"You can't wu tang better than me"

It’s the end of a very busy week. Some parts were stressful, some parts were fun, some parts were horrible, and some parts were truly moving.

The first week of camp went fairly smoothly. The staff is still getting itself adjusted to the schedule and learning about the kids. The kids are still getting to know each other and pushing their boundaries with the staff.

On Wednesday we went swimming and no one drowned! In fact the kids were better behaved at the pool than they have been at the camp. As it turns out I will be resuming my role as lifeguard this summer. The pool that we go to has a policy that camps must bring at least one of their own lifeguards for every 30 kids. We had one lifeguard but our camp has 60 kids. If I hadn’t been a certified lifeguard we probably wouldn’t have been able to swim. They let me slide on the fact that my CPR certification had expired last month on the stipulation that I get re-certified before the next time we swim. The head lifeguard at the pool gave me his number and hooked me up with a recertification class that very night. I’m official now. Good thing I brought my whistle.

Thursday was by far the worst day I’ve had in a long time. It started in the morning when we were doing a craft. We were making bracelets which I realize sounds very easy but the way that we were supposed to make them was actually quite complicated. After splitting the campers into boy’s and girl’s tables, I went around trying to explain the craft to the boys. I was fine with the younger ones but when I got to the end of the table with the older boys I knew I was in over my head. One boy in particular was not listening to me at all. He was making fun of one the developmentally challenged boys and he completely ignored me when I told him to stop. I asked him what his name was and he replied, “Nothing.” (I later found out his name is Deshaun) I was getting pretty pissed off. I told him to get up and go sit on the other side of the room. He wouldn’t get up. At this point I began to realize that I really had no ammunition against this boy. He was only an inch or so shorter than me but probably twice as strong. He comes from a world of violence and had been on both the offensive and defensive end of many fights. All I could do was yell at him. He finally got up and did that kind of slow walk filled with attitude. The older boys have a history of running away so I walked next to him to make sure he got there. I can’t remember when he said but I got so upset that I had to walk away. I walked over to the shift supervisor and as I began to utter the words, “Ms. Julie, I can’t handle this boy” I could feel the tears coming. I said it again and she told me to get out of the room because you can’t let them know that they’ve gotten to you. I went outside and sat for a while shaking and crying with frustration and anger. Ms Julie came outside to talk to me and she told me he had run away. Thinking back on the situation it’s hard to tell what got to me so much. It was just a feeling of complete powerlessness and inadequacy. I soon got myself together and went back inside to complete the craft.

Later in the day we had both the older and the younger groups together playing in the gym. It was far too crowded and balls were flying everywhere. I was standing near the gym door making sure no one was going in and out when a renegade ball flew at me and hit a straight shot to my eye. It hit no other place but my eye. He couldn’t have done it if the boy had tried. After the initial shock I was given an ice pack and was lucky that I didn’t get a black eye. Later in the day I saw him in the hall. He was walking with his friend and I heard him brag to him that this was the counselor that he had hit in the eye.

Around 2:00 pm Jonathon was complaining that he felt low so we checked his blood sugar level. He wanted to call his mom so I reached for my cell phone that I keep in my pocket. It was gone. My first thought was that I had left in the room that I ate lunch in. So I ran to go see if it was there. No luck. I checked in the gym and it was not there either. I knew that it had probably fallen out of my pocket and knowing the kinds of kids we have they would have picked it up and kept it. I decided not to do anything about it just yet in an effort to avoid a total melt down. I began looking at all the kid’s pockets as they were walking around to see if I could see the shape of my phone through the material. I didn’t want to just accuse anyone because I doubt they could have just stolen it from my pocket. Deshaun walked into the room so I followed him with my eyes. As he picked up his shirt to place something in his pocket I spotted my phone. I went up to him and asked to see the phone in his pocket. He looked nervous as he handed me the phone. I looked at it and it was definitely mine. I asked him where he got it and he told me that he found it on the way to the bathroom. After asking why he didn’t hand it in he replied, “I thought when you find a cell phone on the ground you can just keep it.” Instead of yelling at him about how much of an idiot he is I told him that I would let him go because he didn’t maliciously take it. It was at that point in the day that I (figuratively) washed my hands of that camp. I didn’t say anything or do anything for the last three hours I was there and all that night I thought about how much I wished that I had punched Deshaun in the face so that I would be kicked out of the camp and not have to work there anymore.

However on Friday morning I woke up a new woman. I was no longer angry and I had shed my quitting attitude. We parked outside of the office and I went in to give Lynn my new certification card. She called Brittany and me into her office to discuss something important. The mother of one of the boys in the camp, Shakur, had called her regarding something that a “curly-haired blonde woman” had said. The story is that Shakur’s older brother came to pick up Shakur from camp. Somewhere in the time that he walked in to sign out and the time that he left Shakur’s brother said that this person asked him why he was in foster care. This is a big deal because kids who are in foster care are there because their lives had been filled with unsuitable and often violent and emotional times before being taken away. I still don’t really understand why his brother would say this. I certainly did not ask him that nor did I ever even see the guy. I also know for a fact that neither Brittany nor I knew that Shakur was even in foster care. How could we? And even if she did I know that Brittany is smart enough and sensitive enough to know not to ask that. We are the only two white women, or even white people, in the camp so they were obviously targeting us. It really affected Brittany and it’s unsettling to me that anyone would just make something like that up. It will probably always remain a mystery.

The best part of the week for me came when my group was in the library. We had just played Heads Up 7 Up and it became clear that the kids did not know each other’s names. So Ms Natalie decided that she was going to change that. She started by taking one child and having them stand up and say their name and what their favorite color is. Then all the other kids had to try to remember and shout it out when asked. By the time we got through half the group the kids were chanting each others names, smiling and laughing. They were so happy to be together and so excited to know one another. That was the first time I was really able to see God in the midst of the whole week. The relationships that were forming and the happiness that was drawn from those relationships was moving. I hadn’t smiled so widely in weeks. It seemed to make everything else ok. It made me care again.

Today I slept in until 11:00 am. It was glorious. I went to the gym for the first time in a week. We went to Temple University and walked around a bit. I bought a new book at the bookstore: Blood Meridian, as per Mike’s suggestion. We saw Ratatouille and ate giant burritos. Overall it was a good day.

The subway is a dichotomy of man’s ingenuity and man’s carelessness. What were once shining and new train cars are now dirty and dank as they pass through graffiti ridden walls into the depths. The trains passing by at such high speeds give the feeling of excitement but it is coupled with the feeling of complete surrender to the will of the car. With one token you have the power to go anywhere but you are helpless subject to anything that goes on inside your section. There is much debate inside me as to whether or not I enjoy the subway.