American Summer (1973)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] Every summer, millions of American children go off to summer camp. Bus load after bus load of youngsters are hauled from their homes and into the countryside where they spend their vacation in a lakeside cluster of cabins and tents playing with children their own age. For the last few years, a unique experience in international living has been taking place. Groups of university students from all parts of the world have come to the United States to work as guides or counselors to American children in the camps. This film is about the summer experience of 30 students from the University of Abjan. [Applause] [Applause] long. Hold on. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] On arriving in the United States, each visiting counselor is sent to a camp for the entire summer. There he is assigned to watch over a cabin full of children. It's an intimate contact, not unlike parent and child. And from this contact comes the underlying purpose of the international summer camp program. The interchange of cultural [Music] experiences. Put your what is it? Laundry bag. Okay. Put the business together. You make something. I wish I was with you having a good time. We all miss you very much. Love your little sister. Younger sister. Okay, that's very nice. Here at a camp in upper New York State, Robert Alisani from the Ivory Coast teaches the children in his cabin a song from his West African tribe while he learns the famous American camp game, the scavenger hunt. What do you want? We just have now a scavenger hunt. Uh it consist on getting on a collection of things. Tend dead flies, one live frog, one live fish. And anyway, this game is really exciting. You see them, you know, running everywhere, you know, and trying to collect the most possible things they want. they they can't collect and it's really funny you bring for instance 10 flowers but the same kind of flowers and they have to go again and sometimes they bring some frogs already dead and this this uh it's useless you guys I found a frog here I found a frog take it to Robert quick it seems that all the American kids are very lively you know full of life and energy here anywhere [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] meaning it means we are happy to be together. We are having a great deal of fun being together. [Music] Hey, let's go early. Oh, no. It's too hot. [Music] 200 miles away at another camp in the farmlands of New Jersey, Ivoarian Mahilelet Narcissis learns an American two-step jazz dance in exchange for a lesson on how to build a traditional African animal trap. the beach. [Music] [Music] You are not not girl. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] One day I took my group of campers into the woods to show them how we trap animals in Africa. They were particularly interested in the traditional Africa things like customs and dances and that kind of thing and we had quite a bit of discussion about it. Okay. We got rope. Yeah. But this particular day, there's rope in there. As we were working, they started asking me questions about modern Africa too. Is there any jungle like this in Africa or are they thicker? The wood. Are they thick? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In my country itself, I mean, we we have a big Italian forest like this. What kind of um animals did you have in there? Um, many kinds. They have beavers. Yeah. Deers, lions, many kinds. We don't catch food like you do in Africa. Said there's a grocery store where we go and buy. Yeah. And and everything else. There's another store you can buy. There's always so many stores where you can buy stuff that you need like clothes, food. Get out. Yeah. How do How do you think you live in Africa? You have to catch your food. You have to make your clothes. You're not grocery stores. No, he doesn't. No, you know the same way just wait a minute. You have a a bad idea of Africa. Africa is not like uh Africa is not something I mean something like a bush jungle. The jungle. No Africa. Africa is something like United States cities. We have cities. We have them. We have our food. We get our food from from market as you you do here. There are places where you see what I mean? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That I hope will lead us in a in an [Music] African [Music] for you to me. Are you More than a thousand miles away at another camp on a farm in northern Illinois, three students from the University of Abby Jan join a group of American children in the traditional barn dance. There is so much variety in American music. There's blues, rock and folk music. And there's that one foot music called the band dance in which you dance in group and change partners while you are still dancing. It's a lot of fun. It looks like some of our dancers in West Africa. [Music] [Applause] At the same camp, sitting inside an empty corn storage silo, Elaine Baki explains the significance of the panther as a token object to his tribe. My tribe, the tote animal is the panther. Only a warrior of the tribe lost in the forest and he spent a long time. searching for his way and he was starving to die. It was necessary for him to find a a river or a well something else, you know, where he could drink and get food. So he saw a panther. He just he just tried to to follow the panther follow him a long way and the panther led him to a river. So he got water to drink. He just walked along the river and he got to his village. Since that day he told to his people uh not to to eat panther meat. No one eats panther meat. No one in my tribe because of this animal. Yes. Because of this animal. And that's what we've got in Africa. A totem. Our totem is a bad Is it Is it ever a combination of like a man like half a man's body and half an animal's body or something like this? No. Not Not in your tribe. It's just the the right the right animal. Bucky. Yeah. Can I ask you when you have children, will you tell your children the story of the panther? Yeah. I have to maintain the tradition. Can you feel the spirit? Oh yeah. Can you feel the spirit? Oh yeah. Can you feel the spirit? Oh yeah. Let's get it on the hands now. Can you feel the spirit? Oh yeah. Can you feel the spirit? Oh yeah. Can you feel the spirit? In the heart of New York City, Ivoarian Sarata Tore learns a popular children's chant from her group of YMCA day campers. And in exchange, teaches an African dance from the heart of [Music] Abijan. Down. Down. [Music] on the other side of the American continent in the mountains of the California Pacific coast. Emmanuel Naji Naji takes his first ride on a trail horse with widebrimmed hat and spurs like an American cowboy and teaches an African children's game from his Ivarian tribe the abriier Hallelujah. [Music] [Music] Yal. [Music] [Applause] [Music] For Sangalles Shikasar, the summer was one continuous exchange of games, stories, and songs. [Applause] after eating uh every everybody is very uh very great. And so we sing we love somebody for example me or another one and everybody think we love you. Oh yes we do. And they say keep round room, frog round room or something like that. They ask you to do something around the room and you have to do it. Everybody give you a hand. And that's very very nice. That's very funny, you know. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] We are going to talk about Africa I think and you want to ask me some question like Where do you live? Yeah, I live here. Sagal is my country. Captain and my friend in live here in coast and I'm studying. They have they have oceans in here. Sure you have. You know how kind of animals you have. You have oish. Look at there. All kind of animals you have here except the one and more. You have canoes. No, this is Africa. This part only like this thing. This Maragas is got from the African country. Yeah. What kind of food? We eat. You have mashed potatoes. Huh? have mashed potatoes. Well, we have mashed potatoes, but that's not typically African. You know, in Sagal, the typical plate is rice with fish. The name is made with now. He eat that. What do What do you use to hunt with? They use um bunaros. Yeah. Oh, spear. For spear. Where is that? That's Ivor Coast. This is a post office. Post office. Yeah, that's a big one. Yeah. In West Africa. Wa. Wow. This is another another picture of a in some village. I I don't live in in this kind of house but in the village the little village they live in this kind of of village for me I'm Muslim and I had to live in a camp at the beginning I thought that must be very hard to live with other person who don't have the same religion but I and I I had to see that's not very hard you know when Even you are Muslim or another religion when people are praying are making something for God you can participate because uh we believe in the same God I think that so it's not too hard to participate in this [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] program of the [Music] In this Christian camp, it is a tradition to celebrate Christmas in July as well as in December. A reminder to the children that the spirit of Christmas is not confined to one day or one season. For Shikasar, a Muslim 4,000 m from his home in Sagal, this was an experience he would long remember. [Music] At the end of the camp period, the African Students gather once again, this time to tour the United States as guests of American families in over 20 cities. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Where are you from? I'm from Ivory Coast, West Africa. Africa? You ever been to Africa? Nope. What do you think is what do you think you'd find if you went to Africa? What kind of things? I don't know. Well, it I found a horse. A horse. That's [Music] good. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] What uh what things do you grow primarily at home? Um We go rice. Yeah. Uh potato. Uh siz. Um sesame. Sesame. Sesame. Sesame. Yeah. Sesame. And in Africa our way of praying is a little different. You know sometimes they use I don't know the name in English they call it jasher. Jasher. You you use this part this year and another year you use it for another another thing. Right. You live. Can you have machines like this in Africa? Maybe in um in public um farms maybe. Yeah. Sometimes the government has and they can make milk for to buy. So they have the machine like that. Yeah. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] experience concerning my most important experience here. I found out many things about American life and I must confess before coming to the United States I had some prejudices about segregation. According to what I had read there, there was supposed to be a big difference between the colors in the states. But I can assure you that in the group of people I lived with, it was completely different. The Americans don't really worry about color differences. That was the impression I got. I must say that it is in the newspapers where we get most of our information about what is happening between black and white. I know there is a problem. I know it is true and there is a lot of defects in solving the problem. I also know that in the newspapers especially the sensational newspapers we often see only the bright side of things but there are some whites that are really marvelous and some blacks that are marvelous. I know that the problem of racism exists, but it isn't all bad. And I think it is wonderful that they are really concerned people who try to understand the problem. [Music] Some could say that I was placed only in selected groups but I saw many people on my own and understand and appreciate them. Coming here I got some standard ideas about American people. I think uh I imagine them just like kind of machines, robots, but I think that I found people like me, like people at home and in the that camp where I worked as camp counselor. I just felt like home. It was a great experience. I was I was expecting to find it worse here. I thought after all I've read in the newspapers and seen in the film that it was a real open war going on between whites and blacks. But I was satisfied agreeably satisfied to find whites and blacks working together. I was really happy to have good white friends here and I believe that the future is very good for the two races and one day we can all get together on good terms as real human beings. There is certainly prejudices to be gotten rid of but I believe it will happen in due time. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] The last night in America, the 30 students perform a farewell dance to their American hosts. A farewell to an odyssey that neither the Americans nor the Africans will ever forget. The summer was over. [Applause] is [Music] [Music] from the [Applause]