Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Bor-Ondor Sports Camp

Camp #2.

After taking a few days to re-coup in my soum, I headed to Bor-Ondor to start my second camp of the summer: a week-long sports camp organized by my friend Leon.

Camp ran from 9-12 and we taught a new sport everyday. In the afternoons we would hang out, play cards, and enjoy the beautiful summer air.

Day 1: Capture the Flag

First, we divided into teams and chose team names. My color was blue, so my kids chose to be "Super Blue." Brian was red and dubbed the "Red Stars." Apparently, we have very few pictures of Capture the Flag day. No matter... neither team managed to capture the flag. They were more pre-occupied with guarding jail and the flag to every make a move.

My team got real close though....

Yea... I'm in jail.

Day 2: Ultimate!

Obviously my favorite day. The kids LOVED it. And they were real good, too. I was so super impressed. Here's a vid of the most intense game of the day:


Brian and I split our teams into two smaller teams so we could play 5 on 5. Super Blue took 1st and 4th. Red Stars 2nd and 3rd. At the end of the day, we were still all tied up.

Oyoka. She was my favorite. She was super competitive and really great at all the sports. Look at her go!


Reach!

Day 3: Dodgeball

Oh man, another really fun one. The kids had trouble in the beginning, but once they got it... it got intense. Unfortunately, Super Blue couldnt' pull it together for a win. We got 3rd and 4th.



The last game we played was Camp Leaders versus students. While I felt a wee bit bad throwing balls at little kids, it was super fun and of course we won.

Day 4: Kickball

If you are considering teaching kickball to children who don't speak your language and also don't know what baseball is... I wouldn't suggest teaching them kickball. Easily our most frustrating day, but, hey... there are a million rules to kickball. If we could play kickball with them once a week for a month, I bet they'd start to understand it a lot better.

Despite the confusion and frustration, and as a true testament to the wonderfulness of these kids, they said they had a great time and liked the game.

Though Super Blue took an early lead, we couldn't pull it together in the end. Red Stars took the W.

My line-up (10 points to me if I can still remember all their names...): Nendaa, Amraa, Batzka, Monoo, Oyoka, Deka, (Damn it... I can't remember pink stripes!) and Darai



Day 5: Relays

This day was meant as a game-changer. Red Stars were waaaay ahead, but a few relay wins later, Super Blue was only a point behind. Ultimately, it came down to the last game... and thanks to one kid who was spacing out during the game... Red Stars were declared the winners of the week.

We had loads of fun, though!

This relay was ridiculous. We gave 2 eggs to each team. The first guy on my team dropped and cracked both of them. So... we lost. But the Red Stars were kind enough to give us their second egg so that each kid could have a go.

No relay day is complete without dizzy bat!

Leap Frog

3 legged race

Super Blue! We had trouble wearing blue all week, so I changed our color to white the last day. My team then suggested our new name was "Super White," but I thought we should stick with "Super Blue" :)

Super Blue + Red Stars = SUPERSTARS!

Bonus Day 6: Water Games

It was hella hot all week. These kids endured that sun without complaining (too much) all week, so we thought we'd give them a special day to hang out with us in a non-competitive atmosphere.

Water Games.

Aaaaaand of course, it was cloudy and colder than all the other days. But we played anyway.

Water Balloon Toss

Drip Drip Drop (it's duck duck goose only with water)

The drenched participants

Нохой**


** pronounced nohoy, means dog.

This post is about Lloyd.

Look how adorable Lloyd is getting! He's so big and huggable and pretty... oh how i love him. And so did all the campers! Many of them thought I was lying when I told them he was Mongolian. They thought he came from America because he was nice.







Monday, July 25, 2011

More Pictures of Camp That I Want to Show You

Second half teachers: Kaede, John, Pico, and Me!

The coolest kid in Dariganga. By the end of the week, I had him saying, "Sox Rule! Cubs Suck!"

This is the second coolest kid in Dariganga (only because after uploading all my pictures, I realized I had a handful of ridiculous pictures of him):


Playing Mingle:

First session Peace Corps Volunteers: Nate, Kate, Beth, Julie, (Mongolian camp doctor), Me, Maggie, and Alex


Gangstaaa

My Dariganga students that went to camp

This kid is cool.


Aaaaand so is this kid:


It's called Tektonic and it's all the rage amongst pre-adolescent boys in Mongolia. Please note his interesting dance move at the end.


They wanted to learn an English song!

New Dariganga Camp Summer 2011

Camp #1.

This camp is the one I have been looking forward to since I got to site last year. It ran for 2 sessions, 10 days each and was equipped with 6 Mongolian English teachers, 8 American English teachers (i.e. my Peace Corps friends), and 4 adorable Mongolian camp counselors from a local university. This camp was situated in my soum on the lake and hosted about 100 kids each session from all over Sukhbataar aimag (and a handful from UB, too)


Here's what the camp looked like:



Every morning, we would wake up at 7. At 7:30 all kids gathered in front of the outdoor podium for morning stretches.




After stretches, breakfast!


Then, the kids learned some English. Here are some pretty generic pics of PCVs pointing to boards.



Then, we all took some time to awwwww at my lil pupster. Well, I did at least.

Awwwwwwwwwww (yes, that is Lloyd... he's so big! And still ball-less!)



The campers were split into 10 teams which competed with each other in various ways throughout the week. This is my team: The Happy Tigers. Our Motto: We are Happy Tigers! Rawr! Despite the fact that not one of these kids had a competitive bone in their body, I grew to love them and their "We just happy to be here" attitude.




Oh, and our flag was Tigger. Not some awesome badass pic of a Tiger destroying the competition, but the most lovable friendly tiger ever. They were just high on life, these kids were.



The rest of the day was filled with lots of fun random activities to keep the kids (and me) entertained. One rainy day, we made noodle necklaces!



Note: The two women on the right are adults. Noodle necklaces are fun for all!




And the best part about the rainy day was:



Our cabins leaked. Or in this poor camper's case... flooded.



And then my favorite time of day... Outdoor activities!! While half the students went inside to learn life skills (how not to burn down your ger, how to treat a deep cut, and STD awareness), the other half came to ME and we played games. Awesome games: Freeze Tag, Fox and Squirrel, Steal the Bacon (well, we played one round which resulted in 2 concussions...), Swing Dancing, Mingle, the lists goes on!



Dizzy Bat Relay. It's hilarious to watch little children fall flat on their butts.



Lap Tag: The player in front wants to get to the other side of the circle. The player in back wants to keep him back. Hilarity ensues.



This is Chuka. One of our counselors. She really liked this game and didn't seem to mind crushing our campers in order to win. No camper could get past her.



Mingle: We had different formation the students had to make requiring different amounts of people. Once something was called, they had to rush to make the correct formation... If you didn't have a group, you were OUT.


Pyramid: 3 people



Monkey: 2 people



Canoe: 7 people



Window: 4 people



Rachel and Jacob: Mostly Marco Polo, only both kids are blind.



Log Roll Relay: Kids roll on top of the other kids to get to the front of the line.



These are my happy tigers looking a little less than happy.



Duck Duck Goose: well, you know.



Swimming Lessons!



Hiking Day: We hiked to the sacred mountain. Boys climbed it. Girls walked around it.




My soum from atop Altan Ovoo! Clearly I did not take this picture.



Maggie demonstrating how to use the prayer boards.



The Tranny Dance! Teams competed by dressing up as the opposite gender. Best one won.



Happy Tigers! And a nip slip.



The winning team. Well deserved, no?



Oh, I forgot to mention, 2nd session I was on the Giants team. This is Oyona and Temujiin. Temujiin got 3rd.



Here is a very disturbing picture of my male friends.



Moral of the Story: Camp rocked.