In the meantime I was directed to a cabin where some people were frantically cleaning and decorating. I had arrived in between sessions and these were counselors preparing their cabins for the next set of campers. I helped them decorate, which was hilarious, me being so craftsy and creative and all. I left to go to the bathroom around lunchtime and got caught by a crew of the senior staff. They sat me down and made eat a huge lunch and gave me the 3rd degree about what I was doing in Ukraine, and furthermore what I was doing at their camp. Further negotiations ensued over my job description, but nothing more concrete resulted. I returned to my cabin an hour later than the 10min I predicted, and was met with exhausted eyes and irritation. Of course they knew where I'd been while they continued to slave away at their daunting task. This came to be a running theme for my tenure at camp: every little circle wanted me to join, but I kept getting caught in the middle making more or less everyone mad. It became rather uncomfortable at times, except for the times I could play one clique against another for my own purposes.
The camp was a privatized remnant of a former Soviet children's rest camp. What that means is imagine a typical traditional American kids' summer camp, and that's what this was. For those of you who worked at Kanakuk, you'd feel right at home. The layout of the camp is just what you'd imagine: cabins sprinkled around a lake with a mess hall opening out onto a parade like square with flagpoles, a barn-like auditorium, crafts-rooms, soccer field, basketball court, pool, infirmary, etc. There were 400 kids and a ratio one counselor to 20 kids. You do the math, this was a huge camp, and the staff was overrun. Wakeup was at 8am, breakfast at 9, clean the cabins till 10, activities till lunch at 1pm, nap from 2-4, snack after lunch, usually loaded with sugar, activities till supper at 6, then either a party or disco from 8 till 10:30, snack then bed at 11. There were the typical 'olympic' style competitions with sports and crafts, there were performances almost every-other day, there were excursions to the monastery in the city, etc. So there was the semblance of keeping campers busy, but their days were still filled with loads of downtime. They got downright bored. Each session lasting 3 weeks made it hard to keep kids entertained.
It was decided that I would float throughout the cabins, help the counselors and play games with the kids, singling out the English speaking kids, if I found them, to give them a little tutoring. I worked my way through all 10 cabins, working with an age range from 4 yrs to 17 yrs. It was really brilliant to be so involved in every age at once and to see the changes maturity brings. I thought I would find my favorite age, but I loved them all, which really surprised me. I felt reasonably successfull with all of them. Each day I more or less acted as a counselor, without the responsibility of a counselor, which was great. None of the kids would listen to me since I wasn't their counselor, so all I could do was entertain. I taught them as many games from camps I could remember, played a good bit of soccer, and taught them basketball and frisbee, with a rather failed attempt at playing ultimate. One evening, they set up stations throughout the camp for the kids to rotate through, and I was in charge of a station, which of course was focused on 'American' games. I taught games from ring around the rosie to making the upper cabins do the human knot. I worked with 400 kids in one hour that night.
The crazy part of camp was the parties and performances. Whichever cabin I happened to be embedded in for the day would typically give me some role in their performance for the night. I played characters like a crazy inventor and a bumblebee, depending on the theme of the night. And usually the counselors would choreograph a dance which I would stumble my way through. One night the theme was 'country dance'. So I brought out my best line dancing moves and taught the counselor I was working with the two-step. Somehow, it became my job to choreograph and perform a country dance to Chattahoochee by Alan Jackson. It was a huge hit. Too big actually, cause the director of events asked me to choreograph a similar dance for all the counselors on the last night. We worked our tails off, rehearsing until 2 in the morning the last few nights of camp, but we pulled off a pretty elaborate and amazing performance, capped off by me solo dancing a traditional cossack dance. It was an absolute blast.
I only floated through the cabins for the first two weeks. During that time I did remain consistent with a cabin of middle schoolers by eating all my meals with them. I became a revolutionary when I actually sat with the kids instead of the other counselors. It was so funny to hear the kids begging me each day to sit at their table, and the looks of utter disappointment if I sat at a different table. I was excited to see another counselor follow suit in another cabin. It was breaking down the barrier between counselor and camper that so strongly existed at this camp that brought the most appreciation from the camp director.
After the first two weeks, I moved into a cabin permanently. The kids were aged 8-15 in this one cabin, which was why I chose it; the counselors really needed some help. So I tried my hand at disciplining kids in Russian and entertaing them long after the newness of being an American had worn off. At this point I was worn out. I got a bad cold in the middle of the second week, and despite taking a couple of rest days out by a beautiful river, found myself greatly deprived of rest. The mental stress didn't help either as I was the only American at the camp and could only struggle through English with the couple of counselors who had studied it in school. For the most part my whole day was spent speaking and listening to Russian from 8am to 2am. It was great for the first week because I could feel my Russian improve significantly. But after that I just became fatigued and fended off conversation like a boxer against the ropes avoids blows. But I made it through, got home and slept for two days.
Camp was an incredible experience that I feel really set me up for successfull service for the next 2 years. For one thing, I met loads of awesome people from my town that I will be friends with once they finally get back from camp. I met a potential counterpart at one of my partner organizations. In terms of networking, it was a huge success. For another thing, I gained valuable insight as to how Ukrainians do camp and what they expect. Alot of volunteers get to experience Ukrainian summer camp, but few stay for an entire session, so I feel like I have alot to bring to the table for Peace Corps run camps. And finally, I got to do what I came here for, which was pour into kids. As usual I'm not sure what I accomplished, but I poured every ounce I had into those kids. I tried to love them as much as I could despite the language and cultural barriers. I didn't teach them anything official, but I hope I still taught. I'll never know what I imparted, but time will tell.
Life has been a bit of a blur since camp. I'll try to catch you up on my intrigues since then soon.
Peace
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