Students forge summer bonds

Working with children from the Mideast to West Philly, two students had meaningful experiences. Tucked away behind Penn's ivy-covered walls, it's easy for students to forget the harsh realities of the outside world. But this summer, two College students, senior Jared Fishman and sophomore Jeff Camarillo, made sure they remembered. Fishman, for one, was reminded of war in the peaceful woods of New England, where he worked at the aptly-named "Seeds of Peace" camp, which brought together Palestinian, Israeli and other Arab youth. There, nestled in tiny Otisfield, Maine, the Hearst Magazines reporter and camp founder John Wallach's fantasies of peace in the Middle East materialized into the bright reality of a summer camp. "It was really an incredible experience to see kids move past the stereotypes that they've grown up with and become friends with someone they've been taught to hate," Fishman said. Broken up into two parts, the camp began with a two week session for returning campers. "This is a way for us, both campers and counselors, to measure our progress," Fishman explained Kids who would have instinctively avoided each other under normal circumstances ended up hugging and holding hands as though they had known each other for years, he said. "After they came home [to the Middle East] from camp, kids who wouldn't have even talked to each other a year ago started visiting each other regularly, so that kids from Tel Aviv would go to the West Bank and vice-versa," Fishman said. The old campers' departure cleared the way for the arrival of a new batch of campers, hand-picked by government officials in Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Tunisia, Jordan, Quatar and Morocco. "They are looking for children who will be the leaders of tomorrow, and they definitely found them," Fishman said. "After getting to know them myself, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them became a prime minister." The children's potential is furthered by extensive learning before and during camp. For example, back in Israel, Palestinian campers met with Yasir Arafat, while Jordanians talked with King Hussein and Queen Noor and Israelis spoke with Knesset members. Then, during camp, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Pickering showed up for a visit. "Madeline Albright was supposed to address the campers, but then there was the bombings [at American embassies]. We felt that was a valid excuse," Fishman added facetiously. However, for the campers, knowledge of the Middle East doesn't always translate into understanding. For example, during a cultural night some Palestinian campers sang a song which referred to Jerusalem as their city, upsetting their Jewish campmates who consider it the eternal capital of Israel. Another time, Fishman remembered, an Israeli teenager asked a Palestinian were he was from. When the child replied Palestine, his friend laughed. "Well, we all know Palestine doesn't exist. Where are you really from?" Fishman remembered the boy saying. However, by the end of the new campers' three-week session, real connections had been made and friendships begun. "The bottom line is that deep down these kids are just teenagers and when they act like teenagers they have a great time together," he said. This bonding process was facilitated through a rigorous daily routine which began at 7 a.m. After a moment of silence where campers recognized recent tragedies such as the midsummer death of an Israeli soldier in Lebanon or the embassy bombings, they split up into facilitation groups. There, trained mediators led them them in a deeply felt, often painful, but eventually constructive discussion of the complicated issues facing their countries. After the facilitation ended, the real fun began, including activities like baseball, arts and crafts and soccer. "The kids got to do all the traditional camp stuff, too," Fishman said. Even these seemingly innocent activities, however, focused on healing the painful gaps between campers. This often meant building up trust through outdoor activities like a ropes course Fishman helped run. "I remember once when we blindfolded an Israeli camper and she had to make her way up the course solely on the spoken directions of [another climber], who was Palestinian," he said. "That day, she learned to trust a supposed enemy." The summer was also punctuated by trips in what was, for the campers, the foreign land of Maine. "One weekend we went to a baseball game and the kids just went crazy," he said. Then, with a laugh, he remember ed what the campers read in the local paper the next day. "One of the baseball players had complained to a reporter that our screaming was what had caused him to miss a catch and thus lose the game," he said. Jeff Camarillo also heard screaming this summer, but this shouting was across a classroom in Turner Middle School in West Philadelphia, not a stadium. "The kids were just so excited about our program," he said, explaining the summer academic camp he and 21 other Penn students ran at Turner Middle School through Penn's Center for Community Partnerships. Hoping to help prepare the 40 or so children in the Summer Institute for their sixth-grade year, Camarillo began his day by assisting Turner teachers. "The school broke everyone up into four different 'cultural classrooms', African-American, Asian, Hispanic and Native American. We helped direct the activities and worked with the kids on their projects," he said. Then, when the morning classes let out, the kids got to let loose. Camarillo and the other counselors divided their charges into three activities -- a sports club, a dance club and a writing club, the activity Camarillo worked on. Working with six girls and a boy, he watched the children produce a 22-page magazine called Da Bomb, which ran with the slogan "destined to set the hip hop world on fire." With only minimal help from their counselors --"we just did the research and cut out pictures," Camarillo said -- the students wrote articles and poems about various rappers. "Life After Death" was the title of a solemn tribute to the murdered rapper Biggie Smalls, while a debate about what Brandy and Monica should do with their shared love interest in "The Boy is Mine" made up the contents of another article. "We really wanted the kids to write about something they can relate to," Camarillo said. He also noted the contrast between the student-chosen subject matter of Da Bomb and that of the usual learning materials. "A lot of traditional textbooks use cultural references and stories which are completely foreign to these kids' experience in their families and communities," Camarillo said. The formation of academic connections was strengthened by the students' close interaction with Penn students, many of whom were themselves minorities. "Seeing us will hopefully show the students that its possible to do something positive with their lives and inspire them to continue on in their education, hey, maybe even go to Penn," he said.