session 5
Session 5: Day camp with co-counselor Hawk, and annoying little brownies
This week was exhausting, despite it only being a half session. The thing with day camp is that even though they go home and we have each evening off, the kids actually get more sleep than residential camp, and come back refreshed and energised.
We only had seven kids. Most were little angels, including the cutest little five year old girl I have ever seen – she had this thick south accent, and wore pink glittery converses, and a pink cowboy hat. But we had a tomboy Elizabeth, who did exactly the opposite of everything you said (aha!! Reverse psychology was the only thing that worked with her). The first day Elizabeth insisted on calling her self cheese, and we discovered that macaroni cheese and doritos is all she eats. She also called her backpack a potato and told us that she would go home and roast it.
She seemed to have this effect on the other kids, like a disease, making the other kids disruptive too. The second day we had another girl called Brandee, who was a chubby little pig tailed blonde haired scabby cheeked black front toothed brat. She had shoe-laces that could stretch up to her bum, and we had to do them up on average four times in five minutes. The kids went row boating and complained the whole time, because they weren’t allowed to row. Of course Elizabeth decided to throw her hat in the lake and make hawk go and get it. We hosed them down afterwards, because it was so hot, which was satisfying. A few funny quotes like “mosquitos are biting me in my armpits,” lots of games of “telephone” (chinese whispers.)
There was a problem with Hawk and the kids though. It started on the first day when playing elbow tag, when Warner yelled at hawk “get him”. And then when hawk burped they started calling her Mr Burp. They were really getting stuck into her and refused to call hawk a girl. Hawk was telling me later that she already has gender issues, and that she feels like a guy trapped in a girls body; so the kids persistent comments made her more and more off edge, and she completely snapped.
This week was exhausting, despite it only being a half session. The thing with day camp is that even though they go home and we have each evening off, the kids actually get more sleep than residential camp, and come back refreshed and energised.
We only had seven kids. Most were little angels, including the cutest little five year old girl I have ever seen – she had this thick south accent, and wore pink glittery converses, and a pink cowboy hat. But we had a tomboy Elizabeth, who did exactly the opposite of everything you said (aha!! Reverse psychology was the only thing that worked with her). The first day Elizabeth insisted on calling her self cheese, and we discovered that macaroni cheese and doritos is all she eats. She also called her backpack a potato and told us that she would go home and roast it.
She seemed to have this effect on the other kids, like a disease, making the other kids disruptive too. The second day we had another girl called Brandee, who was a chubby little pig tailed blonde haired scabby cheeked black front toothed brat. She had shoe-laces that could stretch up to her bum, and we had to do them up on average four times in five minutes. The kids went row boating and complained the whole time, because they weren’t allowed to row. Of course Elizabeth decided to throw her hat in the lake and make hawk go and get it. We hosed them down afterwards, because it was so hot, which was satisfying. A few funny quotes like “mosquitos are biting me in my armpits,” lots of games of “telephone” (chinese whispers.)
There was a problem with Hawk and the kids though. It started on the first day when playing elbow tag, when Warner yelled at hawk “get him”. And then when hawk burped they started calling her Mr Burp. They were really getting stuck into her and refused to call hawk a girl. Hawk was telling me later that she already has gender issues, and that she feels like a guy trapped in a girls body; so the kids persistent comments made her more and more off edge, and she completely snapped.
posted by Amy at
10:21 am
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