Teen teachers boarded the buses, eager to arrive at Harambe. Despite the pouring rain, everyone was anxious to arrive. Once they arrived at camp, they immediately jumped into games like dodgeball and crab soccer.

Harambe is a two-day and one night retreat that the students in teen teaching participate in each year. There are around 150 students who went to Harambe this year. Harambe is dedicated to teaching teen teachers greater leadership skills along with teaching them games for pace bend. This year’s Harambe took place at Highland Lakes Camps from March 28 to the 29. 

Harambe is organized by teen teaching teacher Janniliz Suniga and the honchos, or student leaders of the teen teaching classes. Honchos supervise the students at the activities and also help Suniga with organizational factors. Harambe is open to everyone who is in teen teaching as well as sophomores, juniors and seniors who are interested in participating.

Harambe is more than just a retreat for teen teachers, it is also preparation for Pace Bend scheduled to take place April 28 and 29. Pace Bend is also led by the teen teachers and is focused on bringing together eighth graders from both middle schools, Hill Country and West Ridge, before they join together as freshmen.

“Putting Harambe together can be a lot of fun, but takes a lot of time,” Suniga said. “I meet with the Honchos at least twice a week up until Harambe to get everything planned and put together.”

Suniga and the Honchos spent weeks planning and perfecting Harambe to make sure everyone enjoys it and gains the leadership necessary to make Pace Bend successful. They put together squads, organize the games and figure out which cabins everyone stays in.

“We meet to figure out who our squad leaders will be as well as what non-Teen Teachers to accept as group leaders,” Suniga said. “We also look through all the games from the prior year and determine what we want to keep or change.” 

“Then we also have to figure out what supplies we already have vs what we still need to buy,” Suniga said. ”I also need to make sure that the Honchos understand all of the activities they are running as well as what parts of the schedule they are in charge of. Plus so many more small details.”

Teen Teachers participating in Harambe are split up into squads of 6-7 people and each squad has their own theme. Squad members dress up according to their theme and play games together at Harambe. This year’s themes included safari, space and neon, and also duct tape, which is dedicated to setting up and taking down each game. Each squad spends a lot of time together, so many teen teachers developed strong relationships through the experience.. 

“I was in the firefighter squad, and I had a lot of fun getting to dress up into a funny costume,” junior Wilder Dennie said. “We were with our squads for a lot of the time at Harambe, and I feel like I bonded with a lot of the people in my squad.”

The squads are all placed under one leader and those leaders are in charge of their group and making sure each person in the squad participates and brings energy. 

“I think Harambe tested my leadership skills, because it was rainy and cold while we were there and that honestly tested my patience,” said junior squad leader Kate Ramsey. “I think that I am a better leader, because now I know how to work through difficult or uncomfortable circumstances.”

The whole first day of harambe is dedicated to learning games including crab soccer, leaky tubes and rubber chicken baseball. Each squad travels from station to station and competes against the other squads in all of the games. Each teen teacher needs to know the rules of each game and be able to explain it to eighth graders

“I thought playing all of the games was so much fun,” Dennie said. “It sort of made me feel like a kid again, and I am looking forward to getting to teach kids these games.”

Teen teachers also get to do things that aren’t just learning how to play the games.There was a giant game of capture the flag which resulted in a tie between the yellow team and the green team. Teen teachers also had a lot of cabin time and got to know the people in their cabins even better. Also, everyone spent a lot of time in the Tabernacle, a building on the camp, and this is where teen teachers played games such as dodgeball and never have I ever. 

“I loved getting to be with all the other team teachers from different classes, and being in our groups and doing all the fun activities,” junior Mary Kate Ege said. “I feel like I got closer with a lot of the other teen teachers.”

Now that Harambe is done, Teen Teaching classes will be focused on preparing for Pace Bend.

“Seeing almost 3 months of work come together was such a great feeling,” Suniga said. “For Pace Bend we have a few 8th grade teachers that are also very involved in planning, which is helpful since there are so many students.”

Caption: Juniors Brielle Smith and Margaret Gilbreath skip down from the field, where adventure race took place, back to the cabins March. 29, the second day of Harambe.