My Time At Camp Top of the Pines

Published by Johnny on January 09, 2010

So I had my bunk, I had my kids, I had my co-counsellor assigned and we were off. Camp life is very structured:

get up at 7 am

get the kids showered and dressed (harder than u think to coordinate 8 rowdy kids at 7am!)

brekky at 8 then a FULL day of activities altho where previously at the last camp that would entail horse-back riding and rock-climbing now I was spending time trying to fashion a fishing rod out of some string and a broken branch, or convincing the kids that it’s normal to play baseball at camp with an iron bar and a tennis ball!

Lunch and dinner squeezed in along the way

8pm – try to get another counsellor to cover your evening shift so you can hitch a ride into the ‘town’ (by town i mean population 50, of which they all share the same surname and most have missing/extra fingers and toes) so you can get a bit loose at the local crack bar and smash too many beers – so much fun!

Evening booze at the local crack bar

7am next morning, wake up feeling a little dusty and start again! *queue accumulative fatigue and confusion at how you stole an alcohol sign and brought it back to your cabin :S*

Coors Light Goin For A New Market Share

You meet life longs friends when you work at camp – I cant stress that enough. Fair enough, 10 weeks is 10 weeks so its understandable to think that you can’t get that close but you are with these ppl from 7 am to 2 am EVERY day in a really stressful situation so (sorry for my americanism here) you really form a tight bond. Every year people have reunions all over the world and recently I met up with some of the peeps in Sydney, Australia!

So during camp, we organise loads of campwide activities like colour war, olympics and whatnot. The camp gets divided into 3 or 4 big groups and we compete over a couple of days – the kids absolutely love it! For the Olympics that year the team took a slightly different spin and became the greatest country in the world:

Our Hand Painted flag!!

Tyrel Turning His Back On USA

A.J and Shakim

Needless to say Northern Ireland were victorious Camp went on, the food was good, friendships were formed, the kids fought and made up countless times and we all were having the time of our lives. I’ve probably never been more tired in my life though but everytime one of the kids comes to you and says “I dont wanna leave camp johnny” or ” promise you’ll come back next year johnny” you never wanna leave! Here are a few of the pics which sum up the camp experience:

Kt Took A Liking To My Sunglasses!

Jehsiah and Me at Carnival

The Kids Not Listening to My Smile For the Camera Plea

It’s hard to tell you how quick those 8 or 9 weeks go! To think I didn’t even wanna stay when I first came here. I learned a lot, not least to not judge a book by its cover and I met people I would never have had the opportunity to meet otherwise and even got offered a full time job in New York City to deal with underprivileged kids for the year – these are the sort of opportunities that getting out and about can bring you! I wanna really stress this – if you fancy doing camp, get on campamerica.co.uk, and get the application – you won’t regret it!!.

There were ups and down and a million stories that I shouldn’t repeat on here (like one of the 21 year old counsellors getting the 42 year old nurse pregnant!!)

One word of warning to any wannabe counsellors out there – the kids have the summer of their lives, as will you. Leaving camp is soooo difficult and there won’t be a dry eye in the camp when time for leaving finally comes. There is, however, a huge consolation when you do leave. You and your new found friends get paid (not loads but in and around $1000), you have 2 months left on your visa, you have a flexi flight home so you can stay until you run out of cash and America is full of cool places to go! That will be my next installment – Vegas Baby!!

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