Hey Hey World,
Working as a Camp Counselor has been one of the most rewarding yet intense experiences I have had the good fortune of having. It’s a job that throws the most bizarre situations at you, teaching you to use your imagination, compassion and confidence. Over the course of two months I’ve formed a new sense of normality, new friendships to last a lifetime and a new understanding of myself. And apparently I’ve picked up an American twang. With the wonderful English words available to me (because yes, we do in fact speak English in England) I shall attempt to share my time as a Camp Counselor at an American Girl Scout Camp.
It’s 6:45am, so it’s time to wake up, and yes, I am lying on a very uncomfortable floor because last night was movie night and so we all slept in our make-shift home cinema aka Steiner. Today is Wednesday, day four of Week 7 or what I like to call “Winnie the Pooh Week” and we’ve got 17 Brownies to wake up. Of course, there’s a child who won’t wake up and even ad staff support can’t do the trick this time, luckily I still have a giant rainbow trout pillow which is perfect for bribing 7 year olds to wake up. So eventually we do make it to flag where all the Americans pledge their allegiance to the flag and I wonder why we’re not patriotic back in Britain. Breakfast is as always, I fuel myself with what I like to call Orange Melone and then manage to elbow a camper’s fruit loops out of their hands and all over the floor. If in doubt, blame the child.
Our first activity for the day is fort building but as we’re in the “200 acre woods” this isn’t just any old fort, this is a new house for Eeyore. So once we’ve found Eeyore’s tail several times, made friends with a snake and ensured that Eeyore’s house is entirely watertight, beautifully decorated and successfully connected to both water and wifi, the architects (ahem, the counselors) come round to double check the house’s structural integrity. 90 thoroughly enjoyable minutes spent building Eeyore a home. And break, off to hammock city to relax except somehow we forgot the hammock so Pika and I went hammimicking instead.
Lunch is as always, I consume a lot of lettuce, get a handhug from Sulley and make sure that our Brownies are well fed for the afternoon. It’s raining. I’m guessing that all of our outdoor plans for the afternoon will have to be altered. Due to the lightning risk, the entirety of Cocopah (that’s the Brownie unit) get a ride back to our home in Upper Camp for Me Time, a time intended for the campers to rest and relax and which today I spend looking for lost diary keys, finding more paper and pens and then drawing a big picture of Eeyore.
For the 200 Acre Woods program, we can’t spend our afternoon exploring the outdoor play space because the weather is still pretty soggy. Instead, we learn to tie knots with the help of a fabulous Counselor In Training who we call Ghibli before making tails out of clothes pegs (I’m a mathematician, not an artist. Don’t judge my last minute craft decisions) and finish off our alternative afternoon by playing pin the tail on Eeyore for half an hour. Now back to our planned schedule to make bird feeders out of seeds and pine cones. Except, somehow this nature-make turns into a 30 minute long feud with a child who will “never ever ever say sorry” in her “whole entire life”. Once again, our brownies stump ad staff and when we finally do get an apology, somehow the conversation immediately moves on to how she’d love to come back to Willow Springs to be a farmer one day. 7 year olds officially baffle me. Before we hang up our bird feeders, there’s just enough time for Tinkerbell to give me my very own rainbow trout except this one is smaller, squeakier and potentially a dog toy. I love it all the same and it becomes an official Fish of Friendship. Then there’s even more just-enough-time for me to complete a Way-of-the-Warrior style obstacle course made by Hualapai which ends with me being attacked by Zodiac and Eevee with pool noodles.
As we return to Cocopah for some bird feeder hanging, disaster strikes. Hearing that I now possess a rainbow trout of my very own, Pixie, the actually owner of the giant rainbow trout pillow breaks into my Cocopah dorm and hunts down what is rightfully hers. Even though I chase her and my four Winnie the Pooh Brownies attempt to fight her, Pixie takes back her nameless fish leaving me bereaved. With more thunder and potentially lightning in the air, our day changes once more and we swap bird feeder hanging for heist planning as we spend the half hour before dinner inside considering how to steal the giant fish back. We draw a map and everything.
Dinner is as always, I consume a lot of lettuce, get a handhug from Lyric and we all eat pasta. Following a song at Song Tree, multiple games of splat and a couple of tantrums, it’s time for All Camp, the time of the week when all the campers come together for 90 minutes of themed chaos. This week is Space Week. And so every camper at Willow Springs Week 7 rescues aliens from outer space, leaps along in a Space Race and designs their own planets. Meanwhile I remind our Brownies why we don’t throw rocks, collect lost water bottles and am forced to dance by Coconut and Jetta.
Bedtime. We march our Brownies back to Upper Camp, into pyjamas, brush teeth and then it’s time for story-time. My favourite time of the day. Tonight we read a story about Heffalumps and one about Piglet getting entirely surrounded by water. By the end of the second story, we have 17 sleeping Brownies and some very sleepy counselors.
Looking back on my summer, this was a typically random day, and I have since decided that it was my favourite day. Just to show how varied our summers were, the next week was Intel Camp and rather than following honey trails and chasing Heffalumps, Apache and Navajo units spent their days building robots and programming miniature electric pianos. Each week was totally different and every day threw up new challenges, whether it be a 7 year old throwing her teddy into the wilderness or the struggles of working with an international technology company who have severely limited knowledge of the workings of summer camp. It’s impossible to tell you what a ‘normal’ day in the life of a Camp Counselor is like. However, it is possible to express how changeable and oddly surprising the weeks can be. If I could, I would share all of my some what unbelievable camp tales but there simply is not the space in this blog or any blog to be honest. Such tales will require a fair few coffees, a couple of meals and maybe even a long road trip to recount. But I will say that my summer job involved everything from hiding Eeyore’s tail to learning about the design process of Intel. And it was a time. A wonderful time.
Back in the world beyond camp, Alfred (real name Olivia. Oh and side note, for all names used in this blog; camp names not real names.) and I are currently travelling through state number seven on our epic cross-America travels. We’re learning how to adult and seeing the world as we do so.
I’ll keep you posted,
Ladybird x
