Day 13

So camp has officially begun! Got up at 6:30 yesterday [Monday] and was picked up just after 7:30 by this guy Mark, an English returning counsellor who lives round the corner and is really cool. He'll be taking us (us being me, Sarah, Leanne, Amy and Aaron) to the bus meeting point every morning, and bringing us home at the end of the day. Once we arrived at the bus meeting place, which is another of these shopping precinct things, we boarded our busses and got ready to go. The busses are all named by coloured dots - ours is Green Dot and the other consellors are Max (the guy who took James, Dean and I to Orientation all last week); another Max; Adam K(aka Kirt), an amazingly tall English first-time counsellor who's really funny; Luke, the Villa fan; Rob, an English counsellor who I haven't had the chance to chat to yet but he seems like a nice guy; Stephen, a third-time counsellor who is also my co-counsellor at camp this week; and Alison, a US counsellor.

The bus journey is really long. We only have a handful of kids on our route for this first week but it still takes a while to get to all the different subdivisions and then to get round the little streets. In America they've started introducing roundabouts now (although many call them Traffic Circles) and it is absoloutley hilarious how they deal with them. They have no idea what they're doing at all; the roundabout is split into lanes that are marked to death, and there are millions of signposts dotted around the place, but the drivers have no idea what they're doing and just fly into this frenzied panic and it's so funny. Our bus driver Sue just uses her privelages of driving a big yellow vehicle and just ploughs round on any lane she chooses!

Once we arrived at camp we were introduced to our campers. My co-counsellors are Stephen from the Green Dot bus; and Andy, an English counsellor who is tall and unashamedly a complete and utter geek. He comes out with these really random, out-of-nowhere little remarks and observations which are more often than not very amusing! He seems a decent guy. Our group consists of 9 boys from the Second Grade, all of whom are quite well acquainted already. We have some real characters!

The day is split into four activity periods (two of which are swimming) and a few other bits including Camper's Choice/Selectives. In the first Activity Period we just played a few games to ease them into the day, then came the swim, where they had to try out for different Tags - Yellow, Red, Blue or White - depending on their level of ability. The colour of their tag also dictates which areas of the two pools they're allowed in. Many counsellors were in the pool with them encouraging them as they did their widths/lengths etc.

After lunch was Camper's Choice for the younger kids and Selectives for the older kids. The younger kids just can go around the camp and play on any activity that's open to them. Selectives are for the older ones, and they're given a list to choose from and stick to that activity for the entire week. I was put on the Drama selective with Mat D (one of the first people I met on the flight over here) and Jenni (an American counsellor). I was quite relieved about that because I literally had no idea what I was doing with the drama until I looked at that list. I was hired as a general counsellor who could dabble in drama during the Selective period but last week it seemed like we just filled in these lesson plans on absoloutley anything and they picked out a few from their pile. But anyway, much as I was relieved to be stuck on the Drama selective, that proved irrelevant. Apparently Drama was accidentally missed off the list of options given to the campers earlier in the day when they had to choose, so this week will in fact be a drama free one!

The third activity period for our group (the Tigers by the way) was Arts And Crafts in which the Arts And Crafts specialists gave them bird houses made of plain white card, and they had to decorate them. The fourth and final period was the Free Swim, in which the counsellors just had to get in and play with the kids, except for if they were needed to stand watch on any one of the nine designated spots around the sides of the pools.

The first camp day was altogether quite tiring but I didn't feel that tired until I got home and Aimee said "You look exhausted!"... Right then was when I felt tired! But anyway it's a tradition on Monday evenings apparently for the staff to go to this nearby football field (this being football as in soccer) for a game, so Mark drove us over there at about 7:30. It was FREEZING! I didn't play in the actual football - many people just hung out at the side of the pitch - but it really is taken quite seriously; there were people with shin pads and boots, and on the other hand people just doing it for a laugh! It went on for a couple of hours or so, and then we all went over to Champps for a bit. The soft drinks were all free refills, so I naturally had about six Cokes (she just kept taking the glass!) and Amy and I also shared this really nice dessert which is like a big cookie, with ice cream and cream and all these sauces on top. The barmaid bless her wasn't really with it, she needed about half hours notice to do anything (i.e. get change, get a bill...) because she kept forgetting what it was she was doing!

Today was the second day at camp, and the bus journey was a bit shorter as Sue was getting used to the route but it still is a really long trip. The first activity period today was soccer, but the two Swim periods were cancelled because it was really cold! Instead we did Kickball (like baseball only you kick a ball instead of bat it) second and miniature golf fourth, with cricket third. It was really cool doing cricket with them because they'd barely heard of it before. It was good seeing them get all excited about a new sport and a new game and wanting to try everything out... like the most exciting thing in the world was playing in a position with a title as grand as "Wicket Keeper"!

When the day was over Aaron and I stayed with Leanne and Amy, and we stayed at theirs for a bit before all coming over to my host family's place. They were all really amazed with the house, and the basement and everything. I am actually really lucky and fortunate with where I'm staying. Brooke can be a beast of a handful sometimes, and sometimes I do wander what it would be like to have another counsellor staying here like many others do, but that aside I honestly can't complain at all. Amy and I began a mission to make tea but we were stopped in our tracks when we realised that the control lock was on on the hob/stove so we had no means of boiling any hot water! The babysitter, round to look after Brooke for the second night running, similarly had no idea. Amy went soon after that so she could phone her other half and join her host mum for dinner, but Leanne and Aaron stayed and we ordered in a pizza. Sarah came over to join us soon after that and we watched this teen film on TV from like 1999 that I didn't really get into - it had Melissa Joan Hart of Sabrina The Teenage Witch fame in it and the girl who played Amber in Brothers And Sister had a supporting role! Aimee and Brad got home and Aimee insisted Sarah and I collect a load of snacks and things to take down to the basement, which firmly established Aimee as one of the coolest "host mums" in the area! Sarah left just before 9 and Leanne and Aaron left when the film finished just after 10. I have to admit, I was a bit unsure about how to approach Aaron before now... I didn't have anything against him at all, I just got the impression he didn't like me! But after today I can safely say he's a really cool guy with a sharp sense of humour. He reminds me of someone at home but I can't place who.

Anyway, the group were so taken with my host house that we've decided to have a film night one night - Leanne has chosen The Notebook, which neither of us have seen but apparently no-one, boy or girl, can watch it without crying!

The camp itself is a completely different ball game now that the kids have started. It is hard work but not in a bad way. There are no breaks; you have to attend to a group, your bus group or your camp group, from when the first kid gets on the bus at 8:30am to when the last kid gets off at about 4:45pm. It is tough, it is exhausting and it is unpredictable, but I really think it's going to be life-changing.