Campamento de Entrenamiento

The Campamento de Entrenamiento (Training Camp) was a requirement for all of the inbounds in Peru so that we could all meet, but more importantly be trained for our year in Peru. We all arrived in San Borja at 3 pm so that we could all board the buses. I went with Ange by taxi to the meeting place, joined the giant crowd of students and immediately started scanning the crowd for familiar faces/people I had talked with online but had yet to meet in person. I quickly found JeAnne (my French girl that is being hosted by my host cousins). I then found Sabrina (girl I had talked with online quite a bit but hadn't met). It was really exciting to meet so many people I knew but had yet to talk to in person. Eventually, we all went to board the buses, put our luggage underneath, and settle into our seats. No one knew where the camp really was or how far we had to go. We all talked and caught up (I have no phone so I haven't talked to anyone for a while). Sabrina and Kaitlynn (inbound from TN) sat infant of Macie and I, while Courtney and Leonora sat to our right. It was intresting to hear of everyone's arrival stories (Sabrina's laptop had been stolen and Courtney lives very close to dead chickens). We talked a lot, and before we knew it, we were at the camp.

The best way to phrase this is that the location for our camp was simply stunning. I don't think anything is going to top the location (sorry Ancilla college). I am still unsure of exactly what it was, but I think it was an off season resort. We were the only ones there, which was awesome. Once we arrived, we all got our luggage, and met so that we could be assigned our rooms/roomates. We were also assigned a color and received a bandana. My roommates were Grace (USA), Marion (Belgium), Tiia (Finland), and Lise (France). We all headed to our room and put our stuff in quickly, we all wanted to go explore our new home (for 3 days). We all grabbed our flags, took in the beautiful sunset, and enjoyed our first night.

Pretty amazing views for our Rotary venue!

My fav American gals! L to R: Sabrina, Me, and Macie

One last picture of the view :)

Eventually we had to go in and stop taking pictures so we could have our first session with the Rotary. Everyone introduced themselves, and we played a few games.

After that we met with all of our teams. We had to elect a team captain, make up a team cheer, and have three people speak in Spanish about why our team was going to win at the end of the camp. Every team was competing to win first prize, we got points for punctuality, winning team exercises, and for having team spirit. We got points taken away for having bad behavior, etc.. I should also mention that I was team AMARILLO (yellow). After our team got into a group, we elected Elsbeth (Netherlands) to be our team leader. We then all attempted to make a cheer (we kinda failed) and I somehow got roped into speaking for our group. My team had to go up there, we said our cheer ("Amarillo-yo-yo-yo") and I said "Nosotros somos intelligente". The other speakers from our team were Jessica (Brazil) and Emily (USA). We ended up getting 3rd place (no surprise, we kinda failed). After that our team ended up playing the selfie game. We basically got a list of random places around the resort. Our team then needed to take a selfie with the item/place, making sure everyone was in the picture and that the lighting was good. Our team ended up running around like crazy people trying to make up for our loss earlier. We did pretty well, but we couldn't find the infirmary (we ended up asking an employee who didn't understand why we wanted to go to the closed infirmary). Eventually we got back, we got there second, but we ended up placing first (our photos were all clear and had good lighting). After that, we all went to bed before our early morning the next day.

The next morning, we got up way too early and walked to the restaurant for breakfast. After that we returned and had a day full of presentations. We learned things like what to wear for the Night of the Blazers, how to react in emergency situations, etc. In between learning sessions, we got to eat snacks, and we did a few more team exercises. The team exercises we got to do throughout the day included sitting in a circle moving a ball with our butts around the circle (I was good at this, attributing it to soccer. We moved the ball around 1.5 times),  putting a sand shovel between our legs and walking to dump the sand into a bucket (I was horrible at this, but we still filled our bucket the most), and having a team relay trying to get water from the ocean into our bucket further up the beach (We got second in this). We also had to build the Rotary wheel out of sand (we also got second place in this). Later that night we played a game in the empty swimming pool (yes you read that right, there was an empty swimming pool). It was an imitation of the Amazon jungle and we had to cross our entire team over using wooden blocks. We couldn't touch the cones, the alligators, or piranhas. My team was prime to get first but we lost after two team members lost grip of each other (we had to touch each other the whole time). All in all, we ended up getting third place. Afterwards we went back in, had more presentations, and eventually went to play a game with a string. We had to chose a partner from another team (I chose Sabrina), and we had to tie our hands together and undo it. Sabrina and I epically failed at this, felt like idiots, and eventually had to get help from someone else. After we played the game, we went through and started making clothing out of paper or other recycled materials for a fashion show. I somehow got roped into the show, and ended up walking the runway with a traffic cone on my head. Our team had an ocean theme (I was a starfish) and we ended up placing 1st. Afterwards, we called it a night and went to bed exhausted.

Team Amarillo <3

Ball moving with butts game

Team Amarillo's masterpiece

Leading my team through the Amazon!

The third and last day of camp was one of the more difficult. By this point, everyone was exhausted and it was really hard to listen to speeches throughout the day. This day in particular we learned about earthquakes, fires, and we got a lesson about self defense from some police officers. We also got a thorough lesson on manners. After our lessons, we went to the beach to play capture the flag. My team didn't do too well with this, but I particularly went full out and tried to get some flags. I ended up stealing a flag from a team (my team later lost it but I got it), and I also went crashing down a sand hill. In order to get put into jail, you had to be dragged in, so I gave it my all and thrashed around (Mason helped me practice for this particular game, I had to use my slithering skills). After capture the flag, we had to play a game that involved a bunch of squatting. Basically we all got in a circle and the adults sang a song. Whenever they said "Lorenza" or a day of the week (in Spanish), we had to do a squat. This resulted in me squatting continuously for about 10 minutes (my legs were already tired from all the stairs and this was a real test of my strength). After that each team elected someone to do a plank (thankfully not me). After the fitness test, we ended up all going inside, getting the results back for the teams (We got second) and going out to take pictures. Everyone ended up using my Peruvian flag (leave it to me to be prepared). After that we headed back home.

After capture the flag :)