Orientation Week & Opening Day

I have been at Camp Sebago for a week now, and it has been great so far. Orientation lasted until Tuesday and it was a really good few days to get to know the other staff and learn about camp life etc. It was a really busy couple of days, we had a lot of talks and bonding exercises to do. After a lot of rain at the start of the week the weather brightened up and it got really warm. All the staff had to take a swim test in the lake which was freezing!! The swim test wasn't hard, just swimming two lengths and treading water for a minute but the water was so cold that it knocked the wind out of everyone. Though the lake is much more bearable when it is really hot out, the waterfront was opened up to the staff on our last day of orientation for the afternoon and we went swimming then and it was a lot more enjoyable! The lake is beautiful, the shore is covered in pebbles and fir trees are all around it. The lake gets really deep quite quickly and there's a floating dock further out that you can jump off and there are paddle boats, kayaks, a pontoon boat and there's a speed boat that can be used for tubing. In the evenings we had an evening program organised for about an hour and a half which was basically just icebreaker bonding exercises; one night we played team games and another night all the units had to do skits like I mentioned briefly in my last entry, which was fun. My unit is called the Younger Girls unit because we are the counselors for the younger girls aged 7-9 which come to camp. I love my unit! The girls are great and we get on really well. One night we all left camp and drove 20mins to the nearest Walmart so we could get white tshirts for tie-dying in arts & crafts. Camp is in the middle of nowhere so you have to drive quite a while to go anywhere, but we make the car journeys fun blasting music and singing along. For most of the evenings during orientation everyone just hung out talking either at the basketball court or in the Rec Hall where we got some games of round robin using the table tennis table, pool and foosball going. On our last night of Orientation we had a big cookout where we ate on the picnic tables outside by the pavilion instead of in the dining hall which was really nice and we got to make smores which are so good. We also had this thing called vespers which is like a staff worship service where we sing some worship songs and people can get up and share something if they want, like talk about their expectations for the summer etc. It was good because it got everyone focused on the fact that we are here to do a good job for the kids primarily. We also have a day each week called Lord's Day which is basically the equivalent of Sunday only it falls sometime during the week because camp sessions start halfway through the week so Sunday isn't necessarily at the end of each week. Lord's Day is really fun; everyone dresses up a bit more nicely in dresses and shirts and we have a short service where Captain Brett (the camp director) gives a short talk, and there's songs etc, it's a bit like church only shorter and more informal. Then after that everyone goes back to their cabins and gets changed and heads back out onto the main field to play sideline soccer. Sideline soccer is a lot of fun; what happens is everyone lines up on either side of the field, so the younger girls and older boys units on one side and the older girls and younger boys units on the other side and music is blasting and everyone dances and then when someone yells out for example "Everyone wearing red!" then everyone wearing red has to run into the middle of the field and play until a team scores. It's a tradition so we'll play it every Lord's Day when the campers are here.
I also found out that session 3 is a music camp so the campers that week will all be a bit older and they will just do music activities, so they sign up for whatever class they want during the daytime, like guitar or timbrols, and then they also sign up for a chorus (choir). I found out that I am assisting with the worship team that week which means I'll just have to help lead the kids with the songs, and then I am also assisting with one of the choruses which I'm really looking forward to because I love choir, I am also down to accompany the choir as well but I don't think my piano skills are really that good but apparently I'll just have to bash out a few notes along to a backing CD so it should be ok.
Another thing I found out is that each week our unit will go up into the woods and camp out in tents. I am not looking forward to this, my unit leader Sam tells me it'll be fun and we sit around a camp fire with our campers and sing and make smores etc but the idea of sleeping in a tent with so many bugs around creeps me out. Dom, who is English and has been a counselor before told me that he complains for two days before he has to camp out each week and complains for two days after...so I'm not expecting great things. Hopefully it won't be as bad as I anticipate.
Yesterday the campers arrived for the first session! It was really nerve-wracking because there is so much stuff that the counselors have to do and know, but me and my co-counselor DJ got a really good cabin, with 8 girls who are all 9 years old and they have been really well-behaved so far. Their names are Quincey, Nytasha, Krystina, Cheyenne, Destiny, Shelby and there are two Emilys. Very American names! They are so cute though, and as I helped them move into the cabin Krystina launched at me and gave me a huge hug and said she's so happy I'm here. Me and DJ played some team games with them until it was time for lunch. Meals are crazy now that the campers are here, we have to line up with them and collect our trays of food, go back to the table, and make sure they eat and drink all their milk and water. At dinner last night our girls really wanted Blue Juice which is full of sugar so we said they could only have it if they all drank their milk cartons and the two pitchers of water...I have never seen anyone drink so quickly. Quincey was downing glasses like there was no tomorrow, not so sure we should go with bribe again! Then we have to clear and stack all the trays and collect the rubbish and the kids start firing the trays at you all at once so it's a bit chaotic but we'll get used to it. After lunch yesterday then the kids went on rotations. Rotations means that they had 4 different activities to do that afternoon, starting with swim tests, then playground, then arts & crafts and then athletics. DJ and I are able to take time off during these so she took the kids to swim tests and playground and I was meant to be on arts & crafts and athletics after my break. Unfortunately, I have been suffering from some horrific mosquitoe bites the past few days, I have literally been eaten alive. I've never been so badly bitten before which is weird seeing as I spent a lot of time in Florida growing up, and these bites aren't even small they are huge. They were so bad yesterday that my ankles were completely swollen up and it was painful to walk, so I went to the infirmary on my break and Dr. Bill made me rest and put enormous ice packs around my ankles, and gave me medicine. I was so gutted though that when it came to 3pm which was when I was meant to go take the kids to arts & crafts he decided that I shouldn't go because the swelling hadn't gone down very much so Sam had to cover for me, which was so good of her. So I was stuck in the infirmary all afternoon whilst it was really good weather outside and I was missing out on getting to know my campers. Sean came and visited me though which was good so I had someone to chat with for a while but then the medicine I was given must have made me really drowsy because I totally passed out and jumped in total fright when I heard my name being said and I opened my eyes and saw Becky, Dr. Bill's wife standing over me. We both jumped in fright, it was hilarious. When I was allowed to go back to my cabin my campers gave me this huge get well soon card that they had made me in arts & crafts, saying "We love you Sarah" inside and they had all written little messages, it was so so cute. After dinner then we wentup to the outdoor theatre thing where there's a stage and a lot of benches and all the units had to do a skit to introduce themselves to the campers. The skits this time got messy, there was a lot of water being thrown and shaving foam everywhere, but they were funny and the kids loved them. Then some of the program staff dressed up all in black and rode up to the theatre in one of the maintenance carts and started pie mafia. Pie mafia is where the program staff mafia pick out counselors in the stands and bring them onto the stage and throw a whipped cream pie in their face. Thankfully I was not picked last night! Though my campers were screaming "Pick Sarah!!!" and pointing at me the whole time!
After that then we took the campers back and got them ready for bed with lights out at 9:15pm. Each night DJ and I have to do a devotion for them like tell them a Bible story or something and encourage prayer and sing for them so they go to sleep. Once they are all quiet for 20 minutes then we can leave and go on our free time although last night I was down to do Angel Watch with Jaime and Leann which meant we had to sit out in the field in front of the girls cabins and make sure everything's quiet until our curfew. All the girl counselors rotate on this though so I won't have to do it again until next session.
Then so far today it has been wake up at 6:30am so me and DJ can get showered before the kids and then get them ready before breakfast at 7:55am. I didn't sleep well at all last night - first of, three of our campers were snoring - I hate snoring - and then I kept hearing them coughing and getting up and going to the bathroom during the night. Hopefully I'll be tired enough tonight that I'll just pass out. Now opening day is over we are onto our normal schedule so we have breakfast then JAM session which stands for Jesus & Me which is where the two younger units get together and sing songs and see a drama and learn a memory verse, then it's cabin clean up where all the campers have a chore to do to tidy the cabin and then it's onto rotations. I got this morning off so DJ is on rotations with our campers at the minute and then this afternoon she will get time off while I go down to help out at the waterfront during camper choice time, where the campers get to choose whatever activity they want to do. Then after that we have clubs in the late afternoon. Clubs are run by the counselors for the campers and they can be anything, eg. dance club, swim club, but me and Jaime are taking Team Games club so hopefully some kids want to join it!
Anyway, that's all for now, I've given a pretty big update on what's been going on, and now we're just on the daily schedule until the end of this session, then we get a day and a half off after the 4th of July so the counselors will go and do something fun then; I think a group of us are going to go down to Boston on one of our breaks which I'm excited for!