Ladies Cabin Night

So…basically it was like a small party. All of the girls cabins traveled to the dining hall at like 9:15 pm to hang out. When we got there there were a bunch of different stations set up.

1) Henna

2) beads/bracelettes

3) Facial cleansing masks

4) Nail polish

5) Face Painting

 You know, girl junk. So yeah everyone went to whatever station they wanted to go to. Got henna, made bracelettes, conversed, ate, drank, excetra excetera.  I wont tell you all the details that went on because that’s our little secret.

 

P.S Special thanks to Jehan for making it all possible! JJJ

 

After the Field Trip : Nite Time Swimming

Oh myyyy haha well there’s nothing like a good night time swim at the pool with all your GYV buddies. Since the girls were all in the dining hall doing their thing we had the pool all to ourselves. Matt introduced us this game called “Chairball.” In that game, a chair is left sideways by either edge of the pool, and just like soccer or basketball, the team had to get the beach ball into the hoop/goal. That game was crazy – everybody was jumping on each other in the pool to get a grasp of the ball. I ended up getting pulled into the water, didn’t really want to swim in the night but ehh.

 

 At the last twenty minutes, everybody was doing dives at the deep end of the pool. A couple of people did backflips, I did a cannonball. Omar did this thing were he had an inflatable donut toy and when he jumped in he went through it like a dolphin. Isa – this dude, he jumped in with like this sick twist, kinda like a Spiderman jump I guess whatever it was it was siiiick.

 

On the way back to the cabins (by the way, it was dark as a Liberty City alleyway) so I’m walking up the hill, a bit scared I’ll admit. All of a sudden I hear something go RAAAAAAGHH outta the forest I’m like “Aaaaaaaahhh!!” and jumped on Ali. I was scared!! What can I say? When we got up to the cabins I could see the lights and found out it was Matt that scared me. Matt, I’m gonna get you back!!

Field Trip to: Lynchburg –> Randolf College

Ok soooooo… Wednesday, we took a trip to Lynchburg (hey, that’s where I was picked up from!!) at the Randolf College. There we met two of J.E. Rash’s good friends, Inayat and Nyang. The point of this field trip was basically to help console us in building a community as well as how to keep in touch after GYV was over. Inayat gave us the method on how to keep in touch and Nyang told us about community.

Nyang seemed like a very smart guy, but sometimes it sounded like he had a hard time expressing it. His main points were that in order to build a good, constructive community you need a certain and high level of pluralism. Interactivity takes you on the journey of others’ “mental highways”. The more you travel on the mental highway, the more you learn about the person. Tarek asked the question “What if the person’s mental highway wasn’t paved very well?” Nyang laughed and replied that if the mental highways aren’t paved well it is usually caused by prejudice and ignorance upon how the individual was brought up. But overall, people liked Nyang’s speech.

Inayat, however, ehh, wasn’t as he probably expected. As a means of keeping in touch, he showed us about “Second Life,” a 3-D interactive world where people can create an avatar and cruise around the universe that is built, infact, by users. I think he took it a little too far with his performance, because he talked down a bit on MySpace and Facebook (which most of us, Iraqi, and American have and agreed can use as a means of keeping in touch). On the big screen, when he took us on a virtual tour of Second Life, the very first place he took us to had a very inappropriate billboard which I’m not going to mention what it said. But that is a sign that Second Life wouldn’t be best for us, especially because you need a really fast PC and a lot of time on your hands which I’m sure atleast a few of us don’t have. In my opinion, just as a gamer Second Life seems mediocre. Ever heard of PlayStation Home? Yeah, for those of you who have a Ps3 ( which is cheaper then a really fast PC), it’ll blow 2nd Life outta the water.

The closing speeches were probably the worst, especially since a lot of people were either sleeping or getting really mad. J.E. Rash was trying to wrap things up but was interrupted with a story by Inayat. Some of the questions he was trying to poke out at us were like “So if you are a Muslim doctor, you believe that all Christians and Jews are going to Hell. Why help them if they are your patient if they’ll go to hell anyway?” Personally, something that really made me upset was that someone said something and Inayat replied by saying “This isn’t a solid community;isn’t it going to dispatch in a few days?” I was thinking…Come on man, why do you have to just say that… I just want all of you participants and staff to know that I love you all and we can definitely keep the community solid after camp, no matter what.

I really loved how Kali, Isa, Tommy and others just kept attacking him with really great answers and made him speechless. Okay well enough with that bashing – on the way back, I had to stand since all the seats were taken and the Iraqis in thh back kept singing songs and clapping. VERY entertaining, everybody was energetic and the bus ride felt a lot shorter than the morning.

what we learned

-          we learned how to do henna tattoos

 

-          we learned many games here during the night meetings

 

-          we learned how to do bracelets

 

-          we learned how to do braids

 

-          we learned how to dance chubi

 

-          we learned what each other’s opinions are about pluralism and diversity – happy to say, almost everyone shared the same opinion

 

-          we learned to play American football

 

-          we learned how to climb a tree (and climbed a tree)

 

-          we learned a lot about issues concerning the world (thanks to our workshops)

 

Iced Tea Wars

So I’m guessing a lot of you Americans out there like iced tea? Or maybe you don’t. During lunch today I was sitting with two of the Iraqi boys when the pitcher came around. It was a brownish/orangish color so they immediately asked “Is it Iced tea or apple juice?” with wide eyes and a tint of dread in their voices.  Some other kid picks it up to check and says “apple juice”. They relax. I go “whats wrong with iced tea?”

 

“its discusting!” one boy replies. I gasp. 

 

 “No its not! Its good!”

 

“It isnt! Tea should be HOT not COLD! Why cold?”

 

Up untill then I figured iced tea was a normal thing for everybody. But apparently these boys wouldn’t have drank a hot beverage cold. I never thought of it that way. I just thought “mmm Brisk” but the tea in the dining hall wasn’t Brisk. It was just tea that they put in the fridge. I told them that if they tasted Brisk maybe they’d think otherwise because it tastes totally different than hot tea.

 

The whole conversation was funny to me. Seeing how some Iraqi and some Americans thought about a such simple thing as a drink was quite interesting.

 

                                                                    Fatima Abdul-Haqq

                                                                               ~*Peace out*~

The wacky games

Two days ago we played the wacky games. It was really cool, we were divided into 4 teams (heart team with red shirts, ocean team with blue shirts, the sunrise team with yellow shirts and forest team with green shirts). It was six games in the afternoon (three legged race, spin soccer, potato race, crab walk, shave the balloon, and at the end a bunch of riddles). Every team had to choose a player for each game. Later that day, in the evening, we completed our games. In the first night game we chose a partner, each person received a paper and then they began to ask us questions about our partner, it was 12 questions and after we completed it we asked each other whether the answers are right or not. At night more events took place, including the get to know your friends game, the how fast can you eat watermelon game, and the marshmallow chubby bunny game. At the end of the night, every team received a prize, based on their teamwork, their spirit, their willingness to try and help.

notes from other participants…

Hi

My name is Ali Tareq. I am from Iraq. I am in program called IYLEP 2008. I like the Global Youth Village (GYV). I like the electives. I am in the sport elective with Tarek and G. They taught me how to play American football, and also I’ve learned how to play basketball. And today, we will play soccer. The workshops here are great. We discuss very important issues, we also share our opinions about them. The dialogue is awesome. I’ve discovered many things about America, and also I’ve taught a lot myself. 

—–

Me (Mohammad), Shad, Ramyar and Nawzad, we daily start our swimming lesson by 2:15. Our coach is Ryan. He is my counselor too. We learned so much, crowel stroke, back at elementary stroke, but what really is amazing is that the next time we’ll be swimming we’ll say that Ryan taught us – so we won’t forget about him.

Al Hawanem Performance

Last night there was a very special performance by a group called Al Hawanem. This Mediterranean band played songs from different countries of the Middle East. The instruments consisted of a Kanoon, an Oud, and a Tabla.  One of the women would switch between the Kanoon and a violin. You could tell she played with so much pleasure because she had a smile on here face during the whole performance. Lady Oud played with grace and closed her eyes as the music filled the stage. Don’t even let me talk about the tabla player. She played with such EXTREME passion, beads of sweat rolled down her face as she pounded out the spastic rhythm. During her solo she coasted the crowd into complete silence.

 

After the band finished all of the songs they asked for anyone in the crowd to come up and dance to Chobi. Most of the Iraqi boys and girls came up to dance to the beat they knew so well. This was a real treat for the American campers to see because the boys started to dance in a very interesting way. It was sort of like belly dancing. One of the boys twisted so well I thought he would pop his hip out of place! Everyone in the audience smiled and clapped along with the beat. Seeing how Iraqi boys dance compared to American boys was an intriguing experience.

 

Later after watching the dancing, it inspired the American kids to join the Iraqi kids and show them how their own style of dance was. So by the end of the night no one wanted to go back to his or her cabins.

 

 

Fatima Abdul-Haqq

what we learned

- that 10% of war causes hunger

- Iraqi dancing, hip hop dancing, Nigerian dancing

- names of some of the Middle Eastern instruments

The workshops

Hi everybody this is Rand!! At GYV, there are something similar to classes – workshops, and electives. Three of the workshops are Peace Building, Green Your World and Global Issues. Peace Building is mandatory, but you can choose between Green Your World and Global Issues. I chose Global Issues.

In Global Issues, I am learning a lot of important things about the world and the problems that many countries have and how to solve them. In my opinion, it is very important to know more about the world that you live in and during the class we go as two groups to discuss the problems and everyone gives their opinion. I learned more about the organization “UNESCO”, and its job. I also learned that 10% of war adds to worldwide hunger. After that, we have the peace building class, there we can learn about every student’s culture and we play games together, games that allow us to get to know each other more, and that give us the chance to feel comfortable sharing and voicing our opinions.