Fourth of July

So, I got to experience The American Holiday the other day. For the past week there have been fireworks going off all around the lake. The day itself dawned bright and early, just like most other days. I keep expecting it to rain but it never does. I can't quite understand how there can't be overcast days... it just doesn't make sense! How can a place be sunny pretty much constantly? One of the Aussies was funny - on the one day that it did rain he was actually shocked, he couldn't understand how much water could fall from the air. I told him he had no idea and never to visit the UK, the shock may be too much for him.

Anyway, July Fourth/Fourth of July. It started off pretty badly actually. The Director's been breathing down my neck to get the totem-pole finished when there's around six weeks left to get it done. The implication that I was doing nothing got to me a little bit. Not only that but the kids were being little snots when it came to morning clean-up, so I wasn't in the best of moods. But when lunch time rolled around the kitchen staff set up tables on the lawn and served foot-long hotdogs with luminous green relish, a pasta salad and cookies decorated in red, white and blue. The sheer American-ness of the whole thing cheered me up, it was wonderful. So, we ate outside in the sunshine, the kids played and I took some pictures.

Later that evening they had a social with a local girls' camp. A bunch of DJs came with an enormous PA system, decks, a stage - the whole kit and caboodle. One of them was a big fat white guy who held his headphones at a jaunty angle, another was a skinny black guy who had a baseball cap at a jaunty angle and the third was another white guy who thought he was Justin Timberlake. They put on a good show, but my oh my did my cynical British self laugh at them. What a bunch of wallies. In the end the international staff hogged the dance floor. Despite the fact that four-hundred horny teens were about to combust with excitement, they just couldn't keep up with our moves. Ha ha ha, says I.

In general though life dribbles by as ever. The days still go by fairly quickly, today is Sunday and despite the hair-loss over super-cabin-cleanup it'll go by pretty quickly too. Last night was awesome, Cabin Nine came in and helped out the little guys with clean-up. I know they were going for Honour Cabin again and were sucking up a bit, but they were really nice about it. Yesterday was a bit trying in another way. One of our campers got caught going through our stuff. We weren't surprised, to be honest, but we knew that our reaction to this incident had to be more serious than normal so we took the offender to the office to see the Director. He's a strange kid. His maturity is about a year off his age - he's eight but he acts like a seven year-old at times. His default reaction is to cry whenever he doesn't get his way. My default reaction is to be stern. It's one of those strange situations where he isn't ready for camp yet, but what he needs is to stay here and get all his bad home habits replaced. The tragic thing is he can be really nice, generous, thoughtful etc. but his default reaction is to lash out. I may as well mention the letters situation while I'm on the subject. In the end I managed to write positive stuff about all of the kids I was writing for. I sat them down, asked them what they were enjoying and concentrated on those. The truth is there isn't a single nasty kid in the cabin, as such. I think a few of them have the potential to become nasty, but on the whole they're just young and a little spoiled.

Looking forward to the week ahead - well, this is the last week of First Four - which basically means I'm pretty much halfway through the American adventure. A lot of the kids in my cabin will be going home next weekend, many of their parents will be coming up to either collect them or stay for the weekend. The following week the ones that have left will be replaced and then the fun starts all over again. I think we're losing a hundred kids but gaining a hundred and fifty for second four. About five or six from my cabin will be staying, which is nice.