Let me first start out with the list of animals I've seen so far. Wild Turkeys, Turtles (the first time i've ever seen a wild turtle), Racoons, an Armadillo, a lifetime supply of cockroaches, more Mosquitoes than i can count (I've been eaten alive by those buggers), numerous spiders, ants of all sizes, deer and staff dogs and my campsite has a resident cat who apparently likes to bite fingers (so far she's only licked mine).
Well this week was certainly full of new experiences and intense moments. Friday night while we were getting the kids into bed Ch. Jessie (my co-chief) was at tent 1 and they heard this shuffling sound and thought it was the cat except the cat was over in tent 2 with me and the other girls. After we tucked the kids into bed (we tuck in their bug nets so they don't get eaten by mosquitoes at night or attacked by spiders or cockroaches) Chief and I went to investigate, we found a pretty big raccoon hanging out in a palm tree, we guess that he had been fighting another one and ran it off. So then we are sitting waiting for nightwatch and of our girls says she hears something scratching or shuffling near her tent so Chief goes to investigate and it turns out it's an armadillo so she throws a stick at it to scare it off. After that's taken care of we are sitting waiting for nightwatch again and we hear this noise that sounds like palm fronds rubbing together, we walk over and see the same raccoon from before desperately trying to hold on to the palm tree it's sliding down. Which normally wouldn't be a big concern for us but if it would have fallen it would have fallen onto tent 1, causing a lot of hysterical girls. So we're standing watching it almost as if we are poised and ready to catch it but at the same time neither one of us is dumb enough to touch because it could have rabies we just felt like we needed to do something. Thankfully it got down with out falling and we were able to chase it away. Then nightwatch showed up so we got to go to bed.
So Monday was my first official full day in the woods. The morning started out well we did tent work. When a tent starts getting old and worn out they break it down and rebuild. Every group at camp took turns working on the different aspects and the whole thing was done by Friday. Which is awesome! Now we will only have 3 girls per tent instead of 5 and 4. This will cause less conflict in tent area. Case in point that night a conflict came up over the placing of a lantern. This small conflict escalated into a full blown problem because everyone was exhausted from working hard all morning. The other chief in group that night tried to move the group to the road and when one girl refused to move she called in the MCs (Master Counselors) to help calm the group down and resolve the problems that arose. (We move conflicts that have escalated to the point that this one did to the road to bring the conflict away from the living area. It's a way to show that camp is a safe place and we don't want the kids associating conflict with their living area because they may have encountered conflict in their homes.) After awhile with the MCs there we were able to move to the road and then after another bit of time we had to separate the group because one kid had reached her breaking point earlier in the conflict and wouldn't stop yelling or talking over everyone and refused to let herself be calmed down and a few others were feeding off of her making it so we couldn't get anyone to talk about what was going on. After we moved the group again we were able to after awhile get the kids to talk about what had happened and what was happening. We got the kids back into bed around 1:30 am.
To put that into some time perspective on a normal night the girls are in bed between 8:30 and 8:45. That night because it was one girls howling out (she was graduating the next day) the kid were in bed between 9:45 and 10. Then because of a huddle being called and the escalation that followed the kids went to sleep at 1:30. I think I went to sleep around 2. And we were still up at the same time the next morning. The kids get woken up at 7 to do chores before breakfast at 8:30.
Tuesday my kids thought I had quit because I missed lunch. Then that night at pow wow one of them complimented me on sticking with them after what had happened the night before. Apparently this group has scared off a couple of perspective chiefs because of long intense huddles.
Wednesday was a lot of meeting. We had our staff meeting and then our GTC meeting, so I spent most of the day in meeting and not with the kids. It was a nice break then when Ch. Jessie and I got back down trail the kids were sitting in a huddle with Ch. Disha who had been watching them. We then missed showers because of the huddle which I was okay with but some of the girls were upset over that. But we didn't have to pack out for dinner so they weren't as unhappy as they could have been.
Thursday we did pack out for our back lake trip. We spent Thursday night at the back lake to get the kids used to the routine we will be having on the river trip. It actually went pretty well overall. That night we had to huddle out twice because of tones while they were supposed to be going to sleep. One tent couldn't quite themselves down. In the morning, the routine is Chiefs take down their tent before we wake up the kids so we can help the kids pack up their stuff and take their tents down. But some of the girls were complaining that we were being too loud so we stopped and then waited until all of their stuff was packed up before we finished packing up our tent. They weren't happy about it but they got the point. It was a good lesson for them.
Friday I celebrated my 25th birthday at work. My kids sang to me in the morning and then the whole camp sang to me at dinner. It was nice.
Saturday we did more pack out stuff all day. We put the tents back up so they could dry out since it had rained Thursday night. And the kids washed the rest of the gear and packed up all of the food. In the afternoon we worked on packing their clothing. It was an incredibly long day, I think every kid complained at some point. I think we might have a little bit more stuff to do for packout tomorrow but then I think we're done.
I've spent my T.O. getting stuff I need for the river trip and speaking of that I really do need to pack.
This week is going to be pretty busy again with things happening at camp and we leave for the river on Friday. 5 days on the Suwannee River. It should be really good for the kids!
welcome to the swamp!
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