Ch 7

A camp story

Every afternoon the CILTs go join their adopt-a-cabins to play kickball, swim at the pool, have a dodge ball game, or pillow fight. This time is their chance to serve as a role model to the younger campers, learning through action, and to work with the cabin counselors, learning by watching. After rest hour they load their backpacks with towels, closed toed shoes, and a change of clothes for after swim time before running out to meet up with their group.

In a matter of minutes all 42 CILTs make a great exodus leaving the CILT counselors behind. Suddenly camper-less we find ourselves in unknown territory. What do counselors do without campers? When I first became a CILT counselor I was completely thrown off. For summers I had been conditioned to have at least ten girls trailing behind me as we traveled to the zipline and crossed camp to lake time. They are a constant stream of questions, entertainment, reminders, conversation, questions, and adventure. As a counselor, your campers are your responsibility for seven straight days.

What do you do when they all leave? Go tag-along with another cabin.

Part of a CILT counselor's job is to observe the CILTs in action. All afternoon long we join cabin activities to both participate and watch the CILTs involved. We get the best of both worlds- working with 16-year-olds and younger kids at the same time.

The first day that I ever tagged along with a cabin I joined Kickapoo, my friend Sara McSoley's cabin. McSoley is an all-star in the counselor world--her laughter is contagious, she makes every camper feel included and special, and has the power to make any day feel like the best day of your life. I wanted to see her in action on a mud hike. Mary, a longtime camper of mine, was the CILT for this group of Blazer girls and I was so impressed watching her comfort a homesick girl.

I was surprised to find that I immediately connected with Maisy, one of the 10-year-old girls. She talked with me the whole way to the mud pit where Ghost Creek meets the Tippecanoe River. There Maisy, her cabin mates, the counselors, the CILTs and I slathered ourselves with mud. I went to the corner where the smoothest mud slides off of the wall and gathered a handful. Rubbing it on their cheeks and foreheads I gave girls mud facials promising that it was going to make their skin so smooth--it was better than face wash.

Maisy plopped down in the middle of the creek and made a mud angel. She rolled over and squirmed until every bit of her body was covered. I picked up a stick from the ground and stuck it in Maisy's dirty ponytail. It stuck straight up like a feather from an Indian headdress. She went searching for a stick for my hair and came back with a foot long twig. When she attached it my dirt encrusted hair the long stick bobbed every time I moved.

McSoley called, "Boomslam- Kickapoo! Let's go to pop-stop," and we all scrambled out of the mud back up to the trail. Sliding in our slimy Crocs we walked back up to Lake Village to get cold cans of Diet Coke and Orange Fanta. Maisy and I talked in British accents the whole way and named our sticks. (I don't know why but at camp most inanimate objects usually end up getting named. It's strange, but it works.) Her stick was named Imogene and mine was Agatha.

Buddies at lake time, Maisy and I left Imogene and Agatha in our hair as we blobbed, kayaked, went on the rope swing, and bounced on the Saturn. The lake washed us off as we played but the mud left behind a brown tinge on our skin and a smell that couldn't be ignored. After a trip down the wet willy slides Agatha came out of my hair and sank to the bottom of the Richard G. Marsh lake.

Maisy held onto Imogene the rest of the week. She toted the stick around with her from chapel to clinics to the cabin and campfires. When we crossed paths she would pass Imogene off to me to baby-sit until I saw her again. By the end of the week Imogene had a friendship bracelet, swim band, and duct tape neon green stripe around her middle. Maisy promised to take care of her all year and bring her back the next summer.

Check-in day week one the next summer Maisy ran over to me at dinner flagpole. "Hi Maisy! I was hoping you'd be back this week. How are you?" I said after giving her a hug. She told me that she got a blue band at the swim check and pointed out her new cabin across the circle.

"And guess what?" she asked with her eyes wide. "What?" I said.

"I BROUGHT IMOGENE BACK!" she yelled and pulled out the stick from her back pocket.