It is the tradition in SDA churches in Brazil 
is to go camping over the carnival weekend. So given that I am in Brazil, I have to do as the SDA Brazilians do. A week before carnival I met a lady from the church next to the hospital and she invited me to go camping with her church. So, the following week I made arrangements to go camping. There was however, one problem I had no tent and my sleeping bag just happened to be at IABC. I explained the situation to the organizer of the camp and she told me that between herself and Sonya, the lady who invited me, they would find me a tent and sleeping bag. The following day in class, one of my students mentioned that he would be going the same camp as chaplain and that I could ride with him to camp. Every thing was just falling into place.
The camp started on Friday and my student said he would pick me up at 1/2pm and we would make the 2 hour drive to camp. Two o’clock came, then 3pm. I then decided to call him. He did not answer his phone. I called three more times but with no response. Finally, at 4 pm he called me and told me he would be there in half an hour. When he finally got there, he told me he took a nap because he woke up early that day.
The ride to the camp site was fine and I got to see some of the Mato Groso
do Sul landscape. As we drove I couldn’t help feeling like I was driving on I-75 or the turnpike driving north from Miami. The road basically just a straight road with very few curves and both sides of the highway there is very flat land, with very little vegetation. This is a change from the state in Goias, which is full of mountains and valley and lush landscape. I thought it was strange for a place with the name thick bush of the south to have so little shrubbery and tree. One other thing that Mato Groso do Sul does have through is a lot of water in the form of rivers and swamps. As we got closer to the camp site, I couldn’t help but notice the large amount of swamp area which was very close to the highway, obviously a flood hazard during rainy season.
When we finally got to the camp site it was dark and the temperature had ri
sen a few degrees. Mato Groso do Sul obviously isn’t like Goias where it becomes cooler at night. When we arrived at the campsite my first point of business was to find out where I was going to sleep so I went in search of Sonya. She told me the organizer of the camp found me a tent and that she had brought me a sleeping bag. As she told me I could set up my sleeping bag beside hers, a frog hopped in the same direction. I am terrified of frogs so I screamed. Sonya got rid of the frog and then I began asking myself, “What had I got myself in for the next four days?” Sonya’s husband and another guy then began assembling my tent for me.
After they assembled the tent and I brought my stuff into the tent and got settled. We then had our first camp assembly and ate dinner, we opened the camp and learned about the activities for the following day, Sabbath. At dinner I met some of the people and I learned about acampitos, something that would be mentioned all throughout the camp.
Acampitos was the camp currency. Throughout camp, each camper would try to
earn as much acampitos as possible to have a lot of acampitos to buy stuff on the last night of the camp at the camp auction. There were different ways to earn acampitos, from showing up to morning worship on time, volunteering to help in the kitchen, clean the bathroom and just participating in camp activities. The acampitos looked like monopoly money and came in notes of 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100. This was very interesting to me because I had never heard of this at a camp before and the people we all in excited about earning acampitos. I couldn't help but get excited too. To open the camp and to welcome Sabbath, we had a fireworks show which was very beautiful and we prayed together in the dark as a camp, very cool.
is to go camping over the carnival weekend. So given that I am in Brazil, I have to do as the SDA Brazilians do. A week before carnival I met a lady from the church next to the hospital and she invited me to go camping with her church. So, the following week I made arrangements to go camping. There was however, one problem I had no tent and my sleeping bag just happened to be at IABC. I explained the situation to the organizer of the camp and she told me that between herself and Sonya, the lady who invited me, they would find me a tent and sleeping bag. The following day in class, one of my students mentioned that he would be going the same camp as chaplain and that I could ride with him to camp. Every thing was just falling into place.The camp started on Friday and my student said he would pick me up at 1/2pm and we would make the 2 hour drive to camp. Two o’clock came, then 3pm. I then decided to call him. He did not answer his phone. I called three more times but with no response. Finally, at 4 pm he called me and told me he would be there in half an hour. When he finally got there, he told me he took a nap because he woke up early that day.
The ride to the camp site was fine and I got to see some of the Mato Groso
do Sul landscape. As we drove I couldn’t help feeling like I was driving on I-75 or the turnpike driving north from Miami. The road basically just a straight road with very few curves and both sides of the highway there is very flat land, with very little vegetation. This is a change from the state in Goias, which is full of mountains and valley and lush landscape. I thought it was strange for a place with the name thick bush of the south to have so little shrubbery and tree. One other thing that Mato Groso do Sul does have through is a lot of water in the form of rivers and swamps. As we got closer to the camp site, I couldn’t help but notice the large amount of swamp area which was very close to the highway, obviously a flood hazard during rainy season.When we finally got to the camp site it was dark and the temperature had ri
sen a few degrees. Mato Groso do Sul obviously isn’t like Goias where it becomes cooler at night. When we arrived at the campsite my first point of business was to find out where I was going to sleep so I went in search of Sonya. She told me the organizer of the camp found me a tent and that she had brought me a sleeping bag. As she told me I could set up my sleeping bag beside hers, a frog hopped in the same direction. I am terrified of frogs so I screamed. Sonya got rid of the frog and then I began asking myself, “What had I got myself in for the next four days?” Sonya’s husband and another guy then began assembling my tent for me.After they assembled the tent and I brought my stuff into the tent and got settled. We then had our first camp assembly and ate dinner, we opened the camp and learned about the activities for the following day, Sabbath. At dinner I met some of the people and I learned about acampitos, something that would be mentioned all throughout the camp.
Acampitos was the camp currency. Throughout camp, each camper would try to
earn as much acampitos as possible to have a lot of acampitos to buy stuff on the last night of the camp at the camp auction. There were different ways to earn acampitos, from showing up to morning worship on time, volunteering to help in the kitchen, clean the bathroom and just participating in camp activities. The acampitos looked like monopoly money and came in notes of 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100. This was very interesting to me because I had never heard of this at a camp before and the people we all in excited about earning acampitos. I couldn't help but get excited too. To open the camp and to welcome Sabbath, we had a fireworks show which was very beautiful and we prayed together in the dark as a camp, very cool. 
No comments:
Post a Comment