Lucas Camilo

(note: it’s not to late to send a video comment to Lucas for his birthday.  Just click on the comments link below and follow the directions on the previous post.)

This past weekend we took Lucas on his first overnight trip, and it was a huge success!  We drove two hours to a farm in central Virginia to join nearly 40 CISPES activists (for Lucas’s not-as-regular blog followers, CISPES is the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador) for our biennial “summer camp.”  The camp is a mix of workshops, strategy sessions and building community all rolled into one long weekend, and for the two of us the gathering has been a regular part of our summers since 2004.

This year summer camp was held on a big, historic farmhouse surrounded by lawn and rolling hills of pasture land.   Lucas seemed a little overwhelmed at first by everything new about the place, including being surrounded by so many people who wanted to meet him.  But he is such an easy going guy that he took all the newness in stride and quickly was acting like he’d lived on a rural farm all his life.  We set up a blanket out on the lawn for him and his equipment right next to the place people often gathered, and we were able to both hang out with Lucas and participate in workshops and discussions.  Lucas was especially happy about being on the lawn because he could reach the sticks and put them in his mouth — his first real taste of dirt, and of the great outdoors.

Meanwhile, we were able to relax and participate in the discussions and workshops about El Salvador, youth organizing, bilingual meeting facilitation, anti-racism, social media, and grassroots fundraising.  Although workshops and strategy sessions aren’t everyone’s idea of a relaxing weekend, for us it felt incredible to be able to combine our political/activist lives with our parenting, and to share Lucas with our friends and compas in CISPES.  We got to see Audelia, a Salvadoran ex-guerrilla turned legislative deputy/ leader within the leftist FMLN party… not to mention a mother of three.  Last spring when she was in Washington DC for a CISPES tour we got to spend a couple days with her while Krista was pregnant, and we talked with her about politics, parenting and the tensions and joys of combining the two.  So it was exciting to reconnect and introduce her to Lucas.

There were many other highlights throughout the weekend.  Lucas fell asleep in Burke’s arms as we listened to Salvadoran-American youth  share some of the the emotional journey they recently went through on a CISPES delegation to El Salvador.   Lucas was often surrounded by friends and more than once we were able to casually turn to someone to say “can you watch Lucas while I run inside?”  And we felt OK regularly interrupting discussions by firing up Lucas’s suction machine, knowing that were surrounded by loving friends, old and new, who valued having Lucas there enough to either increase the volume of their workshop or wait through the suction session to proceed.

We planned to stay overnight Friday and come home Saturday, but all three of us were so happy to be there that we ended up staying a second night.  The return trip was uneventful, and the hardest part was motivating to unpack everything we had packed up on Friday – needless to say, all Lucas’s equipment and spare parts, on top of the normal baby stuff, makes for a full car.  But even though it’s not so easy to travel out of town with Lucas, we came away feeling that it’s 100% worth it!