My time at Camp America

A day in the life

• 7:30am: Get up if the kids haven’t already woken you.
•  8:00am: Breakfast, donuts on Sundays
• 9:00am: First instructional starts. For me, this meant teaching kids swimming for an hour at a time in the lake. The morning focussed on helping the kids at improve in their sports, so we could practice diving
• 12:30pm: Chicken caesar salad wrap for lunch and power nap.
• 2:00pm: First elective starts – this was usually life guarding kids on the inflatables but was pretty flexible – I ended up helping on one of the waterski boats and going sailing on some afternoons.
• 5:30pm: Tacos for dinner (BBQ on Fridays)
• 7:00pm: Evening activity like a bunk night where we would have a campfire and toast smores with our bunk (Twelve eight-year olds and four counsellors).
• 9:00pm: Night off (every other night). Go to a pool bar, gym, play cards, watch Blue Planet. Or just go straight to sleep.

Challenges and how I overcame them

• Being alone with complete strangers who I’d never met before (bar interviews with the camp directors) was a huge change and took time to adjust to. Everyone was in the same situation and after a week everyone had become good friends.
• Living in an environment where your whole life is work gets very tiring and I definitely started to burn out at points. Ideally, getting off camp is the best way to remind yourself that you are able to enjoy yourself without worrying about work. This isn’t always an option, so speaking to my family and friends back home was a good way to remind myself that there was a world outside of camp.
• Not having much time to myself or privacy on camp – living with 15 other people in the bunk, and having to help look after 12 of them meant there wasn’t much time to do things I wanted to. Luckily the guys who I lived with as co-counsellors were great, and were always happy to step in if I needed to take a break and go for a walk.

Best foods and drinks

• New York pizza, chicken wings, BBQs, beef Jerky, chicken caesar salad wraps, chicken burritos, cookies, pretzels, Maine lobster.
• Yellow gatorade (Honorable mention for blue gatorade), nothing else compares.

Why working abroad was so good

• Let me explore a country which I had never been to before whilst earning money at the same time.
• Allowed me to meet so many people who I have become really good friends with.

Tips

• Make an effort to stay in contact with your friends and family. Speaking to them when you’re struggling reminds you that even if camp does feel like your entire life it isn’t.
• Immerse yourself in the culture and the job, try and make friends with the people you work with. The more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it.
• It’s okay to take time to settle in, no one is expecting you to feel right at home the moment you arrive in a new home in a new country.
• Pack less than you think you need (much less). I brought six books with me, thinking that I would read them all by the time camp had finished. In the end, it took me two months (all of camp) to finish just one of them.

Joe Lake, ENCAP, Year 2