Reflections on Camp Killoqua

In a nutshell: I really really liked Camp Killoqua, and it's definitely very high on my list of places to work next summer.

But I tried to delve into the reasons that made me enjoy it so much. I've come up with a couple of possibilities.

First, everything that happens there constitutes to a sense of family. Obviously, after spending a full week with the same people from morning to night, you get to know them pretty well. But a lot of other things too. At meals, the head of the table serves you food and the foot of the table serves you drinks. You don't sit with the same people every meal, but between serving food, watching for the seconds box, passing dirty plates, and the conversations that take place, there is enough interaction that you feel pretty tight with those people by the end of the meal, and for the rest of the week you'll greet them passing by on campgrounds. That's definitely something that's missing from my life.

Second, I love the whole deal with the singing. Singing graces before a meal, teaching songs after a meal, singing before leaving the table, and, most of all, serenade, where the counselors and CITs go around to each cabin group and sing the campers to sleep. It's an interesting dynamic that's created. Flipping through the songbook that Frog gave me, some of the songs are quite morbid. My personal favorite (and also wildly popular among many of the campgoers and counselors) is Char's Song, and it was adapted from a military farewell song. There's one line that goes "some of us, I know, are bound to die." In this sense, Killoqua felt quite raw and transparent--there was no beating around the bush when it comes to sad matters. Many of the songs use lyrics along the lines of "this is goodnight and not goodbye" with a camp-is-ending-but-not-the-friendship notion. It's humbling and down-to-earth, and definitely a bit melancholy. Even so, there is just so much joy. And being surrounded by people who smile in the face of sadness makes me that much stronger and capable of enjoying myself in spite of (what I perceive as) shit in my life. I can really appreciate what I have.

Third, it is so easy to fit in there. The traditions are easy enough to pick up, and typical barriers to interpersonal interaction are nonexistent. While I was there, there were some 5 or 6 foreign counselors (hailing from Great Britain, Ireland, and New Zealand) as well as maybe 6 states represented. Furthermore, the ages of the counselors ranged from 18 to 40. Yet, even the 8-year-old campers got along with the adults as if they've been childhood friends from years. The camp names tradition is wonderful: all counselors and CITs get a camp name, an alias they go by among each other and the campers. In fact, some of the counselors don't even know the real names of the other counselors. I really liked this because you could see some of the traits or personality of the person reflected in their name, and, as far as I can tell, made everyone more comfortable and open in this new identity. Whatever the hiring process is there, it works, because the counselors are all crazy and fun yet (for the most part) responsible, and when you get a lot of people who are willing to be crazy in public, everyone else who wants to be crazy (aka be themselves) but normally subdues it will be crazy too!

All in all, I had a great time there, and I'm planning on applying for a job there next summer. I don't know what opportunities college will open up, but I can certainly see myself passing up jobs with better pay to work there because it's just a relaxing, carefree environment.