Camp 2024

My camp diary

Day Two – Sunday, 28.7

It rained all night but I was actually really comfortable and completely dry. At this point (early morning), the rain has stopped, I’ve gotten dressed and I’m about to go outside. I still need to finish taking camp photos of all the water stuff.

As I mentioned last night, the plan for today is to meet the kids at the train station, ride the train and bring them to camp!

I’ve decided to try to keep track of all of the meals for each day, too, so here is the menu for today:

Breakfast: Kolače and gingerbread made my Klara and Neptun. Lunch: Vegetable risotto with potatoes Snack: Bread with butter and cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes Dinner: Brambory gulas with klobasa, rohlik

It’s now laaaate evening and the day started SO long ago that I can’t even remember what happened. No doubt I’ve left out half of it. In the morning, I finished taking camp photos and then had breakfast. After that, I helped hang signs in all of the tents: “How to Properly Clean Your Tent”. They were cute, with Indian themed designs which was great because the camp theme this year is the Native Americans. We also got our Indian costumes sorted out and I love mine. An Indian costume, complete with a belt, beaded necklace and a headband sort of thing with more beads and feathers.

Kejmi, Neptun, Honza and I got dressed in our Indian costumes and we all headed to the train station in Chornice to meet the kids. When we arrived, I helped Jitka to collect health forms and medications, then we got on the train! 3 adults and 31 kids! It was nice that even the kids who had arrived at camp the day before came on the train too so that it really was everyone arriving together to camp.

So from Chornice, we went through Moravska Trebova and I absolutely have to mention the bike storage tower that I saw. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Even more amazing is that the cost to use it is 5czk. Definitely subsidized by the government, both Czech and EU but so nice. I wish we had one in Tisnov.

We continued on and soon arrived in Trpik after about an hour on the train. While Neptun, Kejmi and I were on the train, the others had rushed back to camp, changed into their Indian costumes and were at the train platform waiting for us. As we walked from the station into the field, we paused as Klara started banging on a drum and introduced the kids to their theme for the next 10 days at camp. She explained that everyone was being divided into 4 tribes of the Sioux Nation (Lakota, Wakota, Nakota and Dakota) and they would be working in their tribes during camp. Each tribe was an even mix of boys and girls of all ages.

Most of the kids had brought snacks on the train but we still had a mid- afternoon snack. We then moved into a 2-hour block of activities. In the first hour, two tribes were off with their leaders getting a tour of camp and getting settled in and the other two tribes were with Jitka and I painting their own tribal costumes in the form of khaki coloured t-shirts and stencils. Each tribe was done with one animal and colour so they were easily recognisable. The animals were bear, deer, wolf and bison.

After that, we had some spare time so we opted for one of the games I brought where each kid is given a paper with characteristics and had to get signatures from other people who met them. i.e. Someone who has a dog. Each person could only sign on a sheet once and the goal was to get the most signatures. It was a lot of fun and even though some of the kids were shy with me at first, most of them came up to ask for a signature. They were divided up into age groups for “winning” purposes. Overall winner was Bara Brucknerova who managed to get 19 signatures, then Honza got 15 from the R/R group and Lenicka and Amalka worked together and got 13 signatures. This was new to the kids and so they really enjoyed it.

Next was dinner. By this point, everyone was really hungry so everyone was very enthusiastic. Throughout the rest of the evening, there was a welcome campfire and the kids picked out their Indian names. I forgot to mention earlier that mine was Bila Holubice - White Dove named after the camp song, “Running Bear”. Right before bedtime, Klara sat down to start reading some stories to the kids and at this point, Evgen arrived dressed in a great Indian costume as Velky Orel. The kids were introduced to him and some of the Indian story line (more later) but all were enthusiastic.

It’s past 11pm at this point, and everyone knows my bedtime is 9pm! I wouldn’t change a thing though. Today was great. Klara is an amazing camp director and I’ve already managed to baffle people with all of the extra supplies I’ve brought. And now…sleeeeeeeppppp…..