This is a long overdue blog. I posted the pictures right after my camp and failed to write anything about it. After a month of being away, I was overtaken by events.... By work, by my kids and so many other things....
Last July 2007, I was lucky enough to be assigned as homestaff for a CISV Seminar Camp in Matuod, Batangas. CISV is the acronym for Children's International Summer Villages, an organization, Joseph and I have been involved in for years. I went to India 4 years ago as a leader and after training for Seminar Camp, I applied for this post.
Seminar Camp is for participants from 17-18 years old. For our seminar camp, we had Maggs (Phils), Tanya (Phils), Giles (Australia), Tom (Great Britain), and Eli (Germany) as STAFF. We had participants from Italy (Marcelo and Fede), Philippines (Marianna), Czech Republic (Matej and Zuzana), Israel (Noam, Amit, Tomer and Rona), Sweden (Calle and Linnea), Germany (Dominick and Marie), Finland (Salla), Thailand (Ping and Ploy), Netherlands (Lizzy), Brazil (Camila), Norway (Hanne), France (Louis), Portugal (Murta and Margarida).
The pictures would show that we had a beautiful campsite with amazing and breathtaking sunsets everyday. Almost a year from camp, I still look back with fondness. I still marvel at the ideas and fresh insight of the participants. I still reminisce about all the times we spent just hanging out and exchanging stories and experiences about our respective countries. I still remember the many things I learned from everyone.
It is difficult to explain what CISV is and what the seminar camp is all about. Let's just say that from the moment I started doing CISV work, I got totally hooked.... I miss the staff.... Jun jun, Boyet and Eli. Mostly I miss Tanya, my fellow pinay in the staff. I gave up one month of family and work time to do CISV work because I believe in its goals.....HIGHLIGHTS: I had my birthday in camp.....
Its my first time to be away from my family and I really thought I would be sad and lonely for my kids. On the day itself, we had our LMO activity. Our LMO was the Matuod Free School. There is this lovely woman named Marlyn who runs a day care cum pre school in Matuod for free. The school is right on the beach and most of the kids are children of the fishermen in the locality whose ages are between 5 to 12 years old. We planned games and activities we could play with the kids, we brought food to share and the participants brought books from their respective countries to donate and share with kids. It was a very different but fulfilling birthday for me. When we arrived back at the campsite, we started preparing for dinner which was just 
what we usually have then Amit cut his finger and had to be brought to the hospital... I thought that was it. But when they came back, the staff presented a beautiful song they composed for me.... It was very nice and sweet..... I must say, to have a song sung about you is the greatest pleasure ever. Para kang superstar!
After camp, we decided to have our post camp evaluation in Boracay. This is really just for staff but we invited the participants to come along. We braved the habagat. While we were working, the kids (they're just 18 so they're kids to me!) were having the time of their lives....
Pero we also tried to have a few drinks and also to enjoy ourselves. We deserved it!
Here's another look at the Matuod skyline.... i miss everyone....
But this July, Im off to another seminar camp as international staff.... I cant wait....
1 comment:
mare, pwede na bang umiyak? anuba???
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