Incarnation Camp!

The summer started with two weeks of staff orientation at my second home, Incarnation Camp in Ivoryton, Connecticut. Along with other staff members from England, Australia, Holland, South Africa, Wales, and Scotland, I spent the first week in lifeguard training, ropes course certification training, cleaning up camp, assembling steel bunk beds, and putting up canvas platform tents. The second week was spent getting to know each other better, and learning the ways of camp. Once our first two weeks were over, the campers arrived! I worked with the twelve and thirteen year old girls in a unit called Winds. We had just over twenty girls in Winds first session, and five of them were in the tent I shared with my co-counselor, Jasmine. First session was full of madness and typical camp fun including swimming, boating, soccer, arts and crafts, music, basketball, high ropes, and a giant fourth of July celebration. On Sundays we did all camp activities like olympics and Harry Potter day. I got the pleasure of planning a canoe trip for Winds and the boy's unit, Frontier. It was a two day trip down the Connecticut River, and surprisingly went off without a hitch! At the end of the session it was so sad to see the girls leave. There were lots of tears and promises to keep in touch and return to camp next summer.

Next came something very unexpected. There is a program for older campers ages 14 and 15 called Pioneer Village (P.V.). It's located across the lake and involves things like cooksite, where you cook breakfast and dinner over a fire, and five day hike, bike, and canoe trips. Normally you have to be twenty-one to work there, but a spot opened up, and it was given to me! I'll be twenty-one next summer

, but I'm still the youngest counselor in P.V. right now. It has been an interesting experience so far since I haven't been to P.V. since I was a camper in 2007 and I have to re-learn everything from a staff point of view. I'm still planning the Winds Frontier canoe trip, but now I have a tent group with six girls and I'm assisting the trip director with hike trips. I've got a few days under my belt so far and I can't wait to see how the rest of the summer goes!