GLOW Camp

Girls Leading Our World, that is what GLOW stands for.  This week in Gabala was amazing.  We had 45 girls from just about every region in Azerbaijan at this camp.  I had two girls from Zaqatala and two girls from Balaken that I was responsible for getting them to camp and back home when camp was over. The girls age range was 14-16 and for some, this was the first time away from home and their parents. One of my girls from Balaken almost didn't come because her parents were on the fence about letting her go (after signing the permission slips and knowing about camp for 6 months), so the second friend did not want to go by her self.  Our PCV's up in Balaken just waited to have the drama play out and finally it was approved that they could go... whew..  So many of these girls were very shy and scared and a little homesick.  It was a real joy watching them blossom over the course of a week at camp and by the end of the week, that they were crying they didn't want to go home!!  They built in such a short time really deep bonds and friendships with each other. My Balaken girl was so shy at first but I saw her just take charge and taught about 20 girls a flash mob dance she learned from the Balaken camp!!  She was amazing.  The camp site park and lake was absolutely beautiful (see the AWESOME trees in the slide show below!!) but our accommodations was less than adequate (infested with ants, dirty, a grasshopper the size of a cat, mice, no towels and the bathroom was awful).  The food was good, but like most places in Azerbaijan it was ran by men.   And all the waiters were young men and you add the raging hormones on both sides, that could cause problems. I would highly suggest in future camps that this camp should be held at a family camp with female employees and this would also be a great role model for the girls to see female waitresses.  This would be a definite win win situation. And oh, my job was supplies.  I received them from two different places in boxes, plastic bags, whatever.  I organized them so by the end of the week, I tranfered them into bazaar bags with supplies listed on the outside.  I then wrote down all the supplies on paper and will put it in a spreadsheet for the committee next year.  Our days were long from 7:45 am to 11-11:30 pm but the results were amazing.



Life Challenge: In Order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than you fear of failure... Bill Crosby