Camp America Staff Diaries

Rebecca Watson
Colchester, United Kingdom
Camp: Golden Slipper, Pennsylvania

	Camp America We've spent the last 38 years in the business of sending young people over the big pond for a summer of fun, sun, kids and camp - so trust us …we know a thing or two about this - we've been doing it a long time!
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Olympics days 2 & 3 02:34 PM , 9-26-2007

Oh dear I've been slightly neglectful of this blog. I suppose now that I'm not at camp I don't have "camp brain" and I'm not always thinking about everything that has happend and wanting to write it down. Well I have to admit that I don't remeber much about the in between days of Olympics. It's all a big crazy blur. But thier is one thing that I do remember from being captain and will tell you about. My team won the apache. Now the apache is a big deal, it's worth alot of points- and when your in 3rd place you want to be getting them points.

But tbh I knew that the kids were keyed up about this and didn't need me sticking my oar in saying "We need the points, do not lose" So I smiled sweetly and said, "Nobody cares if we come in 4th or 1st -cough yes we do- lets just have fun and enjoy it, there's no pressure" Now the apache is like a huge obstacle course around camp, thier are 75 events in in, that are completled around the whole camp.

Every single child in the Olympics team is doing at least one of the events. They can be everything from drinking "Chugging" a whole can of coke for instance "soda". It's a bit like a huge tag team production. Alot of work goes into this so obviously the children really enjoy it. Dave and I agreed we would run half of the race each, I would do the first half, and he would "tag" me at the pool and run to the final event the rope burn.

Now like I said the rope burn is the final event, and the first team to have assembled a fire and have the rope drop will win. We started off on a really bad foot, the canooeing dropped us back because I had a 14 year old boy and a 7 year old girl (I didn't organise this btw!) rowing together, and the boy was putting so much effort in, and the girl looked lost so to speak. Of course when they finished doing thier lap in the canoe, we were coming in at 4th.

I had the 14 year old boy yelling (He was very competitive) telling me that was a joke etc...And the little girl in tears. So I had to really calm this boy and the little girl down. I just kept saying "We don't care if we come in last, just enjoy it..it's not about winning" I managed to calm them down. Finally got to the pool where I tagged Dave and made my way to the pavillion where the rope burning would commence.

I heard mixed feedback from the counsellors who arrived at different times from our team, saying sometimes we were in 2nd sometimes 4th. So I really didn't know where we were at that point. It was boiling hot, and all I could think of was that I needed some more gatorade. Alexis my friend must have read my mind because she handed me one, without me even asking!. Now that's team work!

Finally it emerged we were in 4th place and that the other teams were coming in to do thier rope burn. Our team came in 4th to to the rope burn, but boy did our fire go up! We completley left the other teams behind, our sticks and leaves were so dry that our fire was higher than the rope. All the teams were watching, it was so tense. Suddenly it had come apprent that we could now actually win this apache! I remeber that my knees started to buckle, it was so tense, and I felt sick.

I had two of my team mates holing me up by the elbows. And suddenly thier went our rope! Everybody went mental in our team. Jumping up and down and screaming and some of us (ok me!) even crying! My happiness changed quickly when I heard one of my best mates Hannah my fellow captain, has collapsed and was being given oxygen. It was horrible, we seemed to be waiting to find out news for ages and then we heard she was severly dehydrated and incrdibly hot. She was exhausted bless her. I think that is going beyond the call of duty.

I was so proud of her, it shows you how much she wanted her team to suceed.

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	Camp America We've spent the last 38 years in the business of sending young people over the big pond for a summer of fun, sun, kids and camp - so trust us …we know a thing or two about this - we've been doing it a long time!
	Visit Website	View Jobs >