5th of July – 11th of July

Obviously, summer didn’t really turn out to what we expected it to be. Some of us wanted to fly back home to our families or go on adventures to new countries with our friends. Alas, we are all bound to our little island and travelling in all directions, hitting different districts that we have yet to discover. While all my friends have either been enjoying the beach, the safaris and the serenity of tea plantations I have been stuck in Colombo trying to do the best I can to occupy myself.

Between working at Cricket Club and attempting to make progress on my EE TAFA asked me to work as an intern in their summer camp. I was over the moon, I hadn’t done anything sport related in MONTHS and I was ready for the challenge. The summer camp was a multi-sports camp that included sports such as football, basketball, dance and cricket. During the meeting, we concluded that I would help with the dancing and football portion of the camp. For dance, I was expected to create my own lesson plan based on contemporary because it was an area that I have experienced before.

Some of us came in and helped set up the camp on Sunday, doing things like pumping all the footballs and organizing equipment such as cones. The day of the camp we all had to wear coaching shirts (which I had stolen from Jade). Fiona (the TAFA administrator) was doing the dance session with me, I had attempted to create my own lesson plan but with the little experience I had with teaching a group of young kids, it was definitely a challenge. I planned to do a 5 min warm-up, then moving on to teaching them a 16 count contemporary dance and lastly having them add and create a part of it as their own. However, this didn’t turn out exactly as I was hoping for it too. We ended up having to use Fiona’s plan due to the fact that it was much more well thought out than mine was. The idea of teaching a  contemporary dance for a group of under 8 and under 12 kids sounded like it would be an absolute nightmare.

The camp started on Monday the 6th of July, my first job was to welcome the parents, sign in the kids and collect the payments for the camp. I got to learn a lot of the kid’s names which was a good start so I could regard them during the summer camp.

After signing everyone in Fiona and I went to the auditorium and started warming up the kids and getting them ready for the Hakka. We started with the under 8 groups, they were definitely a handful but a lot better than I was expecting. Fiona and I taught them the Hakka, we started off with a warm-up game to get the kids moving and then moved on to teaching them the step count. They caught on to the steps quite fast but when it came to having them create their own steps it got a little messy. This is the part where we as coaches had to definitely get involved. This is also where it got messy for me. I had no clue what I was doing, trying to help kids create their own steps?? I could do it for myself but not other people. This is when I found myself in a sticky situation, I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING!! Thank God Fiona was really understanding and managed to give me a little help with the kids. Then we took videos of the kids dancing and sent it to the parents.

After the morning sessions, Thaabit told me that we were also doing afternoon sessions and asked if I wanted to join. I thought why not! I was coaching football this time with Jade. Some could say that we were the dream team. She really helped me and included me in helping out with the coaching and leading activities. Jade even got all the kids to call me coach Emily which was a very interesting feeling since I’ve only heard adults called that. After an hour of working with the kids, we all said our goodbyes and we were done for the day. This is how most of the week went except for Friday.

Friday was the competition day, everything that the kids learnt at the camp would be tested in a relay competition. The four coaches made up different activities for each of the sport that they had chosen to coach. Each of us interns had a different team that we had to help out in the relay. My team was red and I definitely recognized a couple OSC faces. I had to help the kids a lot when it came to explaining the activities and problem solve ways that would help us win. Even though my team didn’t necessarily prosper I could tell they still had a lot of fun. Everyone was laughing and giggling while we were trying to do all of the activities and it was a fulfilling feeling having them say thanks and knowing they left with a smile on their face.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to move onto the second week of the camp because of schools being shut down to the recent spike in cases. However I was a part of the team now, Thaabit had accepted me as one of his own, a coach. It’s funny looking back at how nervous I was going into the camp. Scared that I didn’t have what it took to be a coach and scared that I was the youngest in the team. Those fears seem so stupid now and I’m so excited to be a part of the TAFA team and the new experiences that I am going to gain in the next year.