Creativity Action Service IB logg

Our whole family has become a support family for a girl named Guitar this year. The job description is slightly different from "fadderkompis" but the core is still the same. We are still there to support her through hardships in her year abroad. Guitar has stayed at our house a few days every now and then as she has had problems with her family, and we've also taken her to a harvest festival at Wiks slott and other "exotic" activities. She's helped us pick rowan berries to make jelly and we've made her a birthday cake (which in the end was ruined, so we had to buy one, but it's the thought that counts!) I've had some contact with her over e-mail as well, discussing what she can do about every day issues such as not understanding the bus system for the "lantisbussarna". She even calls me her "sister" which I find very flattering!

The second camp I was a leader for was a whole lot bigger than the first one. This camp had around 80 parcipitants and we had to keep track of them all! Once, we had to wake up in the middle of the night and chase some guys out of the swimming pool. (They'd decided to take a midnight swim, but the pool was closed!) It was harder to be a leader this time because I was an actual leader and not just a helper, sort of. It's pretty hard to have authority over 80 kids just a couple of years younger than myself! It went relatively well, however, since some did respect me and saw me as someone in an "authority position"! Getting some of the kids talking and discussing was just impossible, during one of the discussions I led I had a really quiet group and I pretty much had to direct every question at one person in particular.

I learnt a whole lot, herding the soon to be exchangers all weekend. I learnt that I can be polite but commanding, and be taking seriously too!, if I set my mind to it. I don't particularly like ordering people around, but I can get them to listen to me. Beatrice, the other new camp leader,  and I helped the more experienced leaders and didn't take as much responsibility but we were mainly there to support and learn since we were both new to this. This is my third assignment as an AFS voluteer, the other two have been "support buddy" and sort of a PR-person. I really liked interacting with the Swedish exchnage students too, before it's only been the foreign ones and the possible ones. Some of the things we talked about during the camp was culture shock, how to handle adjusting to a new culture including language and values etc. How to deal with differing values was a big deal, I shared my experiences with homophobes and racists in foreign cultures. The point wasn't to scare them but rather (as was the point of the whole camp) to give them realistic expectations. The whole camp stretched from Friday night to Sunday afternoon.