BRO CAMP 2018!!!

Written 23^rd April

“BRO CAMP 2018!!!” 

…is a cheer that rang loud, and often and BRO Camp 2018, which was probably the most amazing week of Peace Corps to date. I feel like I keep saying that, but it keeps being true. Wonderful things continue to happen down here, and honestly, I’m really going to miss it when I have to go in October.

Yep. October.

I’ll tell you ALL about BRO Camp 2018 the rest of this post, but I figured I’ll get this out of the way first. My Peace Corps service will be ending sooner than I had initially hoped, since I had wanted to extend an extra year in my village. What happened is this: I was offered an extension as Peace Corps Volunteer Leader (PCVL) for the next year, on the condition that I moved to Belmopan to complete the year there. This would involve leaving my village and my host family to live in Belmopan to work more in the office supporting staff and volunteers with things like training, site visits, and our program review. While I applied for this role, I applied for it under the condition that I would remain in my village to continue working here. My proposal was rejected as it was, and I was given the counter offer to move to Belmopan. It was an immensely difficult decision, perhaps the hardest I’ve ever had to make, but I have chosen to decline the offer and end my service in October when my projects here are done.

It took a lot of soul-searching and many insightful conversations with my wonderful friends here in Belize and some family and friends back home to reach my decision. Ultimately it came down to asking myself why it was I came here in the first place. For me, it was to work my tail off for my village to help whoever I could, get to know the people and the culture here, and become a part of my community.  As much as I would enjoy training and supporting the other volunteers as PCVL, it’s not what I came here to do, and staying an extra year away from my village would pull me away from what I came here to do. My heart is in my village, and if I left to go to Belmopan for a year, I know I wouldn’t be as happy.

So that’s where I’m at now, getting ready to come back to the States in October.

Anyways, BRO CAMP 2018!!!

BRO Camp was, in a word, incredible. For the past nine months, I’ve worked closely with some truly amazing people from the BRO Task Force (“The Force” for short, as we call it) on planning and executing this camp. Huge shoutout to Nick, Megan, Ellen, and Grant for being such dedicated and passionate partners in making this camp happen, I love you all so so much. We also had a lot of help from our friends in the Department of Youth Services, Amram and Shayanne, who were instrumental in camp going as it did! I’m so glad we got a chance to start this partnership with you, and I can’t wait to hear about what you do with BRO Camp and BRO Clubs in Belize going forward! Also a big shoutout to our friends from Seeds of Change, Gabriel and Erwin, who stepped up as phenomenal leaders for the boys at camp, and who we look forward to working with again in the future! Finally, our of our BRO Leaders from the villages. We had 12 villages come to BRO Camp 2018, the most ever. Thank you Progresso, Maskall, Red Bank, San Jose, Otoxha, Dolores, Laguna, San Pablo, Armenia, Libertad, San Vicente, and San Benito Poite for coming to camp, bringing your boys, and making camp what it was. We had 74 boys show up from those villages (also the most ever), and we all had an incredible time. The boys were all split up into teams of 7-8 and were led by two BRO leaders. Each team was comprised of boys of different villages, to encourage new friendships and cultural exposure. Without our incredible BRO Leaders mentoring these boys throughout the week, camp would not have been possible. So HUGE thank you to Mr. Acosta, Teacher Angel, Mr. Quib, Mr. Jorge, Mr. Xi, Mr. Olario, Mr. Primo, Mr. Henry, Mr. Victor, Mr. Orlin, Mr. Tony, Amanda, Claire, Billy, Eileen, Phillip, and Ivette. We could not have done it without you, and I know the boys all had a fantastic time working with you throughout the week. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did, and we can never say thank you enough for the work you did this week.

Throughout the week, we had different activities to teach the boys about our main themes: leadership, self-esteem, self-expression, self-reliance, gender equality, and healthy living. We had 6 spectacular guest speakers that came in to talk about something related to each of those topics, and I kept hearing over and over how much both the leaders and the boys enjoyed our guest speakers. So thank you as well to our amazing guest speakers: Mrs. Nunez, Mr. Cho, Mr. Mendez, Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Amram, Mr. Acosta, and Ms. Shayanne. Thank you for bringing your positive messages to these boys, and teaching them everything you did. I believe that all of our boys grew because of your talks with them.

We also had a bunch of fun activities that the boys had to work together to complete, while competing with the other teams for our BRO Camp House Cup! We did things like BROlympics, a talent show, obstacle course, and a non-communicable diseases scavenger hunt. The boys also took some time to learn how to make goal-setting kites, create flags with their teams, tie-dye their BRO Camp t-shirts, and complete a service learning activity to give back to the community. Throughout the week, boys would take turns helping cook in the kitchen, and clean up afterwards. MASSIVE thank you to Chef Kirk, our absolutely incredible cook for the week. He’s awesome with the kids and the food was absolutely delicious. Also big thank yous to his helpers, Mandy and Nancy! We were also constantly on the lookout for BROs doing awesome things, and displaying new leadership skills. Each time we saw it, we’d call it out and award points for our house cup, which got incredibly competitive! We taught the boys about our BROcabulary words, and had them come up with their own. Incredible things like BROiversity – the diversity of BROs, BRO-operation – BROs working together, and BROlogical Sciences – the study of all things BRO. These kids were so phenomenal this week, it’s hard to put into words. This is my favorite thing in all of Peace Corps, working with my BRO (and GLOW!) Clubs, and BRO Camp is the best thing I’ve been a part of during my time here. It was absolutely exhausting and I got a total of 11 hours of sleep the whole week, but it was absolutely worth it.

Now BRO Camp is done and we’re set to pass the torch on to the next group. It’s pretty surreal that’s it’s over, and it was so much work, but I’m so glad I got to be a part of it. Best of luck to Claire, Anne-Elie, Taylor, Ivette, and Rachel next year, along with our partners in DYS and Seeds of Change. We can’t wait to hear all about how BRO Camp 2019 goes!

Bryan