More than a summer camp, a life experience
Written by: Lina Silva and Ana María Restrepo
Did you enjoy your vacations with the religious sect? Did you do a lot of praying? Those are some common questions we were asked when we arrived from vacations, after 11 days at Solnok’s farm in Santander. However, most of these people are unaware of the truth that lies behind Solnok’s fame.
Four nogalistas where chosen, after a thorough process, to work as Solnok Enero counselors, a camp created to give less fortunate children of institutions such as the Santa Cruz Foundation(1) the opportunity to experience the joy of this kind of experience. Besides the hard physical and mental work, our summer camp was a unique experience that once more, showed us that unlike common misunderstanding, Solnok is actually a place for new experiences that we wouldn’t live in a common day of our ordinary lives.
On January 5th, three buses that came from San Francisco (very poor neighborhoods located in the Ciudad Bolivar locality of Bogotá) arrived at lunch hour. As soon as they stepped down from the buses, many of them were pretty disoriented and didn’t know exactly what to expect, others just stared at the pool and the lake, while others just tried to hide themselves behind the taller boys so they would pass unnoticed. Breaking the ice wasn’t easy because it was hard to make them understand that we weren’t there as their superiors but as their equals and that our goal in the camp was to become their friends. As days passed by and with the help of a great deal of activities such as swimming classes, horseback riding, bat infested cave-hunting and trips to underwater lakes, the boys and girls began to open up their hearts and shared their lifes with us. Their realities and lifestyles were completely different from ours, which made the bonding process both complicated and interesting.
One of the most shocking stories was that of the García girls who live at the Fundación Santa Cruz and aren’t allowed to visit their house in vacations due to the risk they face with their alcoholic and abusive mother. Alejandra, the oldest sister who just turned 14, told us about her 4 other sisters and 11 brothers with whom she shared only her mother because each of them was born from a different (and unknown) father. David was another 14 year old boy who lived in Ciudad Bolívar. When he began talking, he referred to the “paracos” (short word for paramilitares) as the persons who walked the streets all days after 8 p.m. to do a “social cleansing” in the neighborhood by killing any one who remained on the street after the curfew. Proudly, he showed off the scars of his arms and told how a guy, 50 cm higher than him, scarred him with a knife as a 12th birthday present.
Even though we heard thousands of horrible stories, we were pleased by the fact that their smiles and laughs were appearing regularly. These kids were extremely happy just by receiving a hug from anyone. For example, one of the little García sisters who, after learning how to stay afloat in the pool for 5 seconds without being scared of drowning, began to run throughout the whole campus shouting that it was the best day of her life. Or David, who took his shirt off the day he went into a cave so other girls could sit on it without getting wet.
It is because of this experiences that we argue that Solnok is far more that any other summer camp; it is a place to mature and help grow as individuals, a place where the most (apparently) insignificant moment can change lives, a place that can’t be understood until it is experience, until one can see the smiles on the children’s faces while learning how to swim or loosing their fear of horses.
(1) The Santa Cruz Foundation targets physically and mentally abused children.
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Pictures 1, 2 All campers and counselors dancing around the pool
Pictures 3, 4, 5 At pool time, campers learning how to swim
Picture 6 A counselor helping a camper to perform rappel in a cliff
Pictures 7,8,9 Campers performing rappel in the middle of a waterfall
Picture 10 In the cave, an activity with only the light of the candles
Picture 11 Disguised, Jefferson and Camilo wait to defile in front of the rest of the campers.
Picture 12 In an activity called Travesía (consisting in hiking and camping), campers walking through a dense mountain searching for a camping place to camp for the night
Picture 13 In a day dedicated to Colombia, all the camp reunited around a lake reflecting about the good and bad aspects of the country
Picture 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 Counselors and campers the last day of camp
Picture 19 The four students of the school that went to Solnok, with two campers
Picture 20 All campers and counselors reunited the last day
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