The past week has been an epic roller coaster full of ups, downs and upside-downs!
A weekend of camp left us a bit tired. Nahhhh, still having fun!
Campers have come and gone. Friday the 22nd - Sunday the 24th was new camper weekend where those who have never been to camp before get an introduction and taste of camp. I didn't realise that until August the 17th, all those that are coming to camp have actually been before, they know this place better than I do, and have a lot more knowledge.. Oh well! It doesn't matter, I am still going to rock it!!!
On Friday, all the staff gathered into a big circle on the lawn and were assigned buddy groups. I was paired up with Siobhan and together we were going to hang out with five boys, ranging from ages 8 - 11 years old. The disabilities in the group comprised of autism, down syndrome, one boy was prone to epilepsy, FASD and ADHD. All of them were absolute superstars!
It was a rainy afternoon when they arrived (so much for "Summer" camp) and the very first camper to drive in the through the gates was one of our boys, Jakey. The excitement at this point was paramount! Admittedly, Jakob was quite the handful. Great kid, just everywhere at once. Fortunately, I am equipped with endless amounts of energy, so keeping up was no problem. We hung out, as we waited for the other campers to arrive. Siobhan and I had Jakob, Evan, Nick, Josh and Bennett.
The theme over the weekend was the Olympics, and during our opening ceremony that evening our Olympic torch was stolen by an evil bandit (one of the other counsellors dressed up) oh no! This created quite the frenzy amongst a few campers. After much singing, distress and a few wind me down games, it was bed time! The campers were given some watermelon and juice before bed (which I highly disagree with, and if it was up to me, I would have given them nothing but water!) but anyways, we got everyone to brush their teeth and get into bed. I read them a Cars story to continue the wind down, but full of sugar and excitement, it took a while to get them to sleep. We are required to stay in the room for 20 minutes after the last kid drifts off. Oh joy!
Up bright an early the next morning, I had a snack before I had to get upstairs to let "dorm duty" off. Dorm duty consists of two "float" counsellors who do not have any campers that week, so that stay up the whole night ensuring everything is run smoothly i.e. campers are soundly sleeping, changing any wet beds, etc... Kudos to these guys, I am nervous for my turn. I can barely stay up past midnight in a club! My boys were all awake and wide eyed when I pranced into the room at 7:20am. I started to get them ready, scrubbing teeth, getting changed and getting siked up for the day! Breakfast is 8:30am so we had time to kill. Our team, Pumping Iron (our carefully chosen team name) rolled into the costume room and picked out some badass costumes for the day.
The rest of the day was spent going between a few activities from the pool to the rock climbing wall to the low ropes course and arts and crafts. The rest hour for the counsellors between 4:15pm and 5:15pm was GOLD. I was feeling a bit run down, I think it's a combination of my super charged group and the flu that has been going round.
After dinner that evening there was to be a DANCE PARTY! Heck yeah!!! We all pranced into the gym in our super costumes. Siobhan and I went with a green theme, I didn't realise until after how ridiculous I looked, but that was okay. We danced around to some teeny bopper songs from J. Bieber and One Direction. It was definitely a lot of fun to just go wild and be care free.
Siobhan, Saeed and I at the dance.
That evening the boys feel asleep rather quickly, kudos to Tony who rocked the guitar in our room with some quiet, ambient chords. I nearly fell asleep! A report or two was filled out afterwards and then BED TIME. Absolutely pooped, but what an awesome day.
It was a shame that the weekend was so short. They were gone just as quick as they had come, but a few would be returning in a few weeks for the real deal.
Sunday and Monday consisted of the final two days of orientation which was more fire drills, learning how to lift and transfer in and out of a canoe and how to perform a T-rescue on a tipped over canoe in the water. We also had "Shabangabang" which was held on Sunday evening and was an opportunity for everyone to get up and do a 30 second - 10 minute presentation on themselves. Mine was a rap. I put together a little poem which summed me up in about a minute. It was a really cool evening, learned a lot about my fellow staff.
Monday evening we had a presentation evening. A few weeks ago we drew names out of a hat (similar to a secret santa) and we had to come up with an award for that person. I was given these;
Awwww yeahhhh!
I said a little speech in French for my secret santa person (Zoe) and gave her a funky bracelet which I had slaved over all day.
Now we are halfway through our 3 day break. Kids will be rocking up on Saturday for a FULL week of camp, so everyone is resting and doing some serious chilling out. Me? I've been watching a few TV shows online with Saeed and Lisa. Breaking Bad is AWESOME!
Saeed, Lisa and I at the Pier. Beautiful!
Out for a canoe with the Bangladeshi bad boy!
A lot of time has been spent in the lake, on the canoes and just hanging out. I love camp, I love these guys and I love my life!
Today? It's not that warm out, I will do some sort of workout. Most like a run, but I am in dire need of a muscle pump. My wrist however is still in pain from that little bicycle accident in Victoria. The nurses here believe it is just a bruised bone, ouch!
Oh how great it is to just chill out. And here is my first sighting of a bear since I've been here!
OH HEY THERE CAMP BEAR!
Note: I'm not actually allowed to publicly publish the photos I take of the kids. Bummer, it is what it is, so I suppose I will have to be super descriptive!
