Archive for July, 2008

As always at SAM, we’ve hit the ground running. It was wonderful to see the excitement of both new and returning campers on opening day as they took in their first few breaths of Saltash Mountain air. It wasn’’t long before the guitars were out, the hands were spotted with paints, and the tetherball was in full swing. As campers introduced themselves to their cabin mates, they found that not everyone was from just down the block. This second session SAM community is made up of 12 female and 19 male campers that have lived in California, Florida, New York, Iceland, Brazil, and France to name a few.

Sunday evening many SAMmers had their first opportunity to visit our Crafts Barn which holds an array of costumes and props as well as our arts and crafts materials. Campers donned gorilla suits, fencing masks, evening gowns, and top hats to perform “public service announcement” skits on life here at SAM: using KYBOs (outhouses), the water front, and 5th Freedom (freedom of expression without fear of judgment).

SAMmers were soon off to their cabins for “Cabin Discussions”. Campers are given the opportunity to provide input on how they would prefer life in the cabin to be. A few of the discussed norms included “no teasing”, “doing your part with chores”, and “make every camper feel welcome”. Cabins will often revisit this contract they all are a part of creating.

Monday was full of excitement as we spent the day gearing up for Cabin Trips. Campers started by reviewing maps and scouring over the itineraries for their first trips. After making some tough decisions around the preferred trip menu items (“Two days from now, will I want cream cheese or jam on my bagel?)”, campers were off to see the Mac-O-Bac Mamma, our gear specialist, to gather all group supplies, test stoves, set up tents, and pack food. Other activities in preparation for the trips included some canoe training, otherwise known as “tippy tests”, and some fun games to begin the process of becoming a functional group. It’’s amazing what you can learn with some blindfolds, a couple of old socks, and 10 ft of spare rope! We closed Monday with an adventurous tour of SAM camp, aka “The Magical Mystery Tour”, in which each place of interest held a new obstacle to overcome. Once completed, campers would get a clue to send them to the next location until all areas of camp were visited.

Tuesday campers awoke to sunshine and chocolate birthday cake (of course after a well balanced breakfast). The morning activity included deciphering phrases referencing our upcoming trips from a multitude of our represented languages, including Japanese, Icelandic, Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, American Sign, Latin, and Hebrew. This was a perfect transition into departure. Cabins set off on foot, by canoe, and by van for three-day adventures in the surrounding Green Mountains. The Questers, our expeditions program for campers ages 15 and up, set off for their twenty-day adventure canoeing, backpacking, and rock climbing in the Adirondacks of New York!

Even in the midst of all of this activity it was the many acts of kindness that I observed from camper to camper that stood out most. I saw campers continually reaching out and helping each other with packing, doing chores, and supporting those who are feeling a little overwhelmed by the sudden change of environment. Many SAM staff have commented on how supportive and helpful they find this group of campers to be.

We thank you again for the experiences we are able to have with these great campers.

Huge smiles, bountiful joy, and an amazing number of stories were shared by campers and counselors as they returned from their Week Two trips last Thursday. These trips are designed to be more challenging than the cabin trips; they last four days, go to locations further from camp, are a co-ed mixture of kids from different cabins, and are created knowing that all campers have had a chance to learn and review basic camping skills. In addition, there is always the unexpected . . . Counseling skills are often what make these anticipated and unanticipated occurrences into important “teachable moments.” Based on how campers looked when they came back to camp, and what they spoke about in our evening circle, the challenges they encountered during these Week two trips became VERY POSITIVE learning experiences. Some of the nuggets of wisdom that brought smiles to our faces and convinced us that the “magic of SAM” was being transmitted, are written below:

“You know the saying, ‘you can’t tell a book by its cover,’ well, it is really true. All of us stereotype to some degree. But, on trips, we have a chance to really meet people and get to know them beyond how we might just have thought of them when we first met them.”

“I learned that teamwork was really important for our group. By working together we were able to deal with the challenges on our trip.”

“Amelia (a SAM counselor) has a saying that ‘There is no such thing as bad weather or good weather, just different weather.’ I found out that that was true on our trip. One of our best hikes was 4-1/2 miles done in the rain.”

“I was scared when I found out that I was on the Mt. Abe trip, because I didn’t think that I could do the hard hiking. But, I found out that if I worked really hard at it, I was able to accomplish more than I thought that I could.”

Whether they were hanging onto a rock face, on a peak above treeline, or on the Connecticut River in the valley of the mountains, campers on all trips were also touched and spoke about the natural beauty they encountered. One camper, while packing up the food for his Week Three trips, remarked, “Now that I know so much about camping, I am going to take my family on a camping trip.”

These Week Two trips have had a great impact on developing our community and our in-camp life. When we are at SAM, some of our morning is spent doing “Asanas”—SAM speak for chores. Additionally, some of the senior campers are given the role of Asana Guides, and after doing their own chore with their cabin, check up on how a specific other chore was completed. Their findings are reported out each morning following Silent Meeting. One of the Asana Guide responsibilities, held by three campers this session, is to be the camp “Social Barometer,” reporting on how campers are living and acting as a community. Their assessment following our trips: “People seem to be getting along much better. There is much less bickering, picking on people, and staying just with one group of friends. Campers are really going out of their way to help someone out.”

While relaxing and fun, the in-camp experience was a short one this time around in order to have a third round of trips go out and return before Visiting Day. Still, we were able to fit in a “Beach Day,” active games in the field, beading and bracelet making, as well as a night of group building games and an evening of male/female discussion groups. Additionally, a group of 11 campers were able to visit the F&W’s Barn Day Camp in Plymouth to help with barn chores, hang out with the animals, and do some incredible hill rolling at the F&W fairgrounds.

As we write, campers are again out of camp. There is one four-day trip to a section of the Long Trail in Vermont where they will stay two days on a pond, and day hike up a mountain with a fire tower that, on a clear day, affords incredible views of Southern Vermont. (Back in camp, this group will be treated to a somewhat secret 24-hour set of adventures). The other two groups are on five-day trips to points further from camp. One group is canoeing in the Adirondacks. (“Wow, we get to go back to New York,” was the humorous reply from a couple of New York City-dwelling campers.) The last group is hiking in the Franconia Range of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, on a trip that will provide both wonderful views and exciting swimming.

We will have everyone back in camp by Friday evening, in time to welcome our visitors and guests this weekend. For everyone else who will be here, we are really looking forward to spending some time at camp with you while you visit with your child. It is still a few days out, but the weather is forecasted to be great. Hope you have a good week. We sure are!

“I learned that even when you encounter the unexpected, if you work together with friends, you can have fun. . .” “I learned that it really helps if everyone pitches in and shares the weight when someone is having a hard time. . .” “I learned that even though my chocolate didn’t totally melt, banana boats are a really good camping treat.”

Returning to camp from trips is full of ritual at SAM. Groups pack-in (clean up food containers, return group gear, and hang up wet tents, tarps and clothes) and then are treated to any mail they may have received when they were gone. The sauna is cranking, and the showers plentiful. Campers and counselors reconnect and hear and share tales of adventures. In the evening, we gather around the fire, each group presenting their “trip skit or song,” a usually comical version of the past few days’ experiences. The trip skits for the 3-day cabin trips were excellent, providing laughs as well as some sense of the challenges each group had encountered. When campers were then asked to think and talk about what kind of learning about them or others the trips had provided, their insights included those quoted above.

Friday and Sunday were our first, genuine “regular” in-camp days. We were blessed with weather that encouraged and allowed most campers to visit the waterfront to swim or canoe. Campers also built Andy Goldsworthy-inspired fairy houses, learned some sign language, played three-legged soccer, did some water color painting, and/or began carving a wooden spoon. On Friday morning, a small group of campers worked with counselors to help develop the outline for our Interdependence Day skit.

For a variety of programmatic reasons, Farm and Wilderness celebrates the July 4^th holiday on the first Saturday of camp. Renamed “Interdependence Day,” it includes activities that emphasize the concepts we try to teach at camp over the summer—our interdependence on fellow campers, the other camps of F&W, and other people in our lives, as well as our interdependence on the natural world around us. On Interdependence Day, all of the camps gather together in the evening to share something of ourselves that we have worked on as a camp. We also eat ice cream, play together, socialize and dance. Additionally for SAM, the tradition involves writing and performing an original skit, and hiking the nine miles to Indian Brook the day of the celebration, stopping at the center of Plymouth (near President Calvin Coolidge’s childhood home) to eat lunch and practice our performance.

This year’s skit was an Indiana Jones spin-off—Samdiana Jones—and was a fantastical story about the quest to bring back self-made music to end the encroachment of electronic music that had taken place at Farm and Wilderness in its absence. From making props to speaking lines to holding sign cards and singing the final song, every camper and staff pitched in and had an important role. An evening thunderstorm turned out to be a wonderful opportunity for us to perform twice– once for Indian Brook after we enjoyed dinner together, and later at the square dance barn for most of the other F&W campers and staff. The feedback about our skit—about the nature of the topic, the cleverness of the plot, the delivery of the lines, and our wonderful costumes and props—was incredibly positive. Working hard and working together to pull this success off was a proud accomplishment for all of us at SAM.

We didn’t have too long to sit back and relish in our pride, however. On Monday, new co-ed trip groups were announced, and they met to go over itineraries, create menus and pack their gear. On Tuesday, everyone again hit the trail. These trips are four days long. They include a hiking trip over a section of the Long Trail in Vermont that affords beautiful views, a canoe trip on the Connecticut River, and a rockclimbing trip that after practicing skills on a low ropes course and the climbing chimney at the Plymouth camps, is off to use these skills at a place called Silverlake, north of us in Vermont. Each of these groups is assuredly having adventures as I type. I look forward to watching their skits, hearing their stories, and probing the insights they will bring back with them to camp.

Last Monday, as we sat in staff meeting, it was amazing to review all the wonderful things that had happened in a week. I want to be honest with you that though this e-mail gives you the outline of what we are up to, it does not begin to compare to the richness and spiritedness of the experience. SAM Camp this month is an active, creative, thoughtful and happy place to be!