The Second Helping

I have lived in Australia for 23 years and in those 23 years, I have suffered through some pretty horrific hot summers. But I have never been as hot and disgusting as I have in the last few days.

First session ended just in time for eastern America to suffer one of the worst heat waves in the last five years. 24 people in the New York City tri-state area died due to heat-related emergencies. The mercury hit 105 degrees - a very comfortable 40 degrees on the celcius scale. My eyelids were sweating. The air itself was too heavy to breathe. Even the air conditioning struggld to turn what was toxic humidity into bearable indoor spaces.

Thankfully, the worst day we indured was the day the first session campers left so by midday they had all returned to the safety of their air-conditioned realities. So we didn't have to endure the additional blight of the over-heated child.

As much as I loved my first session bunk and the energy and eccentricities they brought to our domestic dynamic, it was a relief when intersession swooped in. I found this session hard-going at times - faced with issues and challenges that luck never brought me as a counselor last year. But the moments when I questioned my abilities to deal with the teenage issues I was faced with daily, where utterly outweighed by the moments my girls made me laugh or needed my advice or just a hug or I realised how much their trust was my ultimate support.. It is so easy as a counselor to think that your campers think of you the way they do their parents - as buzzkillers, the man, their authority - but when their crying in your arms on the last day and revealing how their summer was what it was because you were their counselor, there's no greater assurance that you did your job. And then some.

The 36-hours of intersession were spent re-setting camp for the impending second session campers. We cleaned our bunk from floor to ceiling. We re-designed our bunk decorations and we all took a moment to breathe (or try to in the heat). After a night of celebration our survival, a bunch of us went to Parvin Park - a local lake in a nearby national forrest, where we 'grilled' (aka BBQ'd) and swam with the other 100 locals who fled the heat for the water.

Then we returned to camp to do it all over again.

Second session is an interesting experience. It can feel like a relief to have everything feel comfortable and familiar but the monotony can be a buzz killer. But at the end of the day, you quickly realise - these are a new bunch of kids with a new set of issues.

Ciao for now. xo