Adventures with Children Part 2

Those of you who read this post, you know about the relationship I have with children. You also may recall that back in May I went on a short trip to Estonia to relax for a few days. While I was there, I learned about Camp Balchyoca. This is a camp that takes place every year the first week of July. It is a Christian camp and is located just outside of Estonia. 

While in Estonia, I was invited to come to said camp in July and to herd counsel children. Now, knowing my previous experience with children I gave the most brilliant answer possible. "I'll think about it." And it was left at that. 

I really did think about it. In fact I thought about it on and off for weeks. Weighing the pros and the cons. I was like "It would be so nice to get out of the city for a week. " But then the thought of being a counselor for children just caused me stress. 

I then proceeded to talk about it with a dear friend of mine who coerced suggested I go. So I thought about it some more and one morning I quite literally woke up and decided that I should go. 

Let me tell you, it was an interesting experience. One thing about this camp is that a lot of Americans and Canadians come to help out with it. That was interesting, let me tell you what. The first night I get in, fresh off the bus and there's all these Americans and they're loud and they don't understand and it was just totally weird for me. It was also kind of funny. 

I was totally nervous about the whole thing before I left, but once I got there, the nervousness disappeared and I legit had no real expectations. When I asked about the kids who were staying in my cabin, Nicolaj, the camp director, informed me that I had difficult children and part of the reason I was assigned to them is because I speak Russian. I was like "Okay." All the while thinking They can't be that bad right?

hahahahaha.

Actually though it could've been a lot worse. Despite feeling like I did nothing but yell at people the first two days, it got better towards the end of the week. I hate feeling like I'm super mean and I feel like the girls probably hated me, but we survived and that's the important thing, right? 

Plus as an added bonus it was really nice to get out of the city and the daily grind for a while. Nice to be out in nature despite the massive amounts of mosquito bites and the sunburn. The camp was on the Baltic Sea and so even though it was too cold to swim, we still got to go and hang out on the beach every day which was awesome. It was a good time to hang out and talk with people, play games and play guitar. 

Generally, going to camp was a super good experience despite it not being something I would usually do. I'm proud of myself for getting out of my comfort zone and I hope to be able to return and help in the future.