My day started off earlier then I wanted it to. I had decided to sleep in the field with my friends last night. but it started raining around 5am, we were one of the first groups to wake up, so when we moved to the covered porch we got to watch all of the other groups arrive increasingly soaked by the rain.
After a while of cuddling on the couch, all the groups decided to move into forest dell to try to sleep longer; it’s an indoor space that used to be the communal sleeping area at camp, but since COVID we haven’t been allowed to sleep there. Around 7am Christian, one of the staffers, woke us up by saying “Not allowed. You’re all going home,” before sitting down in one of the reclining chairs and playing crosswords on their phone. Christian said we had to leave around 8am so that “it didn’t look like we were sleeping,” None of us actually got in trouble though.
I got ready for the day quickly so I could help Oxen, a junior staffer, do wake-up call for the rest of camp, we sung “I want it that way” which was really fun. Shortly after it was breakfast time, I got potatoes and oatmeal like I normally do. After breakfast and morning meeting, Advisee time happens. It’s a daily check in group with an advisor and about 11 other campers. A couple of days before today my advisee group decided that we wanted to play a prank on some other groups, we ordered caution tape and went around wrapping the other groups in caution tape silently, that ended up taking all of our time in advisee group but it was really fun to do. Afterwards I went to a workshop lead by Nathan called “How to have a good fight” where he taught us about what to avoid in arguments we might have with our friends, partners, or parents.
Lunch and siesta were next in the day, my friends and I were exhausted from waking up so early so we ate our lunch on the side porch only slightly sheltered from the rain, before finding a couch to take a nap on, we just talked for most of the time. We “woke up” to the bell announcing the end of siesta. After siesta is the second workshop slot of the day, I went to a workshop lead by my advisor, Andy. He was leading a workshop called “What is community organizing”. He told us success stories from other community organizers he knows to demonstrate how impactful community organizing can be. He had some handouts to show us, one was on the five forms of community organizing, or the main different kinds of organizations and organizing that exist. The other one was an example of the spectrum of allies, or the scale of how much people might agree with your cause. He explained to us that when you’re organizing you want to know who your target demographic is, whether you’re trying to get people who disagree with your cause more neutral, or trying to get people who passively agree with you to be more active. Your organizing will be a lot more effective if you know what group of people you’re trying to reach.
We ended our workshop slightly late and by the time I left it had started raining again. In the next workshop slot of the day my friend was running a swing dancing workshop, he had led one a couple of days earlier so today we got to work on more advanced skills. The last workshop I went to was called, “Andy’s getting involved with change in your community. The workshop touched on a lot of the same topics as the one he did earlier but he focused more on where to look to find work in social justice spaces; how to connect with people, and how to find issues that you’re passionate about. I do a lot of volunteer work In social justice spaces and organizations, so I found it really valuable to hear his experience and what has worked for him. I wanted to shower before the evening meeting that night so I quickly ate dinner before running off to the showers.
When it was time for evening meeting it was still too wet for us to sit by the stage where we normally having evening meetings so we all crowded under a tree and on the porch of the lodge to have our meeting.
Tonight was our last talent show for this session of camp. It’s always really fun seeing everybody’s different talents, we had it in the lodge this time as it was again raining, it was a lot warmer then how we normally do talent shows in the field.
After the talent show we were all very tired so we went to bed shortly after it was over.
Elihu Ann H, camper