Camp is everything and nothing like what I thought! But it is everything I wished for. Who can complain when you're getting paid to sit on a jetski or at the top of a tree sending kids down a zip line?
The Camp I'm working at is a mix of traditional/sports camps, and no Wonderemere is not it's real name but for security reasons I can't publish it. 260 kids (8-17) come a week, for 5-6 days of sports, games, swimming, jet skiing and climbing. Within the camp there is also an extreme camp for 15-17 year olds, and they get to go dune buggying, play laser tag and learn to drive a jet ski amoungst other things. We have cabins of 10-30 kids, with 2-3 counselors, just depending on where you get placed each week. I'll write more about that in another post though. The camp is set on 300 acres, 100 of which is a private lake :)
Orientation was an experience, so much energy, so much enthusiasm, so much to learn! There are 100 staff here, and I think I can now confidently name all of them! The training has been incredubly intense, but awesome. It has made me feel more confident, but at the same time helped me apppreciate the enormity of the fact that parents are trusting me with their babies for the summer.
I've learnt so many games, chants and songs I'm not sure how I will remember them all, but it's so much fun! I feel like I'm going back to school days, but with a whole pile more american cheesyness, and I'm loving it!
The staff are all so friendly, it's almost overwhelming, but at the same time I can see how so many amazing relationships and friendships come out of this place. You've already got something (if not multiple things) in common just by being here, its so nice to meet a group of people who like me never want to lose that child-like enthusiasm for life. It does make me wish I had done this years ago!
As for actual training, we did a 3-4 days all camp training, then 4 of counselor and 4 of rock block, which seemed VERY short! Although after 11 days we were so pumped to have the kids arrive that I'm glad we didn't have to wait much longer.
Every morning I went running around the lake with other staff, which #1 was beautiful and #2 was a good way to get to know people :) we had a camp fire with s'mores (I like the NZ version better....) and got to play on the blob finally!! (imagine a massive air inflated pillow on the water, we jump from a 12 foot platform onto it, then someone else jumps on and you go flying into to air!!) We also had a barn dance, complete with square and line dances, and I learnt to kick an AFL ball.
We had 1 day off over orientation, which equalled a lot of shopping and beer!
geepers my time off is over and I need to go get my girls, will write more later xoxo
billie
