Here are some pictures from Camp Wonderland - not complete by any means, but at least they're something to give you a good idea of what the campsite and the camp is like.
This is me with Jeff - one of the campers who has already been at 2 of the camps and is coming back for the third. I had to hug him really tightly to ensure that he didn't run away from this picture...notice how perky and awake I look.
On a different note, Kate (you'll meet her later in this letter) wants me to shave my gotee and dye my hair blonde. I can't imagine why. But you CAN see from this pic that I really need a hair cut.
Camp Wonderland is situated in Sharon, right next to Lake Massapoag (Swimming, swimming in Lake Massapoag. When days are hot, when days are cold, in Lake Massapoag. Breaststroke, sidestroke, fancy diving too! Wouldn't it be nice if there was nothing else to do - BUT!). Here's the waterfront where we swim every day. It's pretty neat! (AAAH - I just used American slang! That may be illegal on the internet!).
The Waterfront Director (the one and only), is a crazy girl by the name of Kate Donald (no relation to Allan). She's a Durbanite and half my cabin is desperately in love with her. Pictures forthcoming.
This is Ryan - one of the counsellors in the Older Boys Unit (OBU, OBU!). We have this joke that we're only allowed to touch girls OFF of camp, and he knows a guy that kissed a girl UNDER the water at the waterfront, so we've decided that "under the water" counts as being "off of camp." We often ask each other when we're going off camp. *sigh* - poor guys starved for physical affection... :)
Ryan always seems to be surrounded by girls hanging off him at the waterfront. But don't worry, he always pretends to fight them off (Help me. Help me. Somebody get them off me.).
Oh look! Another picture taken at the waterfront! The scary-looking guy on the right is James, who is from Belfast and is one of the Beavers counsellors (OBU consists of the Woodchucks, Beavers and Bears, in order of age).
The guy in the middle is Will (YEAH WILL!) - my Bears co-counsellor. He's from Wales, and for some reason people get us confused quite often. They also think that I'm from England. Maybe it's because I watch too much Wallace and Gromit...
Will has just finished high school in England, and is going to Oxford on a choral scholarship next year (ok, later this year, since school years run opposite in England). He can sing really, really well. He also plays guitar and piano. In choir practice (Wonderland chorus) he's practically the only one I can hear singing. Beatles are a favourite; as well as "You keep away from run-around Sue." Will and I have had many happy hours together as counsellors, especially when there are no campers around (just kidding!). He was voted "Most Useless Prefect" by his fellow class-mates this year and given a wooden spoon for his efforts (or lack thereof). We've already awarded ourselves the "Super staff" award (twice) which is only awarded to the most pathetic counsellors. You see, we decided to invent an awards system due to the amount of stupidity being displayed by staff around camp. The awards are called "The Will and Roger awards for superior acts of staff genius."
On the left is Becky (YEAH BECKY!) who is American, and quite crazy. She's the Robin's counsellor. One night we surrounded their cabin and chanted "Bears, bears, bears!" while they were in the middle of devotions (ok, we didn't know that) and scared all sorts of heck out of them. So they resolved to hit us back - revenge is sweet! The following night we were sleeping out at the pioneer site (just tents around a campfire with marshmallows and other interesting food), which left our cabin unattended.
So obviously we knew that she was planning a revenge attack, so I stayed in my cabin with 3 bears, and waited for them. However, just as she walked through the door, one of my Wonder Campers (yes, DO say that sarcastically) asked, "Who IS that?!" So she ran away. (*sigh*)
But she DID decide to "decorate" the boys bathroom, so we waited outside for them with waterpistols...when they came out, I took a picture of them running away (to be uploaded soon, hopefully) and then we soaked them.
*sigh* Camp memories are so sweet!
This is the Shell, which is an open-sided building where we have morning devotions as well as some evening programs. This was during some evening program where we decided to sleep (well, ok; it's actually faked sleep, but only to the untrained eye does it look like we're really sleeping).
In the background is Will, looking enthralled with proceedings; Kevin - the boating director - looks on in bemusement. Behind Will is Suzanne, who is the Nature director; she really hates to have things stuffed into her ears. Which is really quite funny, since of my campers (Andrew) simply *loves* to stuff things into her ears. I wrote Suzanne a note, pretending it was from Andrew.
It was the scene from Miss Congeniality: "I think you're sexy. I think you're gorgeous. I wanna date you. I wanna marry you. Love, Andrew (Bears)."
Suzanne actually thought that it was Andrew that wrote the note, and was completely freaked out for the rest of the day, until she read the note to some people that had seen the movie (i.e. Patti) who burst out laughing and explained the note to her. It was then that they worked out it was me who wrote the note... *evil laugh*
Three babes! That's Megan on the left, Patti in the middle, and Maria on the right. They're all Americans; Maria is an awesome guitar player, with the nicest acoustic guitar I've ever played. Plus she's lent me a guitar for the summer, and gave one of my campers one after his one broke. If there was a Nobel prize for sweetness, she'd probably win it.
In devotions in the Shell we have worship, and suprise! - Bill (the Music Director) was able to find a bass guitar for me to play (so I'm steadily improving, and manage to play only ONE wrong note per bar - pretty good!). You can see me on stage crouching down for one of the songs - Donny (Woodchucks counsellor and prankster extraordinaire) is to the preparing for some hectic song actions. Steve (Chipmunks counsellor and prankster) is on drums and Maria is playing her awesome guitar. She has an absolutely fantastic voice - I wish you could hear her sing :)
Camp songs are quite popular - we have many. Here's one:
He's my rock my sword my shield; he's the wheel in the middle of the wheel.
He's the lily of the valley; the bright and morning star. Makes no
difference what they say, I'll get on my knees and pray; And I'll sing
until the day that Jesus comes.
This is some choir photo that I managed to hide from - taken during Music Camp (the 4th session). We sang some nAsty songs (pa pa-pa pa) that got stuck in our heads the entire day after rehearsals. Doh!
So this is a picture of us in full-blown glory. Lauren (aka Froggy) is front left. She's the funniest! She walks around with this huge smile all day and makes funny jokes. Kelly is next to her - she's the other Robins counsellor. She really loves hugs, so we're hug buddies (oops, another phrase that stays in the States!). Here's an interesting story about Kelly...
Practical jokes are really huge on camp - they're a part of camp culture. People do all sorts of crazy stuff during the night (read - 2 in the morning) that is usually quite funny. Pranking is not discouraged, but there are some rules - don't touch any campers stuff, and be nice.
Will and I kind of stretched the "be nice" part, by pranking the ENTIRE Older Boys Unit with flour bombs above the door that "explode" on the person opening the door when they walk through it. We pranked our own cabin too, so that we could look innocent. The guys still don't know it was us (well, actually they all do, except for James and Tom. We're gonna die when they find out). But back to Kelly...
No wait - song break! To the tune of "We will, we will rock you!" 1 - 2 - 3 -
4...Jesus, Jesus loves you. Whoo! clap - clap - whoo! Jesus loves you. Whoo! clap - clap - whoo! Jesus was a young man born to a poor man; died to save
his people one day. He got blood on his face; died in disgrace. Saved
us all though his amazing grace, singing!
Jesus loves you. Whoo! clap - clap - whoo!
Right, back to Kelly. We managed to steal the entire Younger Girls Units' brooms and mops (6 brooms and 3 mops). We then proceeded to make faces on paper plates and stuck them on the brooms and mops (each face was kinda supposed to represent a counsellor). Then we made a speech bubble out of paper and stuck it on the mop/broom. Then we duct taped all the mops and brooms to assorted furniture we "borrowed" off assorted cabin porches. The speech bubbles said things like "I love James!" and other assorted stuff. The younger girls had done a shocking prank the previous night - they set up half of the Shell benches around the flagpole. A whole lot of work, and they all had to put the benches back before morning flag raising, so no-one really got to see it. So one of the speech bubbles read, "Hey Amanda! Did you hear that yesterday's prank by the Younger Girls was the first prank in 3 years to receive a zero out of 10?"
Then we made a speech bubble for Kelly and stuck it on a broom - "Hi Kelly! Give me a hug! No, wait - if you did that you'd be hugging a broom, and NO ONE wants to be seen hugging a broom!"
We did this at 4 in the morning (yes, we WERE really tired the next day - I got 3 and a half hours sleep that night. Doh!). When I woke up, I made sure I walked past where we'd set the prank up. And hey presto! Kelly is awake. She asked if I did the prank, and I pulled off a reasonable acting job and convinced her that I HADNT done it, and proceeded to read the speech bubbles with her. When we got to the one about her hugging the broom, I just laughed a lot (I tend to do that). And even then, she didn't even work out that I had wrote it. Only when she got back to the cabin did she realise that it was me.
Roger - 1. Kelly - 0.
Moving on from the whole Kelly saga - I'd like to mention that the gorgeous Kate Donald is present in this picture, but I'm not going to tell you where. I won't even tell you that she's blonde.
Yeah, Younger Girls! Here's Ryan (YGU leader) and Amanda (Owls counsellor). I'm currently staying at Ryan's house over long break (27 - 30 July), which is an awesome log cabin. There are 8 of us here from the camp, all having a fantastic time. Here's a list of all the people staying at Ryan's house:
I'm writing this sitting at the Elmer's computer (Elmer would be Ryan's surname. She's told me she's had some "name" issues over the course of her life, but has since worked through them. She wrote the cutest letter to her Mom and signed it "Love, Kimberley" which is her middle name. Ryan was getting teased so much at school that she wanted to change her name, but when she asked her Mom about this, her Mom started crying (Ryan was 9 at the time), and it was ONLY because her Mom cried, that Ryan kept her name).
As I was saying, the Elmer house is in Rome, New York State. It's not a big town - about 10 000 people (??? That's just a guess). The actual house is a log cabin - yes! a log cabin!!! It's just amazing. All of us felt extremely welcome when we arrived here - I'm confident anybody could call this "home" as it just has such a "homey" feel about it. Kitchen, dining room and lounge are all interlinked. Parent's room is downstairs and daughter's rooms are all upstairs. Everyone else is sleeping upstairs, except for Will and myself who are in the lounge (which means TV till late!!!). Tonight we watched The Patriot (Mel Gibson; girls pause here for deep sigh....*deep sigh*. Thank you. We may now resume our regularly scheduled programming), which (as you'll probably know) is about a whole bunch of Americans kicking a whole lot of British a...um...behinds. Will is actually not all that impressed by that ("Ah, yes. The EVIL British," he kept on saying throughout the movie).
And yesterday was "Honour America Day" which translated into a great symphony in the town square (which just happens to be a reconstruction of a fort). The Syacruse band was playing for about an hour, starting at 8 in the evening (so we kind of rushed supper and then went straight there). At one stage the conductor announced that they were going to play a whole lot of folk music from around the world, including South Africa. Of course, we gave an extra loud yell at that point (hurrah!) and waited expectantly for the South African folk song. We didn't actually hear it; they played 4 tunes; two of them I didn't recognise and one was Yankee Doodle (which I'm reasonable sure isn't South African, but I'll check anyway when I get home). The only other song they played was "Khumbhaya" - is THAT South African? Kate says no, I think it may be; anyone back home know? Anyone at all?