Thanks for your money!!

Thanks to all the wonderful, generous, well-dressed people out there who donated money to SELF Camp (Self-Esteem and Leadership through Fitness), even those of you who filled in your own acronym to change the lovely, inspiring title of our camp for preteen girls into something creepy. It's the money that counts, not your misanthropy, Mr Main. Another special thanks to those of you who tried to donate, but who found that the link didn't work because-- guess what?-- we got fully funded! Woohoo!


So SELF camp was largely put together by Catherine, Lyssa, Amy and Ariana after the last group of volunteers left. My being in the US didn't lead to much of a contribution from my supposed role of "curriculum coordinator," but I had the privilege/mandatory-volunteered-choice of being a counselor at two of the camps.


See the pictures of the girls you helped? See them?!?!


Three camps took place, one in Kobuleti (west), one in Surami (central), and one in Telavi (east). I was at the latter two. The girls got to learn how to play various playstuffs, like basketball, volleyball and soccer, and they were taught exercises like running and weight-lifting. At both of the camps I attended, we learned ultimate frisbee from tall blonde male volunteers-- who didn't stay overnight; don't worry, Georgian parents!-- which was much fun for me too, as my incompetent self had just mastered the art of basic frisbee-throwing 6 weeks earlier. Furthermore, expert guest speakers came and talked with the girls about issues of women's health and women in sports, answering the campers' anonymous questions about what you might expect girls aged 11-14 to be asking about.


The most absolutely delightful part of the camps for me was that I got to partly achieve my service-long goal of teaching taekwondo to young girls in danger of bridenapping. Now, whether we're going to count the 4 hours of total instruction I gave as sufficient background for effective self-defense-- it's not, which is why I didn't suggest it to them-- is a different story, but at least they've got the idea in their heads. And they liked it! Either it will inspire me to do further taekwondo instruction in Samtredia, or I'll slack off and put a rubber stamp on the SELF camp sessions as the realization of all my dreams.

In addition, we all got to eat piles and piles of Telavi watermelon, which was delicious. A few days earlier, Catherine and I were gifted from heaven by the sight of our well-funded supplies flying out of the back of the marshutka as a door blew open while we rode down the street. Heidi and I also had the unique experience of tag-teaming an ancient hotel toilet with simultaneous buckets of water to get it to flush. It's those special Peace Corps moments that you carry with you in your heart for the rest of your life.

In short, a giant gracias (or madloba, if you please) to everyone who donated; for anyone who attempted to donate but couldn't, don't worry about it-- there's plenty of months left for PCPP donation panhandling.