how is a tarp like community development?
We went to the department of Santa Barbara Monday afternoon to attend a camp. Santa Barbara is beautiful, tree covered mountains, a beautiful river and natural hot springs with these caves that are like saunas. It is a camp mainly for kids/teens for leadership and environmental education. On Monday we went down to the river, some people swam, and we all passed through the sauna caves. It was really hot and steamy in there and just 2 minutes in there really cleared up my skin. After dinner, we had a bonfire that lasted a few hours. It was really nice and I had the chance to talk with some of the girls in our group. We went to bed around 10 pm in our cabin filled with 9 beds. Sounds OK, right? Kind of like a big sleepover...
"Dinámica" is a word that I may use a lot in the next 2 years so I´ll explain it now. A dinámica is a warm up activity or a bonding activity that is used A LOT by PC. Some of them are fun and some of them are horrible. A simple dinámica could be "give me your name and an adjective that starts with the same letter as your name" Knowldegeable Kathryn. (Yeah right!)
...we wake up around 645 Tuesday to a breakfast of beans and eggs. I know that I´ve said I can eat scrambled eggs now but not first thing in the morning--so I just ate beans and tortillas. After breakfast we started with some streches and then broke up into 2 groups to do dinámicas--we did a trust fall, one where we had to carry a tennis ball on a ring and another one where we basically threw people over a "wall" to display teamwork. It wasn´t bad but after every activity we had discussion. "How did you feel? How does it feel working as a team?" What was your role?" Then we had some races and received some environmental education. Not bad right?
Until the tarp.
It was 1105 am. Lunch is at 1130. Most of us didn´t shower in the morning because the showers were scary. We were all sweaty from running and it was hot outside. That´s when we got our final dinámica as a full group--the dinámica of doom.
14 of us stood on a 2 ft by 2 ft tarp that we were supposed to turn over to the other side without any of us stepping outside of the tarp. That´s 30 feet of various sizes on a 576 sq in surface. 14 sweaty, tired, and hungry bodies crammed together. I am not claustrophobic (spelling?) but I still enjoy my own personal space. We tried standing on one foot and balancing on each other and piggybacking by we couldn´t flip that tarp.
1123 am. Only a few are on the tarp trying to figure it out. Everyone else (myself included) were on the outside waiting for lunch. We could not figure out a solution. Crabbiness was visible among most.
1135 am. We try again but I just feel so uncomfortable that I just stand off the tarp with Crystal. We´re both in a funk because we want to eat and don´t want to stand anymore. Our friend Brandon was sitting in a chair away from the whole scene by then. Others begin to step off the tarp too.
1140 am. The coordinatior gives us the solution. But it doesn´t work when we try it.
1145 am. Discussion.
1146 am. Our YD trainers chew us out.
-"When you think of YD-you are not just going to be playing with kids-you are not here to babysit"
-"You have to keep a positive attitude when working because it´s going to be really hard"
-"Your participation level has continued to drop throughout the day"
-"what are you going to do when you have a bad day at site? Give up?"
-"Community development is not easy. You cannot just quit the way some of you did."
-"Maybe community development is not for you if you all give up"
And it continued until 12 pm. It was like facing a firing squad and I felt hurt, sad, and angry all at once. It´s funny because I understood where they were coming from but at the same time I felt like they didn´t understand us (tired, sweaty, smelly, hungry). Crystal said at lunch, "If the dinámica had been done after lunch, it may have had different results", which could be true.
All I wanted to do was cry simply because it felt like I was letting down my parents. I really like the YD trainers and respect and value their opinions-so when they said those things I felt like 14 years old again and being punished by my parents for breaking curfew.
We left Santa Barbara after lunch in a pretty quiet car ride. When we get back to Siguat we still have Spanish class. I drop off my stuff at home, go to the local store because all I want to do is drown my sorrows in a bag (yes bag) of chocolate milk. But they´re sold out! I walked to my Spanish class in a nasty mood about being chewed out and no milk.
Surprisingly, Spanish class was wonderful. We change teachers every 2 weeks and right now our instructor is Carlos, who is funny and light hearted. During class, we just laughed about the disaster dinámica and ate cake (perfect). I have never enjoyed Spanish class like this before. It was what I needed.
However, I am still thinking about what our trainers said. Is what they said true? It gets to you sometimes.
"Dinámica" is a word that I may use a lot in the next 2 years so I´ll explain it now. A dinámica is a warm up activity or a bonding activity that is used A LOT by PC. Some of them are fun and some of them are horrible. A simple dinámica could be "give me your name and an adjective that starts with the same letter as your name" Knowldegeable Kathryn. (Yeah right!)
...we wake up around 645 Tuesday to a breakfast of beans and eggs. I know that I´ve said I can eat scrambled eggs now but not first thing in the morning--so I just ate beans and tortillas. After breakfast we started with some streches and then broke up into 2 groups to do dinámicas--we did a trust fall, one where we had to carry a tennis ball on a ring and another one where we basically threw people over a "wall" to display teamwork. It wasn´t bad but after every activity we had discussion. "How did you feel? How does it feel working as a team?" What was your role?" Then we had some races and received some environmental education. Not bad right?
Until the tarp.
It was 1105 am. Lunch is at 1130. Most of us didn´t shower in the morning because the showers were scary. We were all sweaty from running and it was hot outside. That´s when we got our final dinámica as a full group--the dinámica of doom.
14 of us stood on a 2 ft by 2 ft tarp that we were supposed to turn over to the other side without any of us stepping outside of the tarp. That´s 30 feet of various sizes on a 576 sq in surface. 14 sweaty, tired, and hungry bodies crammed together. I am not claustrophobic (spelling?) but I still enjoy my own personal space. We tried standing on one foot and balancing on each other and piggybacking by we couldn´t flip that tarp.
1123 am. Only a few are on the tarp trying to figure it out. Everyone else (myself included) were on the outside waiting for lunch. We could not figure out a solution. Crabbiness was visible among most.
1135 am. We try again but I just feel so uncomfortable that I just stand off the tarp with Crystal. We´re both in a funk because we want to eat and don´t want to stand anymore. Our friend Brandon was sitting in a chair away from the whole scene by then. Others begin to step off the tarp too.
1140 am. The coordinatior gives us the solution. But it doesn´t work when we try it.
1145 am. Discussion.
1146 am. Our YD trainers chew us out.
-"When you think of YD-you are not just going to be playing with kids-you are not here to babysit"
-"You have to keep a positive attitude when working because it´s going to be really hard"
-"Your participation level has continued to drop throughout the day"
-"what are you going to do when you have a bad day at site? Give up?"
-"Community development is not easy. You cannot just quit the way some of you did."
-"Maybe community development is not for you if you all give up"
And it continued until 12 pm. It was like facing a firing squad and I felt hurt, sad, and angry all at once. It´s funny because I understood where they were coming from but at the same time I felt like they didn´t understand us (tired, sweaty, smelly, hungry). Crystal said at lunch, "If the dinámica had been done after lunch, it may have had different results", which could be true.
All I wanted to do was cry simply because it felt like I was letting down my parents. I really like the YD trainers and respect and value their opinions-so when they said those things I felt like 14 years old again and being punished by my parents for breaking curfew.
We left Santa Barbara after lunch in a pretty quiet car ride. When we get back to Siguat we still have Spanish class. I drop off my stuff at home, go to the local store because all I want to do is drown my sorrows in a bag (yes bag) of chocolate milk. But they´re sold out! I walked to my Spanish class in a nasty mood about being chewed out and no milk.
Surprisingly, Spanish class was wonderful. We change teachers every 2 weeks and right now our instructor is Carlos, who is funny and light hearted. During class, we just laughed about the disaster dinámica and ate cake (perfect). I have never enjoyed Spanish class like this before. It was what I needed.
However, I am still thinking about what our trainers said. Is what they said true? It gets to you sometimes.
posted by Kathryn @ 3:58 PM
1 Comments:
At 1:19 AM,
Dirty Flamingo said…
This is all good stuff. I'm glad that you're the guinea pig first so that I can see what I have to go through later! ;)
I'm sure you'll do well!
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