It was a great two weeks having the Chop Point crew at Campo. They are the masters and inventors of running kids camps in Nicaragua and this year was yet another exceptional adventure.
We had a few obstacles as usual, some bigger than others, but I couldn't think of a better group of people to have around to roll with the punches and dodge the bullets that Nicaragua can throw at a mission team than the Chop Point gang.
In the past years there has never been a problem with pulling the entire small school in Buenos Aries out of class to come to Campo Alegria for a few days for fun and learning. The teachers saw it beneficial as did the parents of the students, and in recent years so did the superintendent of schools. This year however there seems to be a new superintendent of schools and all of a sudden a week long field trip didn't seem like such a great idea anymore. Oscar and I tried to talk with the superintendent and explain that although a week away from school may sound ludicrous to them, the students would be experiencing things that they would never get in a normal five hour school day here in Nicaragua.Not a lot of Nicaraguan children get to break rocks into sand on the beach and then go and look at it under a microscope for the first time and draw what they see on a microscopic level. Not many children will get the chance to learn basic English skills on a fun and interactive level that will give many of them the desire to go and learn more later on in life and possibly change their future. Not many children in Nicaragua get to swim and play in the lake with High School students from the US who are willing to take the time to mentor a youngster and show them a kind and gentle spirit. (Not to mention geography, arts and crafts, puzzles, the best food they have ever had and a movie every night before bed).
In light of all these things we were just passed off to the superintendents in Managua who require a personal meeting with a presentation of who we are as an organization. This will all be done at a later date, but for the time being we had to adjust our calendar a bit. Instead of a week long camp, we settled for two weekend camps.
Both camps went extremely well, and in the end everything was a success.
As usual, at the end of the camp Chop Point handed out donated backpacks, school supplies, clothes and shoes to the kids before they loaded the bus.
Chop Point has posted their daily updates of their trip on their Websites Blog at: http://nicaragua.choppoint.org/
Or you can find them under the Campo Alegria Blog Roll at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Campoblogrollerfeed where you can subscribe by RSS to all of Campo Alegria affiliated team blogs like Chop Point's.
Photos have been posted of the Chop Point trip to the Campo Alegria Photo Compilation Here: http://www.campoalegria.com/MediaDownloads/Photos/
You can find out more about Chop Point the organization at: http://www.choppoint.org/
