30 hour famine camp

I am keeping a diary for myself so I just copied a little bit:

Saturday 19 July and Sunday 20 july 
Wake up really early, 5:45 am. Move to the hall in Seremban where the 30 hours famine camp will take place. We put on our tshirts and wait for the campers to arrive. There are around 120 campers in the camp, around 30 committee members which makes a total of 150 people. We guide the campers through the day. Since it is a 30 hour famine camp, the participants are not allowed to eat between 10 am saturday morning and 4 pm sunday afternoon. Ofcourse, when they are sick they will get something to eat to make them healthy again, but that is where the medical team comes in. The camp is organized to let the participants experience what it is like to have no food. Lots of people on this planet do not have enough food throughout the day and it is important that we know what this is like. The agenda starts at 10 am: explaining the camp rules, explaining the games. We do 'energizers'  throughout the day: active dances to let the participants move around and have fun so they don't think about their empty stomach (and don't fall asleep). 

We, the exchange participants (or interns, whatever you like to call us), give speeches and inform the campers on the topics of food security, child safety and poverty. The campers listen carefully and really enjoy the dances and speeches. We divide them into groups and play station games throughout the day (mine was the nutrition game) which was really fun for the campers and also for us as organizers! The purpose of the games was to keep the mind occupied and send a message to the campers. For instance, my game showed that it can be hard for people to gather enough nutritions for one day. Another game called 'Water deep Mountain high' showed it can be dificult to get water somewhere, it might be far away and you have to overcome a lot of obstacles to get to the source of water (and after that you have to overcome the same obstacles again to come back home). The 'Build a home' game was about building a home from cardbox. If your home could withstand natural disasters (organizers would lift the homes up to see if the roof is properly attached to the house, they would shake it to see if it would break [e.g. tornado, typhoon]) you passed te game. We also had 'Dynamite Dodge' (working in a mine, avoiding falling rocks and look for diamonds), 'Act and Say' (act out the word that is on yourd card without making noise), and 'Food Hunt' (look for certain hidden cars in the field). 

We entertained the campers until 12 at night, after which they had to go to sleep. Before sleep, they all wanted to take pictures with us, mainly because me and Maxime are blondies. All the organizers slept in the VIP room, which was basically just another room in the building. The campers all slept in the main hall.

At 6:30 am sunday morning all campers were back on their feet and doing dances again. We showed them a little video with pictures of the previous day and around 8 am we all got into busses which transported us to Kuala Lumpur stadion. People from different famine camps in the country all came to the stadion for a countdown. A stage was build in the middle of the stadion and a show was given by famous Asian artist. We Western people do not know these artists and I fell asleep a lot of times and thus missed out on a lot of performances. However, since the countdown lasted 4 hours that was no big deal (And since they were all singing sad songs to attract the attention to the sad topic of chid security, food safety and poverty, I figured they were great lullaby's ;)). 

A total of 31000 people fasted this weekend and 18000 people gathered in the stadion for the countdown. We also held a moment of silence for the aircrash of MH17 last thursday. 

We counted down right before 4pm, after which we got a bun and some soyamilk. The whole experience was great! We got back in the busses to Seremban and waved all the campers goodbye.

After that: celebrate Rita's 20th birthday!! We bought a postcard and chocolate cake and she really liked both. Glad we made her feel a little bit special on her birthday :). 
Also, we had dinner at some place named 'Steamboat'. The dish is called the same I believe. It is a mixture of Dutch fondue and gourmet. Was nice having dinner with all the interns and our 'buddies'.