CISV
I think that CISV was one of the best experiences of my entire life. It stands for Children’s International Summer Village and it where a delegation of four from all around the world. I made so many close bonds and friendships from that camp and it was the first time that I made an intimate relationship with someone else in such a short amount of time. Furthermore, even though it was fun and we played the entire summer, I also learned a lot about myself and life lessons along the way, and I hope to apply them in the future as well.
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On the day of our Korean national Night, the moment I woke up I was thrilled but nervous. As usual, we had our daily morning flag uptime, where we greet everyone a good morning in different languages and sing the CISV song. Afterward, we headed over to the cafeteria to eat breakfast. All the kids, leaders, staff and JCs had placemats, and every morning the delegation of the day set them up, so that way we would sit next to different people each day. Like all breakfast, there were cereals, bagels, and fruit. However, on that particular morning, the bagels were BOMB!! Sometimes the dough would become stiff and get gritty because of being in the freezer, but on that day, they were soft, chewy and a delight to eat. Of course, thanked the people who made the food, by performing the “kitos”. A special dance that represents our thanks to the food. Jumping right into our cleaning groups. On that day our group cleaned up the cafeteria.
Like all days we did all of our activities. Then, there was shower time. This was the most dreadful time of the day. Everyone running across campus to the showers, determined to be first in line. Following shower time, we would usually hold our delegation meetings, but since it was our national night we prepared the food: 주먹밥, 불고기. That time in the kitchen with the delegation was so much fun. We goofed around, tasted the food, fought a little but we got the food done in the end. Gladly, all the other delegations, and staff enjoyed the meal, and even asked for seconds. We were so happy everyone enjoyed the food.
After dinner, was the most terrifying part of the night our National Night performances. We stepped out of dinner earlier to finalize the decorations. While we did, me and my delegate Jian we freaking out about breaking the boards for our Taekwondo performance we would soon be doing. Finally the evening started and all the people came into the room. While Dewey, our leader played a video about our country, we got ready and dressed in a separate room getting ready for taekwondo. During our performance, I surprised myself by smashing every one of them. We were all super proud of each other. Then we separated all the kids into groups that would rotate from station to station playing Korean traditional games, learning how to write and trying on our hanbok. At the end of the night, we finished it off by performing our K-POP dance to “Boy with love”. From that, we got a decent round of applause and ended the night. Our delegation was very proud of what we had done and I had an awesome night. After our National Night, we got ready for bed and sang our lullaby. Quickly after, the Korean delegation filmed our daily video to our parents, explaining our day. Then heading into the dorms, I am pretty sure we had a great sleep that night.
On the last day before we left the camp, was truly the most sorrowful and hardest to get through, knowing that tomorrow everyone would separate. As soon as we woke up we all did out daily morning routine, and after breakfast, the staff set up an activity for us. Creating a memory book full of letters from your friends. This took us quite some time, and we had to give each person a special comment. After CISV it was really nice to read all those letters and be reminded of the memories we shared with that person. After that activity, it was almost shower time. The usual rush, like a stampede, however me, my delegate Jian, and two other girls from India, Divanshi and Manhat. Us girls were lucky and finished early, and took the first and longest showers, it was the best. In delegation time that day, we treated ourselves to our last delegation meeting, by eating ramen, MMM--. YUM! It was really fun.
After we had dinner and one of the most emotional activities in all of the CISV activities we’ve done. It started from one person’s candlelit, they shared their memories, and their overall emotions with the group before lighting the next person’s candle and making CISV with the candles. After that activity, everyone was crying and so sad that this was our last night together. This group of people grew to become an extremely close family.
Before going to bed, we, of course, had our lullabies and went to our dorm rooms. Since that was our last night all together the leaders and staff agreed to let us sleep together. Some stayed up all night talking and playing games, meanwhile, others fell asleep after some quiet conversation. That was the end of the village, but it is only the start. This was my very first CISV experience and I with no doubt think that it will be the best one of all the camps that I go to.