This summer, while my friends were traveling to lavish places across the world, working at their prestigious internships, or just having a blast at the beach, I was tying shoes and confiscating candy from the tight grips of 10-year-olds. This summer, I worked for eight straight weeks at my home away from home. I’ve been going to my camp for the past nine summers and now an annual routine for me. Although this summer was filled with many challenges I wouldn’t trade the memories or experiences for anything.
Just to preface, my camp was not a traditional camp, it was a circus camp. It’s the only overnight camp in the country that is completely focused on the circus. Of course the kids get tired so we sprinkle in non-circus activities like capture the flag or tye dye, but the majority of their day is being coached by professional circus artists.
1. How to do everything at once without exploding.
My favorite week by far this summer was the week one of my campers knocked herself out by hitting her head on her own bed, three of my campers were crawling with lice, one of my campers had diabetes and I spent my nights watching her malfunctioning monitor. On top of this, two people had just been fired so we were extremely understaffed, which meant my precious two hours “off” a day were spent with kids. It was definitely exhausting but it made me appreciate the calmer weeks a lot more. It also made me step back and realize the impact I was having on these kids that I remember all the things I appreciated my counselors doing when I was a camper.
2. How to live off of camp food for eight weeks.
My favorite way to not eat the food without kids noticing was putting cereal in a mug and drinking it. For some reason they didn’t question that I was chewing my “coffee”. My coworkers were also all in the same boat, so we would take weekly trips to our favorite local restaurants in our free time.
3. How to live in the middle of nowhere.
This was definitely an important step to learn before coming to college in rural Ohio, but there were times when I had realized I hadn’t seen anyone but my smiling little campers faces and my coworkers. I learned that it was important to separate myself more often to keep myself sane when the number of people I was seeing was so limited. Also befriending all the local dogs, Vermont is fortunately full of them.
4. How to improvise.
There were many times in any given day that things wouldn’t work out the way they were supposed to. If I learned anything this summer, it was how to be spontaneous and react quickly to absurd situations. Every week we take turns offering unique activities and the kids get to choose which activity they want to go to. My friend and I decided to offer “water trivia” which basically ended up being us spraying 15 fully-clothed kids in water if they answered a question right, wrong, or not at all. A few of them liked it, but a majority were not big fans. As one could probably predict, it’s hard to keep kids entertained for an hour by just spraying them with water, so we had to quickly think of more water-related games for the kids to play.
5. How to use authority over kids only a few years younger than me.
Being the youngest counselor there meant being in charge of teenagers who didn’t want to listen to someone so close in age to them. After a month of having mostly the younger girls I asked my supervisor if I could have some of the older girls, because I was getting sick of strictly talking about Taylor Swift for days on end (don’t get me wrong she’s incredible). It was challenging getting them showered, teeth brushed, pajamas on, in bed on time while all they wanted to do was tell me about their endless crushes on the 15 boys there. It was important for me to quickly draw the line between friend and authority figure, because as much as I want to gossip with them for hours on end, there were lines that couldn’t be crossed and times when they needed to listen to me and fast, for their well-being and safety. A favorite moment of mine this summer was when they were playing “paranoia” and when I told them to stop because it wasn’t appropriate they told me I was too old to know what that was, and that it was all appropriate. Smh.
Overall, I thank my camp for turning me into the person I am today. From the second I stepped on that campus as a bright-eyed nine-year old I was taught acceptance, tolerance, and perseverance. It is the only place on this earth I have seen kids truly have a chance to be themselves and explore with no boundaries. I’ve been lucky enough to get to pass this onto my own campers for the past few years and it’s been incredible to see kids so passionate about what they love.
Image Credit: Writer’s Own
Image Credit: Writer’s Own
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