Tuesday, 16 September 2014

dig deep..

So the week before I met up with the Nomad for my Zambia trip, I participated in a leadership camp for kids. Camp GLOW (Girls and Guys Leading our World.)

Some of you lovely people who’d heard about it beforehand, were kind enough to give donations. Thank you all for your generosity!

I was tech person #2. This meant my job was to run about taking a thousand or so photos and make a slideshow video to show at the start of each day. I also facilitated on the side, and helped decorate all of the things.

Day of set-up, I was looking to avoid heavy lifting.
I’m strong, mind you, but they were hefting 4 meter solid wood dining tables up a winding flight of stairs. I’m not coordinated enough for that stuff. Either I or the table or both would be broken. I helped with the navigation and maneuvering of the first and quickly looked around for a project that would give the illusion of my being occupied.

Luckily for me, K— is sprawled on the floor making signs… ‘Whatcha doin?’ I ask. ‘We need dinosaurs,’ she says, as she thrusts butcher paper and markers toward me. ‘You can draw dinosaurs, right?’ (Our theme for camp was dinosaurs, and the 'Race Against Extinction'... Our motto? "Dig deep. Discover yourself.")

I eye the door where they’re grunting and shoving in a second table. ‘Yeah, sure. Dinosaurs. Which ones you need?’

For the next two hours K— ordered me about telling me what to sketch and we colored in dinosaurs. It was like second grade art class bliss. We took over other people’s projects too. It was a little rude. But we fancied ourselves art directors.

And then the children started to arrive.
Combi after combi.

It was a bit of madness. The whole week.
Each day was fully booked.
It was amazing and exhausting.
I got to work with some of the brightest kids from all over the country…
And I took thousands of photos.

Here are some of my favorite shots of Camp GLOW 2014: