Once again DH
and I were “volunteered”
to help out with girls camp.
Camping: the art of getting closer to Nature while
getting farther away from edible food and comfortable sleeping conditions.
It was easy to
find the camp.
Everyone knows storm
clouds go out of their way to rain on tents.
We just followed the clouds.
Down the dirt
road.
And into the
forest. We were soon out of range of any
cell phone and into a no technology
allowed zone. Then we just followed
the smell of mosquito repellent, burned marshmallows and hair spray.
After a very
good dinner cooked over the fire
by some of the girls we were invited to the
evening’s entertainment.
There was lots
of enthusiastic drama.
One skit
featured Nemo and his family and friends.
We didn’t need name
tags to know who each character was.
One of the most
unusual skits was a bit of Shadow Theater.
Everyone is as
unique and amazing as a snowflake.
Beauty and love.
Parents may pack
up their troubles and send them off to camp.
But with some good leadership, the exuberance can be directed into
superb creativity.
Fortunately DH
and I didn’t have to spend the night in the same sleeping quarters as the
leaders and girls. Even though sleeping
on rocks and lumpy mattresses could be thought of as therapeutic—like shiatsu
massage, we decided to sleep in the back of the Subaru. It was much quieter.
Note to
self. The need to urinate at night
increases in direct relationship to the hour past midnight.
The next morning
everyone
was encouraged to “Rise and Shine!”
Some campers are just not morning people.
A clever bit was
put together to illustrate the power of small influences. Holes were cut in the bottom of big buckets
and the tops were tightly covered with shower curtains.
Using a mist
machine the buckets were filled with fog.
Some of the girls beat on the “drum” of the buckets shooting out smoke
rings to knock plastic cups
off the other girls’ heads.
I have no photos
of the assigned duty given to DH and me.
We were judges for a relay race involving knot tying, fire starting,
shelter building and first aid. I was a
timer and I used an app on my phone to keep track. The girls performed their tasks wonderfully. When the events were over I checked the data
on my phone. Not only had I kept track
of the times but I’d walked over two miles and burned 350 calories.
P.S. Pine sap holds down hair better than hair spray but is more difficult to remove. I got a very itchy mosquito bite on my toe--through the heavy wool socks I wore while sleeping. One determined blood sucker.
