Avispea Camp

The last 5 days have been full of camp life. On Wednesday, Matt, Lea, Kadri, Anne, Jana and I departed for a little town called Avispea in Northern Estonia for our first childrens camp of the summer. When we first got there we had a small meeting, then went to sleep. The next day we had to start setting up everything. The kids started to arrive around 3:00 P.M. It took a little while for them all to arrive. I helped some of the kids set up their tents. In all there were about 30 kids at the camp. Not too many, but it was still a reasonable amount considering the area. Not much happened the first day. We had a small camp meeting and went over all the rules and schedules and all the other things that were involved in the camp. After the meeting we started to play some small games to get to know each other. The kids were already warming up, and getting hyper. Most of them already knew each other anyway. They asked me lots of questions like who I was, where I was from, what I was doing there, and all sorts of other curious questions. I couldn’t really answer them because they were talking really fast, and I obviously didn’t speak the same language. When night time came, the kids had to go to their tents and go to sleep. I stayed up to help do nightwatch. The first night was the worst. Kids just wouldn’t go to sleep. They were laughing and talking, and keeping as busy as they possibly could. I stayed up until about 1:30 A.M. I was dead tired.

The next morning I woke up and went outside. Breakfast was already ready. I was so tired I could barely walk. Supposedly some boys had snuck out of their tent at about 3:00 A.M to go to some girls’ tent to play cards. They were required to sleep in the church for the rest of the camp. Today was the first full camp day. The schedule for each day was fairly simple. First breakfast, then a short Bible study. Next was group time. Then free time. And after that was lunch. By lunch time we were all pretty tired. After lunch, games started. Then there was another bible study, and them small groups. Next was sports. I was in charge of teaching and leading the sports games. The first day, I taught wiffleball. It was a little slow at first, but when it got going, everyone was really enjoying it. After sports was snack time and then free time. Then came dinner. It started to cool down around dinner.

After dinner was the campfire. The campfire was really cool. All the small groups put on their own skits, and songs, and other things. We played some games, and usually had some type of campfire snack like smoked fish, marshmellows or baked potatoes. The campfire lasted about 2 hours and some nights even longer. Finally, the kids were sent to there tents around 10:00 or 10:30 P.M. I didn’t do night watch this time.

When I woke up the next morning I wasn’t nearly as tired as I was the day before. This day was really hot. It was about 35 degrees celcius which is about 95 degrees farenheight. It made the whole day much harder. Even worse, we discovered that sometime during the night, the well had either run dry or the pump had broken. From this point on, we had to drive to a neigbhor’s house with a 50 gallon tank three times a day in order to get enough water for the cooking, cleaning and drinking water. Everyone was tired, and didn’t want to do much. When it came time for sports, I wasn’t even sure if they wanted to play. I decided to teach ultimate frisbee. Some of them already knew how to play, which made it alot easier. It actually went much better than I had planned. They wanted to play girls versus boys. It was really fun. The girls actually did fairly well. They scored the first point. But then the boys came storming back to win 5 to 4.

They rest of the day was fairly slow becasue of the hot temperature. After the first Bible study, we surprised the kids and told them were going to take them swimming at a nearby lake. It felt so good to swim in such hot weather. It was also a great way to wash the fish/sweat/dirt stink off of our 30 little kids. At the lake, there were tiny little frogs all over the place. They were about the size of youre pinky nails. There were thousands of them, swimming in the water, and laying in the sun, and hiding under a big log. It was really cool.

Later, back at the campfire, we played a game that was really fun. We made a big circle of people, and everyone had o join hands. In the middle of the circle was a bucket, and on top of the bucket was a plastic container. The point of the game was to pull and push as much as you could, and try to get the person next to you to bump the bucket, and knock over the plastic container. You also had to keep a good grip of the hand of the people to your left and right becasue if your hands slipped loose, you both went out. It was everyone’s favorite game. We played it multiple times every day.

Sunday morning was our last day of camp and I woke up sick. I had eaten some unripe gooseberries from a bush that the kids had showed me, and … well I’m sure you get the idea. Nevertheless, at 11:00 A.M, there was going to be a short church service that the kids were helping to put on. They sang some songs and did some skits. I spoke a little, but it was very short. After church, it was free time until 3:00 P.M when the kids would have to start being transported back to the nearby towns. We played lots of games, and frisbee, and went on this enourmous swing. Then the time came when the kids had to start leaving. They asked me questions like if I was comming back, or If I would write to them. I wasn’t sure if I was actually comming back so I just answered “maybe”. After another hour or so, all the kids were gone. It had been a long tiresome camp, but I enjoyed it.