Day 9

It's been more than a week now, but it definitley feels like longer. Thinking back to the elementary school carnival last Friday feels like ages ago but it's actually just a week.

Anyway, the last few days have been cool. Wednesday was like a mock camp day, so we met at this shopping place where the Willoway buses were waiting, and we split between two coaches and headed off for camp, being told about the bus journeys and singing a few of the camp songs on the way. During the day we had two swimming sessions, just like on the real camp days. The first was for Instructional Swim, and it was illustrated by us actually doing it. There are two pools; one main one that gets as deep as 10ft, and one small one that only goes to about 4ft. During the Instructional Swim we had firstly a bit in the small pool where we played basic games and got shown a basic way of teaching front crawl and floating, and then we switched over to the main pool where things like push and glides and laps were covered.

We also did a load of other camp-like activities like Kickball and Ga Ga Ga (a ball game that takes place inside a cage-type-thing, very much like dodgeball), and got shown round the animal bit and the nature trail etc. On the return bus journey Darren (Leanne's older brother; it's something like his seventh summer at Willoway) started this Euro 2008 sweepstake. I drew Sweden, so let's not hold our breath there...

International staff are all contracted to babysit for their host families on Wednesday nights. Brooke and Bradley were fine on the whole until it was time for a shower, that was when they started to get a bit difficult. But they got in anyway, not too difficult. The real challenge came when it was time for them to go to bed. They had to be in bed by 8:30 latest but I thought I'd shoot for 8:15 cos that was when they've been going to bed normally. I asked them to brush their teeth just after 8:00, and after a sudden rush of shouting, screaming, laughing, running around, and being hyper, they eventually settled in to bed just before 8:30. Mission!

Yesterday [Thursday] was a late starter so I phoned home at about 1:00; about 6:00 over there. Max, who's been driving me, James and Dean all week, was a bit late coming to get us so we didn't arrive at camp until about 2:10, when we were supposed to be there for 2. We hadn't missed any of Lorraine's talk though so we were alright! Alot of yesterday was being spoken to by the senior staff, but we did make little "buddy" things by having paper cutouts of a body shape and then sticking an actual photograph of our heads on top of it. Mine was, as with any arts and crafts project I do, a disaster! In a break between the talk-a-thon I saw that Luke - who's from Birmingham - was wearing an Aston Villa shirt. My impression of him as a decent guy was confirmed!

We got told about 7 different types of camper and were put into 7 groups in which to come up with ways to deal with that type of camper and come up with a small skit to show the others. My group was a mixture of people I already knew quite well and others I didn't so much. The skits were obviously all just a mess and a laugh, and I read out our "ways to deal with that type of camper" points, which was actually quite daunting but alright.

After that we were given a sheet of questions called Boundary Breakers which had no relevance to camp itself but were intended as a means to get to know eachother better. We were in the same groups as in the previous exercise, about 10 of us, and we had a really good group because it was a mixture of people I'd already become friends with and people I didn't really know that well, and those in between. The questions on the sheet included stuff like "What is the ugliest thing you know?", "What is the greatest crime one man can do toward another?", "What do you want to be doing 10 years from now?", "If the atomic bomb was going to fall in ten minutes, what would you do for those ten minutes?", "What do you think people like in you the most/least?".... and so on. Then at the end we had questions like "Which person did you learn the most about?", "Which person did you think was the most honest?", "Which person do you think you could get along with the best over a long period of time?" and so on. A few people in the group actually answered me for a "most honest" and "learn the most about" which I found surprising, but then I think the fact that there were people I already knew quite well in the group made me a bit more honest, whereas without them I may have been more guarded or reserved. But it was a very insightful and very interesting task, also quite funny at times.

After that we ate a barbeque dinner and had a couple more activities, including this big Overnight Activity thing which was us being split into teams and having to go around the camp doing various games and stuff for points. Then we had this campfire session with more camp songs and this American tradition snack thing called Smores, which is when you roast a marshmellow over the fire, then make a sandwhich using these wafer things and put some Hershey's in there too. Not that nice! By this time it was about 9/10pm so we were just left to our own devices for the night with the option of going in the pool quickly. I was in and out fairly pronto as it was freezing! Me, Leanne, Holly, Rob and Fionna [all British... in fact Fiona comes from Kirkudbright, a small Scottish town that as chance would have it we actually went to on holiday a few years ago!] played Rummy, then a few of us played table tennis on the random ping pong tables.

Everyone slept in the gym, which apparently is built to "resist winds of cyclonic proportions", and obviously we were talking for quite a few hours. I was with this American guy Jacob, Leanne, Amy, Fiona, and Aaron. Aaron is English and is one of the most confident people at camp in terms of getting to know people and mucking about and so on. He seems cool. We all drifted off at what I can assume was like 3-4am, although Aaron and Leanne were still chatting for quite a while after that and I woke up every now and again and could still hear them! There was this huge storm overnight though, and the sound of the rain on the roof was really loud.

At about 8am Greg [an English senior member of staff who I think is in his late 20s] came in and sounded the siren to wake us up. The door he came in from was right by me so it was reeeaally loud! We went in to the main building and had breakfast, and then Lorraine wrapped up Orientation with some final notes and instructions. We came away at about noon, and me, James, Dean and Max stopped off at this shop called 7-Eleven, which seems similar to Spar or Costcutter, and had a Slurpee, which I think is like a Squishee in The Simpsons... it's a bit like a Slush Puppy only it's less slushy and a hellllll of a lot more sugary. It's not the tastiest drink ever but if you're after a cheap sugar high then there you go.

I came home and went straight in the shower, then went upstairs and Aimee's mum [for ease of reference I'll refer to her as Nora, for those who watch Brothers and Sisters], whose house we went to on Sunday and gave me the cheesecake, was round. She is the Nora figure of the family but she actually could be Gloria Hunniford's lookalike. We do occasionally compare my own grandma to Gloria Hunniford but this lady seriously, scarily resembles her! I've unpacked all my stuff from last night and that about brings us up to speed. It's 4pm now and I'm reaaaally tired!! The kids start camp on Monday so that should be interesting, and tomorrow is Brooke's 9th birthday party. I'll let you know how it goes...