A brief camp update

So since I last posted i have gone through just over a two months of camp. It has been full of excitement, new challenges and overally great experiences. I am going to summarize my weeks with as much detail of events as i am legally allowed to.

The first two weeks of camp in June were adult camps. For these weeks it almost rained the whole time but the campers still had a blast. The adult campers i had the opportunity to meet have greatly impacted my life. I learned many times about autism from observing the campers i worked with. You could tell for many for the campers this camp was a highlight of their year. The campers had many stories to tell and got super involved in the activities. The third week of camp was for young adults, it was similar to the first two weeks but with slightly younger campers.

Then after the adult camps i had a week break where i spent most of the time sick and barely moving so not the best week of my life, at least i got sick then and not while i was at camp.

Upon returning to camp the kids started arriving for the first week which for my team was teens with Crohn's disease or their siblings. Our group was extremely small so we got to know the campers extremely well and as they were an oldest group we did high ropes. High ropes was fun as chilled for at least an hour as everyone had finished the elements rather quickly. I also got some great pictures of my team doing the more challenging elements on the course.

The second week we had the youngest team for Camp Canada which is a camp for children with ostomies. It was an interesting week as some of the girls thought they were way to mature to be on the youngest team even though we knew they belonged on it. It was a fun week as well. The best part of the week was the sharing circle because it was the time the differences were forgot about their differences and shared how their illness had affected their life. They showed support for each other and the other ones gave advice to the younger kids on how to get through life. It was super cool! Plus the campers came from all over Canada! One child was even from the States and she quizzed me on my state capitals all week! There was also one boy who was finally allowed to go to camp for the first time and had a blast! All the kids had interesting stories and i learned about ostomies which i barely knew even existed before!

Then we had what i found to be the most enjoyable camp so far which was Light up a Life. It is a camp for children with mental and physical disabilities. For most of the week I worked with an amazing ten year old born who had a developmental delay. I basically acted as his mother for the whole week. It was also a good learning experience as by the end of the week i was beginning to understand his non-verbal signals. It was an exhausting yet rewarding week. I was all worth it in the end to see his reaction when his family picked him up at the end of the week.

I will talk about the other two weeks a bit later.