July 27, 2015 David Rains

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A Day In The Life of Camp Jamaica

Monday

As I gazed at my watch early that Monday morning my mind began to be filled with thoughts and emotions. I wondered what my first day would be like or whether I’d be able to adjust to a different culture. I felt both anxiety and excitement for the day ahead and as I lay there pondering all of these things I eventually came to my most important realization of that morning, which was that I had overslept my alarm by fifteen minuets. The camp itself was held at Jam Villa which is located in Ocho Rios Jamaica and is just one of many villas that can be found in this gated community. Due to the amount of campers and staff staying at Jam Villa both myself and another staff member discovered that we would have to stay at another villa about fifteen minuets down the road. Thankfully I still had enough time to get ready, as I managed to make it to Jam Villa right on time to begin the day.



Wake up call was at six am for the campers, so the counselors would serve as alarm clocks to a certain degree when we went knocking on their doors in the morning. Breakfast was at 6:30 every morning and was followed up by a roughly hour and a half Christian Living class. The Christian Living classes definitely set the tone for the day, and helped to provide food for thought to chew on throughout the day. After Christian Living it was time to begin the first activity of camp, which was a trip to the beach. The beach was about a 10-minute walk from Jam Villa, it was a narrow stretch of beach with a few boats dotted along the shoreline left by fishermen. The surf and sun were as warm and inviting as the people that were there with me. After this we then headed back just in time for my second favorite meal of the day…. lunch. We followed up lunch with a couple of hours of pool/free time, where the campers got to enjoy the beautiful amenities that our facility had to offer such as the in ground pool and basketball court. Then at 4:00 we headed out as a camp for our community service project, they paired us up (counselor with camper) and began to walk around the gated community of villas picking up trash and debris that had collected near the roadside. This was a great opportunity for us to not only provide a service to the community but also to really bond with the campers and get to know them better. My bag was filled with so much trash that it eventually ripped right down the middle, which led to some chuckles from the campers since it meant I had to practically hug this garbage to keep it from spewing out on the road.  Upon arriving back at Jam Villa we enjoyed a delicious dinner, which was followed up by a writing class for the campers.



The final activity of the day was a compass check with the campers, the counselors took this time to chat about the day and discuss what we liked about the day or what we could improve upon, but more than anything else it provided both the campers and the staff an opportunity to talk about and learn from our experiences. And as we said amen after our final prayer and I began to walk back to my room all the fear and anxiety that I felt at the beginning of the day seemed to melt away. Before I went to sleep that night I did two things, I double-checked that my alarm was on and I thanked God once again for providing me with such an amazing opportunity.