in the linguistic, scientific, logic, physical, engineering, and artistic fields.
While the classes were great fun, it was only because the people were so awesome. The 90 students at this camp came from all over the country, and they were some of the best Ukraine has to offer. The level of enthusiasm, creativity, and intelligence was simply astounding. If Ukraine weren't so politically...shady, I would say there were future presidents at this camp, but suffice it to say that all these kids will be playing important roles in their country's future.
Enough blathering, you can tell just how much fun it was from the pictures!
There were dress-up days:
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| America and Ukraine Day |
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| Super Hero Day |
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| Dead Day |
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| Twin Day |
There was learning:
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| Still-life Painting |
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| Geography |
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| Human Anatomy |
There were team challenges:
