Access Camp

A Rainbow of PCVs

Team New Jersey...with their native New Jerseyan

Nothing like a little singing

Hard at work in the classroom

Telephone

On a scavenger hunt in Granada

I spent the last week working at ACCESS camp, a summer camp that is part of a larger program sponsored by the US embassy. While it was a good break from my pre-school boredom, it was a ton of work and quite exhausting, because there were 300 kids staying at a hotel, spread out across dozens of cabanas on a labyrinthine property. Most of the 14-16 year- olds had never been away from home before, and being 14-16 year-olds, required quite a lot of supervision. The Peace Corps volunteers ended up doing much of the counseling and counting and wrangling, which was not exactly what we had expected.

The ACCESS micro-scholarship program is a really neat program though. High school students, of lower economic means, which I think for their purposes mostly includes students at public schools, take English classes for at least 2 hours every day for 2 years. At the end of the program, most students exhibit very high fluency, some even at "Advanced" speaker level. They are encouraged to dream big and have the same sense of entitlement to a good future that their wealthier peers might feel. At the time of camp, the kids had only been taking classes since May, but many of them already had great levels of comprehension and speaking ability. It was a nice change to be teaching kids with a strong interest in learning English and with unlimited supplies. Free photocopies? Pens? Flipchart paper? Colored paper? Glitter? I could work with that for sure.

Students went to English class every morning. I got lucky and had a really great Nicaraguan counterpart to teach with. We had pretty good co-teaching chemistry because he preferred to teach grammar and had a lot of ideas for warm- up activities, while he gave me space to teach lessons on slang, pronunciation, reading and the environment. At least, I think he was giving me space...maybe I was just being forceful. One of the really interesting things I've found as a gringa working here is that I don't even take into account that men are sometimes unused to working with women as equal partners. I just do my thing, and then later realize sometimes that it might be unnatural for them.

The students then spent the afternoon going to different activities in English, from Treasure hunts, to zumba class to electives. For our elective, former training mate Jamey and I taught origami...to about 60 kids at a time...with a microphone. It was extremely entertaining, although insane, and required a lot of repetition, patience and cognates: "Form a triangle...Form a rectangle...Fold the interior square...interior square."

We gave culture classes on our hometowns and Thanksgiving (I played nice and didn't mention any of the darker aspects of the holiday). We made the kids make hand turkeys and write the things they were thankful for on the fingers, which was a lot of fun. The kids also learned about Martin Luther King Jr, and the civil rights movement by watching a movie.

We also got to learn a lot about the students' own cities. Coming from 12 different cities all over Nicaragua, the students shared facts about themselves during numerous presentations. And during a talent show, which became vaguely inappropriate, because watching teenagers grind up on each other during dance numbers sure was awkward.

We also took the kids on a digital scavenger hunt in Granada, which was completely insane, but still pretty fun, especially because it's such a beautiful city.

On the last day, the US ambassador and some other VIPs came, and the kids did presentations about ACCESS for the closing ceremony. They also took hundreds of pictures of us. I felt like a C-list celebrity. The best part of the last day was that the Peace Corps director came for the ceremony and after, treated the PCVs to lunch, at an American themed diner. We were all extremely excited about the milkshakes and hamburgers. PCVs are some of the most easily impressed people on the planet. Bring us dark chocolate and we'll probably name our first child after you. Treat us to milkshakes, and man, who knows what you'll get.