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Day 6 - Mentors Diary - Hasnain Ramji |
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Its time for me to do my mentor diary and I ask myself the following questions: What am I doing here?
Being a veteran of 3 years at this camp, am I a glutton for punishment? Why do I put myself through the taxing process called the CoEJ Sweden camp? To put up with the sleepless nights, the mental and physical exhaustion from the rigid and structured timetable that doesn't allow for a single minute to be wasted and the immense responsibilities laid upon us as mentors to look after, nurture, entertain, educate and develop the campers, to blossom from their shells into the superb personalities that they potentially contain within themselves but are unaware of and require searching to discover. All these things involve much time, preparation, energy, enthusiasm, patience and dedication. All of which are the basic skills and the minimum requirements required for a mentor to attain the basic level of mentorship.
Now that the campers are asleep and have finished my daily duties and am currently embarking upon my nightly duty of night guard which involves paroling the campsite to attend to the woes of the campers who cant sleep or are scared of jinns and even those that are sleep walking, whilst the other mentors attend the nightly meeting in which they discuss the various aspect of the camp and issues brought up throughout the day. Now that I have this time I am able to ponder upon the answer to the question – 'Why am I here?' Having had several years of previous experience I feel I can somewhat understand the reason and it is almost purely to satisfy this longing for euphoria that is achieved through the campers individual and collective enhancement in their mental, physical and spiritual aspects. These changes are noticed right in front of our eyes over the duration of ten day the camp as a direct result of the mentors input of their life here in Sweden. At no other time would we be able to attain such satisfaction of seeing the campers transform from one end of the spectrum to the very other end, and become the type of person we would be proud to call the future of our society.
Combine with this the pleasure and entertainment received by the mentor taking the campers on activities during the day and watching their leadership and interpersonal skills develop as the gel more and more as a team. Also the excitement that is conjured up during the night jinn story telling session. All thee factors have a huge impact upon the mentors themselves and hence the reason why I keep returning and don't give a second thought when I'm invited to return for the following year. The saying a 'once in a lifetime' experience definitely applies to the Sweden camp, although Alhamdullillah I have been fortunate enough to experience three such experiences, each with their own slight differences but essentially very similar in the type and amount of satisfaction received and the emotions involved. |
