Chicas Brillantes

I always loved going to overnight camp as a kid.  For a few summers, my friend Christina and I went to Camp Matollionequay in New Jersey.  We played sports and did activities, swam, sang lots of songs, were really silly… the normal camp thing.  It was only a week, which we spent in a rickety wooden cabin with six other girls and a counselor, communal bunk living, but that week was enough to make us a little more independent, a little freer.  And it was a lot of fun. 

Last weekend I took two of my thirteen year-old friends with me to the Chicas Brillantes regional southern conference.  It was camp, pretty much.  We spent three days at a beautiful retreat center about two hours away from where I live, with a few cabins, a pool, and sixty other girls and Peace Corps volunteers.  My girls wanted to stay forever.  The purpose of the conference, and Chicas Brillantes (basically “Glowing Girls”) in general, is to empower teenage girls through activities concerning self-esteem, gender and sexuality, health, sports, games, community work, and whatever else we volunteers can think of.  And, of course, lots of singing and being silly too. 

By the end of day two, our forty girls had turned into some sort of sorority, chanting the words to Chuli Chuli, a song they particularly liked, and calling themselves the Chuli Chulis.  Not only was this funny (although I never want to sing Chuli Chuli again), but it was also kind of great to watch them making friends with girls from different communities, of different ages and varying backgrounds.  I know that my girls do not have a single friend of Haitian descent here in Tabara, so for them to become friends with girls from the bateyes is a really big thing.  It was awesome to be able to give them the opportunity to get out of Tabara for a weekend and do something so cool.  Not a common occurrence for your average Dominican.  I think they learned a lot.

And best of all, I get to take some girls to Peace Corps’ Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) this summer, which will be a lot like this conference except for a week instead of just the weekend.  Who ever thought I would be an overnight camp counselor for Dominican girls?  Hilarious.   

In some ways, living in my town is a lot like camping.  I wash with buckets; I live with my doors and windows open… basically I live outside.  I don’t cook over an open fire, but plenty of other people do.  I can identify every voice passing outside my door – half of the time I feel like my neighbors live in my house with me.  Last night my girls came over, calling out “Chuli” to identify themselves in the dark at my door (there was no electricity) and asked when we can go back to camp.  We can’t go back to camp any time soon, but we are forming a Chicas Brillantes group so that they can share what they learned with some of their peers here in Tabara.  I remember coming home from Camp Matollionequay and singing camp songs for weeks afterwards.  I’m sure their first order of business will be to teach their friends Chuli Chuli…