Girl's Camp 2012

I was invited to be the camp director for our ward this year in Chile.  The camp was held about twenty five minutes up the valley from where we live in La Serena.  I was in charge of 13 girls with ages ranging from 12 to 17.  Above is a shot of our campsite.  I was fortute to be able to sleep in the grey tent in the center all by myself.  The young women had to share the same size tent with four to a tent.  I have to preface this post with the fact that usually I am not a happy camper.  I just can't understand why people think that it is fun to sleep on the cold hard ground and not take showers for days on end.  Luckily there are no dangerous animals that might harm us here in Chile.  I have an irrational fear of wild animals as well.  Not to mention the fact that everyone speaks Spanish here and I am still struggling to learn the language.  Now that I have devulged many of my inadequacies, I am happy to say that I had a wonderful time at campamento.  The reason is because of the sweet girls that I was able to work with.

Sofia, Vangie and Estefania

Javiera and Emily

Each girl has a camp manual with skills that they pass off including first aid skills, outdoor survival and safety and also spiritual goals like reading the scriptures and appreciating nature.  Emily and Javiera became good friends and worked on their goals together all week.

As one of her goals Emily was able to help raise the Chilean flag at our first sunrise service.  Emily and I wished that we know the Chilean national anthem and could sing along.

It was chilly in the mornings.  The girls looked cute all wrapped up in their sleeping bags.

These are the young women value colors.  Each one stands for a different value such as, faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity, and virtue.

We camped together in ward groups and the leaders from the stake had a kitchen where food was prepared for all of us.

They did a great job of feeding us.  This is a typical breakfast.  We received two pieces of hallulla (bread the size of a hamburger bun).  One had butter and ham.  The other had marmelade.  They also offered a drink called Ecco which is a coffee substitute.  Everyone was drinking it, but Emily and I passed.  I have tried it before and wasn't intersted in trying it again.

Lunch here is the big meal of the day.  For a typical almuerzo we would have grilled chicken and rice with a side of shredded lettuce with oil and lemon.  Pictured here are the toppings for completos that we had one evening for dinner.  A completo is a hot dog stuffed with tomato, guacamole, mayo and ketchup.  I have more pictures of that a little later in this post.

The girls were assigned amigas secretas or secret sisters and every day, they would write a letter to their secret sister and later in the day the letters were handed out in a big group setting.

Emily, Sofia, Javiera, Natacha and Karina

Every afternoon the girls were given a couple of hours for swimming in the lake at our camp.  This was a highlight for the girls.  They had so much fun.  The other leader in our group, Hermana Yolanda, was kind enough to watch the girls during this time so that I could take a little nap.

During one of the swimming times, Emily and her friends Javiera and Vangie spent their two hours trapping tiny fish.

I took pictures of most of our girls during our completo meal.  We have such fabulous young women.  The are so self motivated.  They were always working on their goals or finding some way to be helpful.

Fernanda

Alejandra and Natacha

Sofia and Emily

Kristheel, Bianka and Catalina

Ivis and Karina

Me with my completos.  I just love avocados!

Javiera

Our girls all got along so well and had so much fun together.

On morning we went on an 8km (caminata)  hike.  We stopped here for a breakfast of hallulla: one with ham and one with dulce de leche.  Yum!

For part of the hike we stopped to play some games.

The object of this game was to do a series of steps and jumps as the circle got smaller and smaller without falling down.

 

Here is our stake young womens president Loreto and our ward young womens president Yolanda with her husband Moses.

For dinner on the third night we learned how to make pan amasado which is a homemade bread that people sell from the roadsides. 

Each dough roll is flattened and stabbed with fork so that it will keep its shape when it is cooked.

Later we cooked our pan amasado with a reflector oven that my Dave made for us.

Sofia brought a bag of multicolored marshmallows. We broke out some skewers and toasted up the marshmallows. I watched as everyone stuck theirs right into the flame and burned them to a crisp. I on the other hand found a nice spot with coals and toasted mine to a nice golden brown. Come on people.

One night we had a Show de Talentos.  Our ward performed a dance from a song called Gee sung by a Korean group called Girls Generation.

Another ward performed a song by Madonna, but everyone was chanting Lady Gaga.

The lake with a waxing moon.

We had a few pets at camp which keep things interesting and made for some fun sounds early in the morning.

the camp dog

We also had a camp horse.

Fernanda, Emily, Catatlina, Vangie, Sofia, Ivis, Yolanda, Bianka, Jill, and Javiera

The girls were having fun taking pictures and started coming up with all kinds of crazy poses.

Superman pose

Other poses were....cara de pienso, rockear, soy fuerte, paz, and vomitar.  You really don't want to know.

Later that night, our stake president gave a devotional for all the campistas.

The final morning we had an awards ceremony and exchanged gifts for our secret sisters.

This is Constanza "Coni" who had Emily as a secrets sister.

This is Emily's secret sister Francisca who was also known as Selena Gomez because of her song at the talent show.

The day ended by giving the girls their certification certificates.  I was so proud to have been able to work with these girls.  They are so thoughtful, kind and hardworkers.  Here are just a few of the girls.

Jill and Bianka

Jill and Javiera

Jill and Natacha

Jill and Kristheel

Jill and Sofia

Jill and Catalina

The long, cold nights sleeping in a tent was well worth it because of the great time that I was able to spend with Emily and the great girls of the La Serena First Ward.  My Spanish was adequate enough to be able to help the girls and they were so patient with me.  Despite my fears, I am so glad that I was able to go to camp here in Chile.