Girls' Camp Countdown!

The 1st ever Regional Girls Leadership Camp starts in 2 days! The past week has been non-stop preparations and constant trips to the University. Every time I go to the University the guy organizing the food tries to find a new way to get more money from us. After explaining to him several times that we're working with a budget and can't just add things left and right I finally put my foot down today. Alyssa had created a BEAUTIFUL excel document with the ingredients per meal and total ingredients. For a week of meals we needed 244 pounds of onions. Senegalese people put onions in everything so it's not too surprising a number... except today the guy tried to change it to 266 pounds. He also claims we need 44 (not 33) pounds of fish for one meal. I obviously want to spend money on the camp but had to shut him down from making any other additions. At this point, he has us buying a TON of food, which I don't have a problem with, but I'm worried he might be paying himself a commission. We agreed to buy the original amounts of food and, if come Wednesday, are low on onions to buy more. Alyssa and I will be spending a lot of time in the kitchen next week but I'm sure things will end up working.

Jackie, Alyssa, and I, however, aren't the only people putting work into the camp. Yesterday one of my camper's father called me to ask about the camp. After explaining it to him, he said, "my daughter isn't smart enough to go to your camp." I told him that his daughter had been invited because she has the best grades in her class and he said, "well, I don't think she's smart enough but if you do I would love for her to go to the camp."

Even if they learn nothing from the classes we're teaching, I really believe the camp will give a little self-esteem boost to girls who, frankly, probably don't have any self-esteem.

More camp updates to come!
KO