But then, I didn't tell many of you that I was going, did I?
So, for the last two weeks I've been busy on a kids camp, here in Melbourne.
(Four hours out of it, that is. Approximately. Near a rather small town by name of Sale.)
I had one of the hard jobs...
...or so I thought at the outset.
Ever tried to tidy up after approximately 210 assorted kids, counsellors and staff? When they're separated into two sites, about two minutes by foot apart?
The older groups--high school kids--were at the upper campsite, which was smaller in size but actually quite a bit nicer (at least as far as the rooms, that is). Perhaps 70 in total, including some staff members.
The younger kids--grades three through seven--were at the larger lower campsite, perhaps 120-150 in total. The youngest went home after the first week, though.
And man, but could they make a mess!
I actually had two jobs. The first (and more important, really) was supervision of the kitchen to ensure all the cooking was done in accordance with Judaism's strict dietary laws. This involved (mostly) popping in and out of the kitchen to let the non-Jewish kitchen staff know I was there, checking the lettuce/cabbage/broccoli for bugs, checking the eggs for blood spots and lighting the stoves/ovens for the first time in the mornings. There was also some product checking against a list of known kosher items.
Then there was the floors of the dining rooms (both of them) and prayer/learning/common use rooms (both of them, too) which were totally my responsibility to keep clean and tidy. Lotsa work, no kidding there. I even used to keep an eye on who was messier for a given meal, the seniors (who were fewer and older) or the juniors (who were numerically superior and age--and hence behaviour--inferior); somewhat surprisingly, the seniors won more than a few rounds.
(No, I didn't keep score, so I don't know who won. Yes, you can put down the white coat. I'm not--quite--that crazy. Yet.)
Still, despite the hard work, the running around, the shortness of sleep...I recalled a story told from Jewish folklore:
A scholar travelling to Jerusalem reached a fork in the road. A young boy happened to be sitting near the road and so the scholar asked him for directions.
The boy turned and pointed to each path in turn. "That one is the short but long road. This one is the long but short road."
Puzzled, the scholar chose the first and, within a short distance, came out of the forest to a point not far from the city. But although the walls were clearly visible and apparently reachable, the remainder of the distance was covered with heavy, thorny undergrowth. After a brief attempt at finding a way through the scholar retraced his steps to the fork in the path.
"I thought you said that this was the short way!" he complained to the boy who was still seated near the road.
"No, sir--I said that it was the short but long way. It might look short, but it would take you a lot longer than this one-" the boy pointed to the other path, which after a closer look does appear more travelled "-which is longer and winding, but gets you there without all the thorns."
And so, in like vein--when I considered what the counsellors were dealing with, my job didn't seem so hard after all.
I did definitely enjoy myself. I went on a few of the off-site excursions, got to play with a bow and arrow a bit and went on the giant swing they had on-site. (You actually had to pull your own release rope after they'd hauled you up. And there's two climbing-type ropes and a full climbing harness holding you into the thing! Just as good as a rollercoaster for that first drop.)
I even got to LARP during one of the night activities, playing the Evil Inclination in attempting to stop all the campers from escaping Exile. I opted for, not a nasty, Rough Nasty Bad Evil type of character as did most of the others, but a smoother veiled menace/delayer kind. After all's said and done, delay is just as good as complete defeat in the Evil Inclination's book--and I said as much to a couple of the kids that night :-)
(And then one of the boys I knew from before camp came over to me the next morning and told me that he thought that I played the nicest Evil Inclination of the lot. Why? Because he said I'm really a very nice person at the core and so how could I really be someone or something truly nasty when I'd gone to all the trouble of helping a not-so-fit kid with a twisted ankle survive the roughest part of the hike we'd gone on together?
Shocked me to the core, that did. Out of the mouths of babes and all.
Thinking back on it, I did definitely go very soft and gentle when I came across one of the younger boys crying because he'd had an accidental collision with one of the support poles. First-aid room and an icepack for what was definitely one of the more spectacular bruises I'd ever seen.
Much of the time, though, I was a near-perpetually-grumpy guy due to lack of sleep and/or the shocking state of the place I'd be clearing up.)
I was definitely sleep-deprived when I got back (13 Jan) and I'm still short some now.
But I gotta run. Perhaps I'll stick up some pics if I can get them off the guys with the digital cameras.