Halfway thru camp

We're now over halfway through camp with the kids and have about 3 and a half weeks to go before moving on. The weather has turned beautiful and summer is well and truely here. The temperatures have hit about 35 to 37 degrees a couple of times in the last week and my tan is looking pretty good. Luckily we have two sessions a day in the water. Today is swap-over day where some kids who were here for only the first half of camp left. I had two in my bunk leave so I only have 4 campers in my bunk with 2 counselors and we are the smallest bunk on camp. There is lots of room at the dining room table now. It was a little sad to see the 2 kids leave cos they were really good kids and they had a lot of fun.



A typical day at Chipinaw
At 7:30 we are woken up by music (usually Billy Joel) blaring from the PA system around camp. We then have 15 minutes to get up to the flagpole where they make announcements for the day and they raise the flag. If it rains we just go straight to the dining hall. Breakfast is at 8:00 but the food doesn't usually come out for 10 to 15 mins. It's then back to the bunks for cleanup, which is usually badly needed, before first activity starts at 9:15. Everyday we have 2 water activities, one at the pool involving swim instruction and one at the lake which is usually mucking around on the inflatable trampoline called a blob or kayaking or just swimming. The periods are mixed every day but one is before lunch and the other after.



There are 6 activities a day that are 55 minutes long with a 10 minute changeover period in between. 2 activities are sports such as soccer, basketball or tennis and the other 2 activities the kids choose for themselves from a list of activities for that day. These activites are called electives and there are about 40 or 50 of them ranging from building model rockets to horse riding. I won't list all the activities but they can be seen at www.chipinaw.com. As a general counselor I take all the kids of the same age group around the activities and get to participate with them. There are 40 boys in the Junior division (12 years old) which I go around with each day. There are 5 other counselors that are in the division too. During the day I get one period off and I get one day off a week which is usually a Thursday.

After the day's activites we have shower hour which is actually only 50 mins before dinner lineup at the flagpole. There we have further announcements and a lowering of the flag (the US flag). After dinner is a freeplay period until about 7:30 when we get ready for night activity. The night activities are wide and varied from basketball shootout comps to pudding wrestling and singing competitions to Simon Sez nights. After night activity the kids have "Canteen" which is where they go and have an ice cream, chocolates, chips or lollies and a fizzy drink before they head off to bed. Why they have it then I have no idea. I have four nights a week off which starts at 9:30 and curfew is 12:30 so including taxi waiting and travelling times we usually only have 2 hours at the pub. If we are working at camp we have to put the kids to bed, which is usually a struggle, and then sit on the porch until 12:30 before we are allowed to go to bed so sleep is a commodity at camp and free periods come in handy for that.

That is pretty much the daily routine at camp and with only 3 and a bit weeks to go it will be weird going out into the real world again.