Camps

I've been forced to go to 2 camps in the past 6 months. Honestly, that is too much for a normal human being of my age. I spent 4 years of my life digging holes in the ground and collecting sticks for fire. Nowadays, I just want to sleep in a real bed. But no, they want me to sleep on the ground, to pee in the bushes, to learn about leadership and teamwork. Don't get me wrong, I love nature... it is the communal aspect of camp that scares me the most. They keep wanting me to TALK to SHARE to OPEN UP. The most recent camp even forced me to write a reflection paper on what I have learnt. So here goes... watch me transform what I hate most about camp, into something to be advocated for.

Talk

Walking and talking, that is what we did. Sitting and talking, cooking and talking, helping and talking, that is what we did. For two days, we talked, and we talked, and we talked. We talked about school, about dreams, about our disappointments and our triumphs. We talked at the base of the hill, mid way up the hill and at the peak of the hill. There were many attempts by both instructors and uBuddies alike, to relate our climbing of a physical hill to the metaphorical journey of ups and downs that life is. I see the connection in the talking. On the hill as in life, we are constantly talking, constantly striving to confirm our identity in other people’s affirmations, constantly striving to build the social connections that are so fundamental to our mental health. So we talk.

From all the talking, different identities, personalities across the spectrum start taking shape. The more we talk, the more detail gets etched into our sketch in other people’s minds. We start filling out, becoming multi-dimensional, our bodies swelling with words. Through talking, we exist, we become real.

When we talk, we gain new understanding into our experiences, our hurts, and our carefully nursed wounds. Talking helps us re-organize the information in our minds. Talking opens closed doors and creates a path for revival. When we talk and others listen, it feels undeniably good.

Therein lies the secret behind a caring campus – the power of talking. Talking is therapeutic, and it establishes connections with others. So, uBuddies talk. We talk to reach out, to help, to change. We talk to the school body via e-mails, we talk via signboards, and we talk with mouths, our hands and our hearts. Most importantly, uBuddies listen to other people talk, because we know the power behind speech. So we talk.

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My duplicity and ability to conform never cease to amaze me.