My First Camp Experience

Last week, I fell in love... 

... with 42 kids :)

I agreed to help staff a camp a couple months back, and after a couple of months of planning, it finally happened. 

It started Wednesday. It was really scary at first since I was in charge of riding the bus with the kids going there. Since I was new I didn't know any kid at all, unlike some of my co-staffers. so i hardly spoke to them during the bus ride. There are 42 kids total. All of them aged 12-14 except one who's still 11.

From the fort pick up point, we collected some more kids along SLEX before heading to the site in Talisay, Batangas. So it was much better when we arrived at site then my co-staffers were there. Some of the kids are repeaters so some of my co-staffers knew them.

We had some getting to know you games with the kids for the first day. Something like the "appointment game" where we each talk to someone to get to know them. We also introduced to them the idea of planning groups, wherein they're divided into groups to prepare an activity for everyone else. But we had a theme for the whole camp: Sustainable development. So they had sub-topics for them to tackle. But the activities they think of are running games or what. They came up with activities such as amazing race or patintero, etc. The whole camp name is "Camp Dream" since we're pointing out their dreams won't come true unless they practice sustainable development.

For meal time we each designed a placemat, so for every meal time we rotated the placemats, so you get to sit with different people. i got to know them then. There were a loooot of povedans. So at least I was able to connect with them a bit. But when they asked me when I graduated, I realized I graduated from HS they weren't born yet! Hahaha. But they're surprised I know about Justin Bieber (as in trivia) and One Direction. Haha. So it kind of helped that I have this tendency to absorb pop culture trivia (but not the more important facts)

I had my favorite kids though. I couldn't help it. I'm still waiting for the friendship bracelet one of them's making me :)

Then every night there's half an hour of lullabies. We have a co-staffer who plays the guitar and is part of some band. So he leads the songs. It's amazing. The songs are old. As in beatles -- songs like Imagine, Let It Be, Yellow Submarine. Then others like Hotel California and Leaving on a Jetplane. But they know it. Amazing.

Then we had this game one night called "Dead Bodies". It's funny. Each of us staffers (6 of us) will play dead. The kids by group will find us dead bodies and bring us somewhere. They were CARRYING us can you believe? Hahaha. So like 5 or 6 kids were carrying me. At least they could :P  But while they carry us they had to take care of us. They will sing us lullabies, fan us, etc. Cute!

We also had a party for them and we had a candle ceremony for the last night. It was quite sad since we got attached to them over the few days. Like on the last lullabies session, one of them was lying on my lap since he was sleep. So maybe I have hope. Maybe I can be a mother after all :P

For almost every night, when the kids are asleep that's only when the staffers can shower. Then after taking a bath, staffers would have adult socials. Drinks, games where the kids won't hear us. We didn't get much sleep. The last night we slept na almost 5am, and i woke up 7am! 

We also had a "monito" --  exchange gift. For your monito you can give surprise gifts like hugs (you can ask others to hug your monito for you), or even songs. Anything you can think of. One dinner time three of the boys got their guitar and sang a One Direction song for me :) I assume it's from the one who picked me. Then one Lullabye, my co-staffer who led the songs said, "the Next lullaby is for Tita". Then winked. Was it from him? Or from my monito?

There was only one downer. During the last day, I saw Miguel doing his bracelet for me, so I approach him. He said "tita, I have a secret. Tito X likes you!"

My heart dropped (not out of happiness) but more of disappointment. The whole camp experience was like a dream. Like everything was going right and everything you wanted it to be. Then I don't know what X told the kids. I was kinda pissed at him na the kids had to know it.

Anyways we brought the kids to the SLEX pick up point, where 10 of the kids were picked up. A couple of my favorites were the first to go and I was so sad :( Then the rest were picked up at Fort . I had drinks with the other staffers after. So at least we kinda prolonged pa the experience.

I'm seeing them all again tomorrow, and I can't wait!