“The BEST experience of my LIFE!” is often shouted loudly in your direction when you ask how their camp counsellor experience in America was. More often than not, it’s followed with tales of hilarity, inside jokes with campers and counsellors not present, and is bound to finish with a “I wish I was there now” or an “I miss it SO much”, with little consideration for the human that asked the question, and who time is currently being spent with. It’s a one sided conversation that ends in double-sided misery.
Camp America is a popular experience for teenagers and young adults (18+!) to do during an American summer. Living in America and experiencing the various traditions, cultures, food and people is almost a growth right for young Kiwi’s, and it seemingly splits the young population down the middle, those who have been and those haven’t. The camp t-shirts, many transformed with tie-dye, are a giveaway, as are watch tans, hair braids and a longing look in the eye that can only be daytime dreaming about returning next summer.
Late night skinny dipping, off-day craziness, food fights, secret hook-ups and free green cards, camp is not. It’s not where you find your long-lost twin that your parents failed to mention, it’s not a summer long party designed for counsellors to unleash and unwind. It is not ‘Wet, Hot American Summer’.
The one reason I would warn you not to become a counsellor at a camp in America, and one I urge you to consider with great thought before applying, is that you HAVE to leave. And leaving is the worst part. Those friends you just lived with and almost on top of (but not like that) for 9 weeks are not hopping in your suitcase and coming home with you. They are going to be on the other side of the world. The friendships you make at camp are almost tailor-made. You are hand picked for camp and for this reason the other individuals you meet at camp are bound to be awesome people that will contribute to the summer of your life. Camp directors want individuals that they think will have a positive impact on the campers and match the style of camp they have, for this reason the counsellors you meet are literally designed to get along with you. It is like a strange form of safe internet dating done by someone else for you. Counsellors are often selected from around the world and the connections you make are instant. You are in a foreign place with foreign people and foreign food (”what are s’mores?!”) and this displacement and unique experience only lends itself to stronger, deeper bonds. The necessity to be a united front for hundreds of children has a way of creating understanding (much like marriage, supposedly), not to mention the fact that everyone volunteered their summer (or winter, depending on their hemisphere) to spend at camp. Joint desires go a long way in building friendships, not to mention physical isolation from the outside world.
You’ll miss, intensely, the other counsellors you “work” with. You’ll feel a gaping hole of absence at bed time when you don’t have a multitude of children hanging off you and jumping on your bed in attempt to avoid sleeping. You will miss the constant hugs, smiles and the fact that no matter where you go, when you see someone, you will know their name. You will miss the traditions that form a routine and which in tiny parts will contribute to your wider understanding of life in America. You will miss the people. Every single one. It is a certain type of person who signs themselves up for a whole summer with children in a secluded location and it becomes impossible to imagine life without these individuals in your life. They may be far away, in another country and with different priorities and responsibilities on “the outside”, but you will always share camp. It is not only a life-changing experience, but it changes you as an individual in other ways, giving you a wider understanding of others and the delight of life that children can impart. Yes it is about responsibility and independence and teaching what you’ve been assigned to, but it’s also being a role model, a mentor, appreciating the unique outlook that children have on life.
9 weeks of your life seems like a small fragment of your time, and while at camp it flies by; mixed in with daily activities, numerous sports, arts and crafts, performances, music nights, camp fires and cabin nights. What you don’t realise as it happens, are all the little lessons, the daily moments that make the deeper memories. We talk about camp incessantly, unfailingly, con-stant-ly, because those 9 weeks had a bigger impact on us than we can easily move on from. It’s like it was a summer of adrenaline and it’s still coursing through our body. It’s not a Contiki tour or a sail Croatia, it’s not an OE in London or a semester abroad; it’s a summer of unbelievable friendships built on a shared 24/7, laced with gathered memories and inspiration. It’s where people go in as one person, and come out another; a fabric of invisible, sacred network beneath.
No comments:
Post a Comment