The week started off roughly with several buses breaking down and arriving late so our opening campfire for Day 1 was delayed until Day 2. Nonetheless the counselors and specialists were extremely excited to finally meet our kids, to finally apply our 100 hours of training to real life. The first day was pretty chill. Nothing went according to plan but we were all really flexible. Specialists all slept in the same cabin (warm fuzzies right there) as we wait for day 2 to begin.
The next day we had Adopt-a-specialist program to find which unit we get adopted into. I had the pleasure of being adopted into Unit 7 with Money and Spirt along with Jerms. The day's rotations ran pretty smoothly. Co & I switched off in teaching the kids One Direction-What makes you beautiful and Thug Le (Indian cultural piece) We had our opening campfire that night.
Day 3 was our hump day. We had to teach the kids a different piece since they already learn the first two pieces so we decided to teach them Thriller. Unfortunately, we were dancing at the campfire and the bugs were swarming everywhere and our speakers weren't working and the dance was just too well, Michael Jackson style. The kids weren't digging it and we lost our patience. Or rather I did. The last rotation is always the hardest. We had to teach 3 units Bieber's Boyfriend which was too difficult and technical for them. I think the boys enjoyed it more than the girls and again I lost my patience. My unit wasn't too in sync with each other either.
Day 4 was fairly good. We abandon all efforts to teach them Thriller and Boyfriend. Instead we taught them Stronger and Glad you came. Fairly easy pieces and we even go a free rotation. Once we learn to be flexible, programming became a lot easier :) Was this fourth of July? RIBS FOR DINNER, SO GOOD. Unit night that night and it didn't go as planned. We ended up missing the Fourth of July Star Viewing thing because the girls took a while to reach for their dreams. The activity backfired--the girls grew more distant instead of coming together...
Day 5 was pretty good day. Our night hike was pretty successful and I felt that the debrief was appropriate and made up for our fail Unit Night. Received our happy notes during campfire and I bawled my eyes out like a child. Thank you for those who took your time to write me these happy letters. I feel so spesh ^_^
Day 6... man camp is passing by like a dream :) SPECIALIST SWIM! TALENT SHOW! Specialists rewrote lyrics to Hey There Delilah and it was super cute! Co and I were have commentaries to each performance from the kids. We remembered which kids gave us a hard time and which ones listen. LOL And two of my girls did improv with Bones and actually beat him! Proud aunt moment :')
Day 7: Ending campfire and the last of our rotations. The rotations for the rest of the week went by smoothly. Co and I did our best not to lose our patience because kids will just be kids. They do fine in praise but poorly in anger. Our all camper programs went by smoothly as well. I think by now we all gave up trying and getting all the kids to participate and all the kids were tired of fighting back so everyone just went with the flow. Face painted for the first time, LOL. Specialists got together 10 minutes before closing campfire and came up with our YOWA skit (You're only woodsey always) and made fun of all the campers and their weird habits. LOL Good night :)
Day 8: Hooray, last day! It was great that all the campers started tearing up. Glad to see that they will miss camp despite all the crap they gave us. So happy to see them go (thank god, LOL) We started cussing and singing inappropriate songs, felt so good! ^_^ Closing chapel was pretty fun :) and then Post session festivities were another story ;)
Thank you Unicamp for giving me an opportunity to inspire someone's life. To motivate them to pursue higher education, to have them think about their future at such an early age. I know in areas of extreme poverty we all wonder where our next meal will come from or how we'll make it thru to the next day. I'm glad I was able to touch the kids' hearts. For each person that I was able to inspire, they are worth every minute of camp that I had to endure, and worth every single training hour I had to go thru and every sacrifice that I had to make in order to be a specialist. Worth every test that I bombed because I had meetings to go to, worth all the shit I gave up during spring quarter. And because of this, I know why everyone keeps coming back. Once Woodsey, always Woodsey.
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