Prior to the school year, one expects to spend a few mandatory sessions in meetings, training, breakout groups, and working in the classroom. Summer camp is not so different; life revolves around a bell and meals. It’s eerie.
We started the week getting to know one another, playing initiative games, and readying our areas and cabins. There have been numerous meetings about how to deal with campers in numerous situations, canoe properly, and even shoot bows.
The major difference: time. Every day is non-stop from 8 am to sometime around 9-10 pm. Today, for instance, after arriving back at camp after an overnight, rainy canoe trip at 7:45, I went to pick up a van’s worth of animals. (Snakes, turtles, mice, rats, lizards–everything to have a mini petting zoo inside my building.) After setting them up, and scavenging a lunch after missing a meal, three and a half hours of high ropes training. (Lives are in my hands!) Next up was a meeting about being a mandated reporter, and some more time to work in our areas. This was interrupted by a mock lost camper search, which for me entails a mile run through trails. Shortly after was dinner, and sign painting. Somehow that brought us to 11 pm. Staff training week is teacher inservice on steroids.
Though, as I write this, I’m sitting in a cabin overlooking Walloon Lake, and loving every bit of life.
