From June 16 to 24, a bunch of volunteers helped with the
Young Men’s Leadership Project, or YMLP.
During these ten days, young men from high school from around Macedonia
were invited to attend a camp. At the
camp, they learned about topics and participated in activities that are not
always offered in their local schools.
For example, each morning the campers participated in classes the
revolved around four topics- Democracy, Civil Responsibility, Personal Development,
and Leadership. In the afternoon, they
participated in various activities that pertained to topics such as the Artist,
the Athlete, Presentation, and the Naturalist.
Finally, each night the majority of the campers slept in tents, an
activity that seems to be rare for most Macedonian youths.
Each year, the camp is usually hosted in Tajmishte, an area
located in the mountains near Kicevo.
However, our coordinators for YMLP were required to move the site since
the electricity supply to the camp was tampered only weeks before the camp
would take place. Scrambling to find an
ideal site, the coordinators first chose a site near Recen, only to realize
that the site was a monastery and would probably not be appropriate for the
Albanian/ Muslim campers. Thus Shula
Mina, a camp with elements preserved from the 80s, was chosen for the site for
YMLP.
Luckily for me, Shula Mina is located only a few minutes
stroll from Krushevo, and Krushevo is only a 40-minute kombi ride away from
Prilep. Therefore, I had all of my
weekend between Language and Cultural IST and YMLP Camp to relax at home and
prepare for the camp. Preparations for
the camp began on Monday, so many of the volunteers who were facilitators,
counselors, or support staff stayed the preceding night at my place before we
embarked for the camp. Upon arriving to
Shula Mina, I was stunned to discover that a beautiful deciduous forest existed
so close to Prilep. Outside of
mountainous areas, Macedonia lacks large, gorgeous forests, probably due to hundreds
of years of civilization extracting these forests for building and kindling
material. Many forests were replanted
during the Tito years, but most of these are coniferous. Therefore, I was elated to discover that we
would camp in a place that reminded me of the beautiful forests I was used to
in Michigan. Invigorated by the natural
beauty of the area, absence of internet access, and the promise of an active
lifestyle for the next week, I spent most of the first day hiking through the
forests and running on the nearby paths.
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| Arriving in Krushevo |
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| Arriving at Shula Mina |
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| Such an amazing forest |
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| What we termed as the "Valley of Death", White team rough-camped on the other side |
On the first day, a few of us decided to take a walk to the
nearby lake, and we happened upon a cute little puppy that we named Trevor. After petting Trevor for some time along the
path to the lake, it managed to crawl under the gate of its home, and it continued
to follow us to the park. At first we
were happy that this little guy was fond of us.
However, it eventually followed a different group of pedestrians as we
were sitting near the lake, and we became somewhat relieved that we were no
longer responsible for the puppy. That
is, until that group picked up Trevor and threw him in the lake. I do not understand the sadistic way that
many host country nationals treat domestic animals in this country, but another
volunteer and I quickly caught up to the group in order to come to Trevor’s
rescue. Since we were not returning to
camp the original way, we allowed Trevor to follow us to Shula Mina as it began
to rain. I could not consciously leave the
puppy at the park just to have another group throw him into the lake so that he
could drown. Wet and tired, Trevor was
shivering and whimpering the whole walk back.
When we finally returned, many of the volunteers were happy to have his
company, dried him off, and gave him some sustenance. Later that evening, some of the volunteers
returned him to his rightful home during their walk to the Krushevo center.
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| Trevor!!! |
Monday and Tuesday were designated for setting up the campsites
around Shula Mina. However, we soon
discovered that rain would hamper our efforts for the first few days of the
camp. I knew that we would be seriously
challenged when I was awoken early on Tuesday morning by a squall. Since this site was new for the coordinators,
much of Monday was spent in confusion as they were busy adapting to the new
venue and calculating inventory. Since I
was accepted as the Financial and Logistics coordinator for YMLP for next year,
I was obligated to stay behind the first night to help with inventory while most
others walked into Krushevo to watch the USA-Ghana game. At first I did not mind, since trends over
the past eight years suggested that meeting the crew in town for the game would
just leave me depressed and tired the next day.
However, even though I have yet to watch a win by the USA National team,
I was able to start the next day fresh and ready to work. As the other volunteers spent most of Tuesday
napping due to their long night, a few of us walked through the torrential
downpour to clean some of the paths between camp sites and to set up the rough
camp sites. After about an hour of
setting up, Aaron, Brittany, Britt, Christy, and I were soaked completely. By this point, most of my clothes were not
suitable for wearing, so I hoped that we would have sunnier weather once the
campers arrived.
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| Setting up rough camps in the rain |
Wednesday was the start of the camp, and many of the campers
began to arrive as early as 10AM. Since
changing locations for the camp disrupted the plans for transportation, many of
these students were required to pay for their own way to Shula Mina, and thus
many of the campers did not show up.
Therefore, as we were expecting about 80 campers in total, only about 55
showed up for the camp. The most
disappointing aspect was that YMLP strives to create a multi-ethnic atmosphere,
but most of the Albanian campers were accepted from Struga, and since many of
them decided not to attend the camp, we only had two Albanian campers during
the whole camp. Unfortunately for me,
both my original Junior Counselor (a camper who assumes some responsibility and
helps the counselor on his team) from Makedonska Kamenica and the back-up JC
from Tetovo cancelled, so I was finally given a JC last-minute just before camp
began.
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| Campers arriving at Shula Mina |
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| My team, the White Tigers |
All of the campers were divided into eight teams, each
containing a counselor and a JC. Seven
of the counselors were PCVs, and one was an HCN. We were all assigned colors, and the first
three hours of camp were dedicated for our team to acclimate ourselves with
each other and to develop our own team names, chants, and flags. Our team decided to call ourselves the “White
Tigers”, and we decided to use the standard military call as the tune of our
chant. Since it rained horribly on Wednesday as well, it was decided that all
teams would sleep in the cabins for the first night.
Now if I went through every day of this camp, you would
surely become bored by this post. Let’s
just say that through the classes and activities, all of the campers
experienced some sort of personal development, etc. etc. Personally, there were two highlights for me
during the whole camp. Even though I was
a counselor, I had the opportunity to teach two sets of classes. On Saturday, I taught first aid with Dave to
all of the campers. Since we were both
lifeguards years before becoming PCVs, we used our knowledge and skills to
train the campers in basic first aid. We
ran through a series of scenarios where we cut our arms, sprained our ankles,
or burned our hands. Our skits were
supposedly so grotesque (and maybe well acted!) that we made a kid faint during
one session. Luckily, the second half of
our class was taught by the camp doctor, so in response he sprang into action
once he discovered that the camper was about to faint. All ended well. The second class I taught was “US College
Preparedness”, and it was somewhat surprising to see a group of about 7-8
ambitious students who had dreams to go to many of the top colleges in the USA.
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| The doctor teaching CPR |
My team’s favorite night of camp was sleeping in rough
camp. Once the weather cleared from
Friday on, conditions were dry enough for the eight teams to sleep up the hill
within the forest. There, each team was
responsible for starting their fire, building their tents, and cooking their
own food. I put my campers in charge of
starting the fire, since many Macedonians are used to using wood stoves in the
winter. It seemed that the wood was
still a bit too wet to light correctly, so my campers decided that it would be
best to start the fire by using their spray deodorant as a flamethrower. I mentally opposed this tactic since it was
not very “rough camp”, but since they all decided upon this method as a team, I
let it fly. As they all collected more
wood for the fire, I took charge of preparing the dinner. My campers were satisfied by the peppers,
carrots, potatoes, and ground beef cooked in aluminum foil wraps over the open
fire. After dinner, we broke out the
materials for s’mores, and it seemed that my campers experienced so many
essential parts of the American childhood that many Macedonians do not get to
experience. As the night progressed, our
camp was invaded by the Black team, and we all bonded around the fire playing
Mafia. After, both my team and the Black
team decided to join the Blue team to wander through the forest and continue
their late-night shenanigans.
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| White Tigers preparing rough camp |
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| Rough Camp Dinner |
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| Enjoying S'mores for the first time |
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| Black and White teams chilling |
Overall, this YMLP camp was a major success. I was able to spend quality time in nature
and outdoors. It was also a great break
from my daily schedule at site. Despite
the logistical challenges that the coordinators faced last minute, the camp won
great acclaim from some reputable sources. The US Ambassador to Macedonia visited on
Thursday and only had great feedback regarding the camp. Also, ten national media outlets published
reports about the camp in their newspapers or broadcasted them on the evening
news (see below for one of the links).
I really enjoyed my experience over the ten days I spent at
the camp. While it was great to spend
over a week in such a serene environment, I appreciated the challenges I faced
as well. Based on my experiences with
this camp, I have two major worries that I expect to face in the next
year. First, much of this camp was
funded by a two-year grant that just finished, so much of my duties throughout
the next year will include finding funding for this camp. Second, while I really enjoyed my team, much
of my energy was wasted on a 2-3 campers from my group of seven. This camp marks my first time as a counselor,
so maybe what I experienced is not so rare.
But I felt that for high school students who were aware of what
“camping” was, some of them complained a bit too much. Many nights they complained that they did not
want to drink the tap water, or that their backs hurt from camping, or that
they wanted access to their cell phones.
Instead of trying to solve these problems on their own, many of them expected me or other staff members on the staff to take care of these issues. In many ways, I hope that this is not a precursor to what I can expect when working with college students who are interested in embarking on an AIESEC internship this year.
But overall, most of the campers were great, and it really attests to the future of Macedonian leaders (at least on the male side, a similar camp called camp GLOW will take place in August). I really enjoyed meeting many of these students and watching them develop over such a short time, and I cannot wait until next year.
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| The whole YMLP Camp |
