The weeks gone by, part 3...
Camp week 3: ‘Artvarks’ with junior kids (8-12), with co-counsellor Rainbow (a bit weird and spacey), unit leader Toto, whose personal hygiene is so disgusting it is making the rest of us nautious, intern Laces, who is really cool and really short, and counsellor in training for a little bit, shorty, who is not as short as laces so I keep getting them confused!!
Captions:
1: the cutest kid in the world, jula hooping, monica
2: our second cielo group (toto is in foreground at front left)
3: my group one in cielos
4: me as a pirate thing and star as a crazy carnival-goer
5: my crazy counsellor, rainbow
I can’t believe we are almost halfway through camp!!! This week has been the hardest week for me so far.
I had two lots of girls this week. The first, I became more attached to – especially a little nine year old Monica, who is a model and a tv commercial actress, and I can see why. Honey would melt on her head, or the saying close to that. She was so well mannered and always offered to help. We had to do the flag raising ceremony one morning, and monica stood at the back crying, and when I asked her what was wrong, she sniffed “I really need to go to the bathroom.” It was very cute. We did a lot of drama, art, swimming and kayaking, and dawn drifting. But we also had a lot of homesickness – once one person starts crying about their parents, they set the others off. The first night I did not deal with it well, sitting on their bed and making awkward conversation. But the next few nights we worked it out, reading them Dr Seuss before bed and going round before lights out asking them if they wanted a ‘hug, handshake or hi-5.”
We had an intern counsellor in training, called shorty, who was picked to go with us because the boss thought we were capable of plugging some initiative into her. She was pretty useless, especially during camp fire etc… little things, like wandering around with dirty dishes of her own, not clicking that she herself had to wash them up.
It was sad to leave those girls, and they all asked for my email address. They also left me a few surprise notes saying I am the funniest and most caring counsellor they have had so far. That was nice. Its not easy though. I have been so exhausted this week that on my night off I was sleeping in the Troop house and talking to star and kitty about travelling around Europe with them maybe, and star walked out of the room just as I lay down, and she said that two minutes later she came back in and I was fast asleep.
The second part of the week was quite challenging, but I got a lot more out of it, because without rainbow, I could take the lead and actually pulled off some worthwhile activities that really got them thinking about teamwork and social situations.
Rainbow is a little bit ‘not all there’, and one night she had to be driven up to the cielo’s because she had got a strong pain in her chest and had had a panic attack. She is on Zoloft as of recently, but It doesn’t seem to be having any positive effects. She is extremely moody and dominates a lot, getting grumpier and grumpier as she tries to control the kids. She also told me that the Cielo’s are haunted. On the first night. Everyone knows that I don’t cope well with scary movies, because my brain can’t distinguish between whats in my head, and what Is reality, so I hear noises that aren’t necessarily there etc… It is quite freaky though: the cielo’s are a set of troop houses with hot showers and electricity etc…, like a real house, ontop of a very steep and isolated hill. Cielo 1 has a troop of dead brownie kids running up and down the basement stairs. You can hear them at night, apparently, but you can’t see them. Cielo 2, the one I stayed in, has a woman in the shower (I heard it a few times), and a hippie man ghost who hangs out in the staff room and peers into the windows. The first night I actually could hear people walking around outside, and the door creak open. What;s even freakier is that the automatic hand drier kept going off in the middle of the night when no-one was in there. The third Cielo has car lights speeding around the outside all night, and there isn’t a highway for miles. My heart jumped into my mouth every time I heard something go bump in the night.
On the last night, we got into bed at 11ish, and suddenly we heard a scream, shuffling and running feet, and then voices getting closer and closer. The door opened and people were in the kitchen banging around and yelling hysterically. Toto and I ran in to see what the hell it was, and the kitchen staff were sitting on the lounge, siren (the one who screamed), drinking water and eyes puffy. They were all shaking and very very pale. They had all heard a ‘woo-woo’ ghost sound very close to the ground near them. I think it was probably a coyote, but nevertheless they took my flashlight and a knife just in case. They have to live in cielo’s all summer, climbing that hill early in the morning and very late at night. ☹
The second lot of girls were a lot more challenging, as some cliques began to form. One girl couldn’t swim and completely panicked when she thought we would force her into doing things she really didn’t want to do. I took her outside to comfort her when she told me that she didn’t want to have a shower without her mum helping her, and this is an eleven year old. Toto reported it to the Child Protection Society, just in case. She was very distressed, and then started telling me about how the girls are bossing others around and saying “you are not allowed to sit here” etc… We also had a bad peanut allergy girl, and i had to be taught how to use an epipen. It was scary becasue we constantly had to think about it all the time. like, we sat down to art in the day camp area and we realised Tara (americans pronounce it 'terror'), couldn't sit there because they make PB&J sandwiches on those tables. Another kid came up to me, she was quite autistic, although we weren't informed of that, and she just randomly said (we were talking about lanyards), and "did you know the romans killed god," lowering her head and raising her big moon shaped eyes up at me. i couldn't help but crack up.
So I initiated a leadership session, following on from the physical leadership aspect of the challenge course. I got them to play the human knot first in silence and then with talking, and that taught them about active listening, body language, eye contact, communication skills, people all talking at once etc… Then I sat them down and had them say a thorn and a rose (good and bad points) about how they think they are co-operating as a group. Then I told them that they are all cogs in the team machine, and some need to be oiled as they are not running against each other too smoothly. And that a smooth, silent machine is better than a loud clanking one. I think it really helped them, because they then made up a group cheer where everyone had input into one line each, for the boat race the next day.
That was an experience and a half. Picture this: 10 kids are given four life jackets, some balloons, a noodle, a beach ball, duct tape, garbage bags and a paddle, and they are instructed to construct a boat that will take their poor counsellor across the lake. I was very proud of their boat – it was so buoyant and sturdy, and didn’t start falling apart until most of the way there (they are a VERY intelligent group). We all lined up on the boat dock with our trash contraptions and on our marks, we jumped into the water. Most people fell off, and splashed around wildly. I sort of sat straight on it, half expecting to sink, but didn’t. And off we went. I decided to abandon paddle halfway, discovering that swimming with it was faster. It was the craziest fun I’ve had in my life. 300 kids were cheering us on from the swimming dock – a total swimming / boating distance of about 100 metres.
Rainbow, my co-counsellor, is also eighteen. But I felt like her assistant instead of her co. But on Thursday she left for her two hour break to go to the doctors, and didn’t return until late Saturday afternoon, leaving me with the girls. I didn’t particularly mind, because It allowed me to take charge and realise what I was capable of, but we knew nothing of where she went, whether she was alive etc… Shes’ weird, like one time she took her “stone of transformation” into Cielo 2 basement to meditate, and she sung the phantom of the opera everywhere.
Friday night we had a Phantom of the Opera dinner, complete with a recital. I dressed up with a paper plate mask, a black garbage bag cape and a white business shirt. One bitchy camper didn’t fail to point out that I was wearing the wrong colour. So I moved tables. We also had a ‘shipwreck’ theme lunch, where we upturned the tables and chairs, putting the food on the table and the plates at obscure angles, and hung life jackets and paper fish from the ceiling. In a word: chaos.
Other gossip: the head chef got fired – the food has not been up to scratch – 4 mini bagels and 4 mini muffins for eight people for breakfast is not exactly the best catering job.
So it was an interesting week, but I couldn’t wait to get out of cielo’s - away from the contained stench of toto, who you can’t even walk ten metres behind, let alone sleep a metre away from. I fell asleep with my sheet over my head every night, to block the ghosts and the smell.
On Saturday, after we disposed of the children, I went on a staff horse trail ride, and a ring lesson, totalling 4 and a half hours. I saddled my horse, and fed him carrots. Healthy was very amusing, giving the horse next to me called ‘oreo’, a mowhawk, which flopped down so she said “oh, you’ll have to just settle for a tiara.” She cracks me up. Like, instead of clicking her tongue to get the horse to go, she would purposefully make a slurping soup noise. We trotted along for a little bit, through the trail lined by dinosaur sized ferns, past the lake and the maples, up and down steep trees etc… The ring lesson was very scary. I haven’t really ridden a horse properly before, not counting the pony rides at fetes. But I managed to get into a trot, a bumpy (fly out of the saddle) fast trot, and a LOPE (a canter), where the horse ran very fast and I spent more time in the air. Sore butt and legs, but how many people get to do that as a privelage for working???? (I love this place!!)
Captions:
1: the cutest kid in the world, jula hooping, monica
2: our second cielo group (toto is in foreground at front left)
3: my group one in cielos
4: me as a pirate thing and star as a crazy carnival-goer
5: my crazy counsellor, rainbow
I can’t believe we are almost halfway through camp!!! This week has been the hardest week for me so far.
I had two lots of girls this week. The first, I became more attached to – especially a little nine year old Monica, who is a model and a tv commercial actress, and I can see why. Honey would melt on her head, or the saying close to that. She was so well mannered and always offered to help. We had to do the flag raising ceremony one morning, and monica stood at the back crying, and when I asked her what was wrong, she sniffed “I really need to go to the bathroom.” It was very cute. We did a lot of drama, art, swimming and kayaking, and dawn drifting. But we also had a lot of homesickness – once one person starts crying about their parents, they set the others off. The first night I did not deal with it well, sitting on their bed and making awkward conversation. But the next few nights we worked it out, reading them Dr Seuss before bed and going round before lights out asking them if they wanted a ‘hug, handshake or hi-5.”
We had an intern counsellor in training, called shorty, who was picked to go with us because the boss thought we were capable of plugging some initiative into her. She was pretty useless, especially during camp fire etc… little things, like wandering around with dirty dishes of her own, not clicking that she herself had to wash them up.
It was sad to leave those girls, and they all asked for my email address. They also left me a few surprise notes saying I am the funniest and most caring counsellor they have had so far. That was nice. Its not easy though. I have been so exhausted this week that on my night off I was sleeping in the Troop house and talking to star and kitty about travelling around Europe with them maybe, and star walked out of the room just as I lay down, and she said that two minutes later she came back in and I was fast asleep.
The second part of the week was quite challenging, but I got a lot more out of it, because without rainbow, I could take the lead and actually pulled off some worthwhile activities that really got them thinking about teamwork and social situations.
Rainbow is a little bit ‘not all there’, and one night she had to be driven up to the cielo’s because she had got a strong pain in her chest and had had a panic attack. She is on Zoloft as of recently, but It doesn’t seem to be having any positive effects. She is extremely moody and dominates a lot, getting grumpier and grumpier as she tries to control the kids. She also told me that the Cielo’s are haunted. On the first night. Everyone knows that I don’t cope well with scary movies, because my brain can’t distinguish between whats in my head, and what Is reality, so I hear noises that aren’t necessarily there etc… It is quite freaky though: the cielo’s are a set of troop houses with hot showers and electricity etc…, like a real house, ontop of a very steep and isolated hill. Cielo 1 has a troop of dead brownie kids running up and down the basement stairs. You can hear them at night, apparently, but you can’t see them. Cielo 2, the one I stayed in, has a woman in the shower (I heard it a few times), and a hippie man ghost who hangs out in the staff room and peers into the windows. The first night I actually could hear people walking around outside, and the door creak open. What;s even freakier is that the automatic hand drier kept going off in the middle of the night when no-one was in there. The third Cielo has car lights speeding around the outside all night, and there isn’t a highway for miles. My heart jumped into my mouth every time I heard something go bump in the night.
On the last night, we got into bed at 11ish, and suddenly we heard a scream, shuffling and running feet, and then voices getting closer and closer. The door opened and people were in the kitchen banging around and yelling hysterically. Toto and I ran in to see what the hell it was, and the kitchen staff were sitting on the lounge, siren (the one who screamed), drinking water and eyes puffy. They were all shaking and very very pale. They had all heard a ‘woo-woo’ ghost sound very close to the ground near them. I think it was probably a coyote, but nevertheless they took my flashlight and a knife just in case. They have to live in cielo’s all summer, climbing that hill early in the morning and very late at night. ☹
The second lot of girls were a lot more challenging, as some cliques began to form. One girl couldn’t swim and completely panicked when she thought we would force her into doing things she really didn’t want to do. I took her outside to comfort her when she told me that she didn’t want to have a shower without her mum helping her, and this is an eleven year old. Toto reported it to the Child Protection Society, just in case. She was very distressed, and then started telling me about how the girls are bossing others around and saying “you are not allowed to sit here” etc… We also had a bad peanut allergy girl, and i had to be taught how to use an epipen. It was scary becasue we constantly had to think about it all the time. like, we sat down to art in the day camp area and we realised Tara (americans pronounce it 'terror'), couldn't sit there because they make PB&J sandwiches on those tables. Another kid came up to me, she was quite autistic, although we weren't informed of that, and she just randomly said (we were talking about lanyards), and "did you know the romans killed god," lowering her head and raising her big moon shaped eyes up at me. i couldn't help but crack up.
So I initiated a leadership session, following on from the physical leadership aspect of the challenge course. I got them to play the human knot first in silence and then with talking, and that taught them about active listening, body language, eye contact, communication skills, people all talking at once etc… Then I sat them down and had them say a thorn and a rose (good and bad points) about how they think they are co-operating as a group. Then I told them that they are all cogs in the team machine, and some need to be oiled as they are not running against each other too smoothly. And that a smooth, silent machine is better than a loud clanking one. I think it really helped them, because they then made up a group cheer where everyone had input into one line each, for the boat race the next day.
That was an experience and a half. Picture this: 10 kids are given four life jackets, some balloons, a noodle, a beach ball, duct tape, garbage bags and a paddle, and they are instructed to construct a boat that will take their poor counsellor across the lake. I was very proud of their boat – it was so buoyant and sturdy, and didn’t start falling apart until most of the way there (they are a VERY intelligent group). We all lined up on the boat dock with our trash contraptions and on our marks, we jumped into the water. Most people fell off, and splashed around wildly. I sort of sat straight on it, half expecting to sink, but didn’t. And off we went. I decided to abandon paddle halfway, discovering that swimming with it was faster. It was the craziest fun I’ve had in my life. 300 kids were cheering us on from the swimming dock – a total swimming / boating distance of about 100 metres.
Rainbow, my co-counsellor, is also eighteen. But I felt like her assistant instead of her co. But on Thursday she left for her two hour break to go to the doctors, and didn’t return until late Saturday afternoon, leaving me with the girls. I didn’t particularly mind, because It allowed me to take charge and realise what I was capable of, but we knew nothing of where she went, whether she was alive etc… Shes’ weird, like one time she took her “stone of transformation” into Cielo 2 basement to meditate, and she sung the phantom of the opera everywhere.
Friday night we had a Phantom of the Opera dinner, complete with a recital. I dressed up with a paper plate mask, a black garbage bag cape and a white business shirt. One bitchy camper didn’t fail to point out that I was wearing the wrong colour. So I moved tables. We also had a ‘shipwreck’ theme lunch, where we upturned the tables and chairs, putting the food on the table and the plates at obscure angles, and hung life jackets and paper fish from the ceiling. In a word: chaos.
Other gossip: the head chef got fired – the food has not been up to scratch – 4 mini bagels and 4 mini muffins for eight people for breakfast is not exactly the best catering job.
So it was an interesting week, but I couldn’t wait to get out of cielo’s - away from the contained stench of toto, who you can’t even walk ten metres behind, let alone sleep a metre away from. I fell asleep with my sheet over my head every night, to block the ghosts and the smell.
On Saturday, after we disposed of the children, I went on a staff horse trail ride, and a ring lesson, totalling 4 and a half hours. I saddled my horse, and fed him carrots. Healthy was very amusing, giving the horse next to me called ‘oreo’, a mowhawk, which flopped down so she said “oh, you’ll have to just settle for a tiara.” She cracks me up. Like, instead of clicking her tongue to get the horse to go, she would purposefully make a slurping soup noise. We trotted along for a little bit, through the trail lined by dinosaur sized ferns, past the lake and the maples, up and down steep trees etc… The ring lesson was very scary. I haven’t really ridden a horse properly before, not counting the pony rides at fetes. But I managed to get into a trot, a bumpy (fly out of the saddle) fast trot, and a LOPE (a canter), where the horse ran very fast and I spent more time in the air. Sore butt and legs, but how many people get to do that as a privelage for working???? (I love this place!!)
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