Summer Camp USA Diary
Paul Eagle, 21, from West Sussex flew out as a participant on the 2008 Summer
Camp USA programme on 10th June. Find out what he gets up to on camp - watch
this website for his regular diary entries!
23th July
I can’t believe how quickly the time is going here. I have been here for six weeks
now but it really doesn’t feel like it at all, and it’s getting sad that there’s
only four weeks of camp left.
The summer camp owns 12 horses, as well as a big hay field, and last week was time
to harvest the first cut of hay. I got to spend three afternoons riding around on
the back of a wagon and hay truck, loading and unloading bails of hay. We brought
in about 1500 bails. It was hard work but very rewarding.
A few days ago, camp bought two lambs – Virgil & Irene. They are both very cute
and the kids were very excited, but only a few hours after they had been in camp,
Irene managed to escape and run off into the woods. It meant that yesterday, I and
nine other counselors spent the day walking through the thick brush of overgrown
woodlands in the pouring rain, trying to find her. We saw her a couple of times
and almost managed to grab her, but Irene was just too fast for us. But she’s still
alive and there’s plenty for her to eat, so we’re going to keep trying to catch
her over the next few days. My favorite thing about camp life is that anything can
happen on any given day. When I woke up that morning I had no idea that I’d be spending
the day in the woods on a lamb hunt.
The last few days have been very wet. The weather has been really good for most
of the summer, usually sunny and between 25 – 30 degrees. But on the several occasions
we’ve had rain, because we’re in a valley here, when it rains, it really rains hard!
I’ve packed very light to come to camp with my travels afterwards in mind, so when
a few things get wet I really struggle with having enough clothes, as laundry is
done once a week – but the camp has a large pile of clothing for the international
staff to borrow anytime so that has been really useful.
It is my third day off tomorrow and I’m off to buy some dry clothes, go see a movie,
and meet up with some of the rest of the staff in the evening for dinner. It’s going
to be a good day.