Monday July 28, 2014

Delegation of the day: Germany

Today was the cultural activity from Great Britain. They told us to make role plays about a situation with the royal family and dress up like them. Most groups performed a role play containing the royal marriage and birth. The second activity was a camp meeting. We talked about gala night (formal night) and other special events that we would like to see happen. At dinner the girls had to feed the boys (who were blindfolded) and then we changed roles and the girls were blind folded and fed by the boys. After dinner we had some other trust games. All in all it was a nice and fun day!

Sunday July 27, 2014

Delegation of the day: France

Today was a great sunny day! We started out with planning groups and our first activity was based off of people with differing abilities. In each group there was someone blind, with no arms, and Siamese (two people tied together). These groups competed in many different tasks such as drawing a picture, playing basketball, and playing soccer. each person faced different challenges which were talked about afterward. The second activity was our first cultural activity from Austria. They had us dress up as drag queens or kings and have a fashion show which related to the Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst and we had a debrief about differences in cultural norms. Our dinner was very different because we were all allowed to use our technology. This ended up being part of the USA cultural activity relating to technology nowadays. Everyone was able to see how technology has changed our lives and the types of interactions we have.

 

Saturday July 26, 2014

Delegation of the Day: Great Britain

In the morning we played an activity where we were homeless and had to go around to different stations to build a house for ourselves. At lunch we had sloppy joes. In the afternoon we played capture the flag where half of the team was mute (could not talk) and the other half was unable to tag anyone. This involved a lot of team work and had us running around outside for awhile. At night we had a camp meeting where we talked about camp life and were able to use conflict resolution skills to come to some important group decisions.

Friday July 25, 2014

Delegation of the Day: Israel

Today we played a game called crocodile crossing where we had to work in teams without talking and cross without touching the floor only on a chair, a couple pieces of paper, and a Frisbee. After completing it in small groups we had to cross as a whole group. This was much harder and took many tried and a lot of team work but eventually we were successful. After that we played a game that simulated the different class societies (homeless, poor, average, and rich). This was done by making tasks easier for the rich and harder for the homeless (running a shorter distance vs. a longer distance). We had a Sabbath dinner which is a traditional Jewish dinner on Friday night. The last activity of the day was a movie titled "Bully" which addressed issues of bullying and it led into interesting conversations within delegations on how to make people feel more included and to try and stop this when we see it happening.

Thursday july 24, 2014

Delegation of the Day: The Netherlands

The first activity was to build your own imaginary city with weird/unfair laws. You were able to write and decide your own laws within your group. Diversity was the main theme in this game. Clearly every country had its own opinion on topics like men versus women, and blondes versus brunettes (groups were assigned to make the city and laws). It was an eye-opener for most of us because we were able to see where biases are and talk about what parts of the world and history had rules that separate people based on characteristics they cannot control. Later in the day was our first excursion with that being swimming day!! It was great to ride on an American yellow school bus! This also had to do with diversity because there were 6 lifeguards and many rules to keep us safe. This was different from many other countries "norms". When we got back to camp we had a great dinner of homemade lasagna and a "worm/dirt" dessert (vanilla pudding with Oreo cookie crumbs).