Camp

From 22 June to 19 July, I was at a summer English camp in Augustów, a small town in the northeastern lake district of Poland. I was there for two sessions — a rewarding experience, but not having had any break between the conclusion of the regular school year and the start of camp, it was also an exhausting experience.

My duties were simple: conduct English lessons/sessions in the morning (some of which were much more successful than others . . .) and accompany the kids during their afternoon and evening activities. Said activities included softball, kayaking, sailing, waterskiing, frisbee golf, horseshoes, Scrabble (in English, of course).

Sunsets

Water Skiing

Some got up on two	Some got up on one
Some fell after a few moments	Some fell a bit earlier

The concept was simple: why not use snow skiing as a model for water skiing? It would eliminate the necessity for need for a boat, thus allowing more people the pleasure of waterskiing in a shorter time.

A German thought of it, I believe.

So, engineers put four towers in a rectangular shape, ran a tow-cable through it and use that to jerk people off a dock and haul them round the lake. The result is above.

Now, it’s not an entirely bad idea. Just, for someone used to skiing behind a boat, it’s a little weird. I passed on trying. Most didn’t.

For most, I believe, the most stressful was the preparation — the waiting simply to be jerked forcefully and sometimes unexpectedly into the water.

Some got up . . . some didn’t.

Baseball (well, okay, softball)

One of the highlights for most kids at the camp was baseball. Sort of. To make it easier and safer, we in fact played softball, but the difference for most of them would have been minimal.

One thing I learned anew is how many many rules there are that just seem commonsensical to us. For example, not having two people on base at the same time — a frequent occurrence on second base.

Paintball

Though paintball was not one of the “offical” camp activities, some of the folks from the second camp got together and spent an evening hurling plastic, paint-filled balls at each other while running blindly through the woods, desparately trying to see through the well-worn, virtually opaque protective masks.	Polish paintballs: a guy shows up in a forest driving a Maluch (Fiat 126p) filled with paintball equipment…

The Wounds including one from a paintball that somehow got around/under the protective mask)