My posts will be a little out of chronological order here as I still need to post about the end of last session, but I want to take a lot of time to get that post absolutely right before I publish it. Therefore, I thought I'd jump right into posting about the beginning of Wellness Week!
This session at camp is referred to as Wellness Week. It is basically what it says on the tin. We focus on an active lifestyle, healthy eating and all those other "not me" kind of things! The campers this week are required to have two active/outdoor activities, and only one indoor one. Journalism, Art Expressions and Culinary Arts are all considered "indoor", but I'm more popular this week than last week at least. I have a total of five campers! Yay!
I'm back with second youngest girls, so they're all about 11 years old. There are eight of them this week, so it's a pretty full cabin. We also have two "C.I.T.'s" (Counsellors In Training) with us, who are doing an amazing job. Since there are only ten beds in our cabin, we have a roll-out bed for one CIT, and us two counsellors trade off each night who sleeps in the main bedroom with the kids, and who is in the cabin's staff room.
The girls this week are all very strong minded, so it will take a lot of tact and supervision to stop them imploding on each other. Other than that, they're a sweet, talkative bunch and I'm enjoying working with them.
One of the girls is very afraid of the dark and because of this she didn't sleep very well on the first night. Due to this one of the CIT's and I came up with a plan. She had a necklace from work that when you connect the two sides of the chain together one way it lights up the pendant. She gave it to the little girl last night to help her sleep, since she'd also lost her flashlight.
I then jumped in and told her that "This is a talisman. That means that it's something to protect you. It will keep you safe". We agreed that it would keep her safe even if it wasn't lit up. I also told her "it's full of Camp Magic". This unfortunately left me open to the question - "Can you tell us the story about Camp Magic?". (She also asked if we could tell her the story about "the man, the talis-man". The CIT rose finely to the occasion and told them all a fabulous story about the man who "gave this ancient talisman to the boys and girls of camp").
I agreed that once everyone was in bed, silent with lights out, I would tell the Camp Magic story. That gave me a few minutes to make one up! They all dutifully settled down into bed, with only a little arguing and I told them all about Camp Magic. It was a daft little tale about the woman who founded the camp, and how she chose this plot of land because she could feel the magic flowing through the trees. I told them how Camp Magic keeps all the children safe, and that's why bears and other dangerous animals aren't here - they're kept away by the magic. Each year, with every smile and every laugh, the camp magic grows stronger, and that's what brings us all the way to this camp from as far away as New Zealand and England!
She then asked "was that a true story?". I told her "it was a story with many truths".
Now we just have to hope that she can hold onto her belief in Camp Magic long enough to get through camp-out in the woods tonight!
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