Together, here.

One week into the camp; its shopping day and I'm taking refuge from the big shopping mall in a stationary supply store called Marión which has, as a logo, an elephant that looks like its been italicised. It's the only place here with internet, and so I have dashed here first thing, like some kind of desperate smack addict while most of the rest of the camp eat chorizo or watch the Italy-Germany game or shop for bluejeans.

All goes well so far. Last night was the first serious simulation type game of the Seminar and was themed around prejudice. It involved teams of four or five running between stations manned by people who were not very nice to certain people, especially one guy who was highlighting the issue of women hating by making the girls peel oranges while shouting at them and then forcing me to shove three (minature, granted, but still) oranges into one girls mouth in order to give us the next clue. All agreed it was a good activity, albeit scary and confronting. Yes, I realise this CISV thing sounds weird to those from outside it. That? is because it is weird.

But fun, y'know, too. Our camp site is gorgeous, surrounded in green hills where horses graze and green fireflies speckle in the fruit trees in the black night. Geese slide across lillypadded lakes, which are surrounded by Australian eucalypts and strange pom pom trees which look like monster cheerleaders. By day we run barefoot through the soft grass, kick footballs, smack volleyballs, search for Colombian fruits that you can break open (the insides look like fish eggs) and eat with teaspoons. At night there is a log fire, bottles of beer, salsa music, the loaded massages of young couples on the verge of becoming young lovers. There are 27 of us altogether, and for the first time on one of these seminars (this is my third in 18 months) I really feel like we are one group. There is noone at all that I cannot stand. And, of course, there are individuals within that group who are wonderful, beautiful, inspiring. Jorge from Mexico, always excited and curious about art and politics; the soft and smiling Brazilian Ana, confusing the boys and possibily herself, a monument to all that is great about teenagehood; Sara from Sweden, a gum chewin', tobacco-lipped, headrollin' type of hiphop girl with whom I have developed a secret communication method using English words written in a hybrid Arabic/Persian script (her family is from Iran) with which we compose broken letters about the cute boys at the camp and urging each other to have fun cleaning the bathrooms.

Actually, now it's time I left, the bus is nearly departing and I haven't done my neccessary shopping (deoderant, candy, a ranchero hat if there's time) so I bid you all farewell for now. Greeting from Antioquia, Colombia, and I hope with everything I have that you can all safely say that you, like me, are pretty much at peace.