Over the summer vacation I attended a tremendously enjoyable camp where I learned about leadership, teamwork, friendship, cultural differences, and human rights called the Children’s International Summer Village, also known as CISV. The camp takes place in various countries all over the world. This year Korea had the chance to participate in seven different camps. Four children that are 11 to 12 years of age are chosen from each country to attend a camp. It is generally two boys and two girls. For our safety there is also a leader that assists us throughout the entire month we are at the campsite. Luckily, I was selected to go to Denmark with three other kids representing the Korean delegation. Our leader was a woman named Amy who has taken part in this camp at the Netherlands. She was a responsible 21 years old and was enthusiastic to help us spend a wonderful time at Denmark.
Even though it was already my second time staying away from my parents the feeling of sadness and nervousness overwhelmed me. Also, the unfortunate part was that we were restricted to bring any sort of electronic to the camp. This may have been a hard job for me, despite that, I believe I did a good job of cutting down myself from electronics. In total the camp was four weeks. During the four weeks we have two “home-stay” sessions when you do all the laundry and alleviate your hyper mind after participating in all those exciting activities in the campsite. Usually you get to go with a good friend of yours you have made in camp. The first home-stay was before the camp, and in general, most people that volunteer for hosting kids are parents that have sent their child to the camp or have been associated with CISV. The parents take us on tours in Denmark and just chill out at home or the beach. As a result to these homestays I had a chance to tour around Central Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, and visit a lake in the town.
The area of the campsite was in a town called Vaerlose close to Copenhagen in a school. We slept in classrooms on mattresses with approximately 10 kids in each room and ate in the art classroom of the school. We were provided with pillows and sheets as well. At the camp there were a total of 13 delegations. It was interesting that only two delegations came from Asia, Korea (Seoul) and China (Guang Zhou). The rest of the people were mostly from Europe and America: Norway, Great Britain, The Netherlands, France, Germany, USA, Brazil, Peru, Italy, and two teams from Denmark.
Even though CISV is an education program, the camp does not contain much studying, instead we learn through activities and friendship. Most of the activities require co-operation, communication, teamwork, and trust. For example, we had an activity session where all of us lie down in a long line side by side. Sooner or later we lift our arm up and have to cooperate and pass down every one of us along the long line.
During the camp every single country had to prepare for something called a National Night. Each country is assigned a whole activity session to share their culture and some basic facts about their home country. Our delegation performed and shared lots of unique possessions of Korea and ourselves in person. In the beginning, we wore our traditional costume that a lot of people said looked gorgeous and taught everyone our cultural bow. Our martial art, Taekwondo, was nicely demonstrated to the camp as well and our highlight was of course ‘Gangnam Style’. As soon as we started to dance to the music, everyone stood up and jumped about struggling to mimic our correct, original way of dancing. The National Night was so much fun and the entire camp had a wonderful night.
My most memorable activity was handicapped day. This may sound uncomfortable and frustrating, however it was a great experience for me. In the morning, all of us received a certain handicap we had to struggle with, for the entire day. Some people were blind, armless, unable to talk, deaf, had a broken arm or leg. I received a handicap to walk on one leg; luckily I could still eat freely and communicate without much trouble. Unfortunately, we had a soccer match scheduled that day. I was extremely shocked after I heard that since soccer is all about your two legs, and I lacked one leg, that made it impossible for me to kick or run fast. By the end, I guided a blind friend and became his eyes while he replaced my legs. Even though I was not running a lot, since I had to balance myself on one leg the pain was really bad. I had to admit it was the worst soccer game I have ever played in my life. Even though, it was a little frustrating and distracting to be handicapped for the whole day but I did certainly learn a lesson about human rights. Through experience I could reflect that disabled people still have the right to live and be a useful person making a difference towards the world.
As a result to these four weeks of camp I might not have gained the knowledge of academics, but I am definitely sure it was a great chance for me to develop into a better person. Through this camp I also did make marvelous friends all over the world. I dare say these memories will always be a part of my life.
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