Happy camper

By the middle of June I had already started wearing my Hannah Montana watch.

It was still a little worn out from last summer and matched perfectly with the rest of my I-don’t-care-what-I-look-like camp wardrobe. But most importantly, I was sure that this would be the clincher to convince the nine six-year-olds I was about to meet that I was the coolest counselor at camp.

Sitting at lunch just two hours into kayitz alpayim v’teisha (summer 2009), the first of these pint-sized girls noticed the rhinestone-encrusted face of my watch and the ubiquitous blonde “rock star” adorning it.

“You like Hannah Montana?!” her high-pitched voice combined with a look of incredulity.

“Duh!” I replied, in my well-rehearsed squealy-girl imitation. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “But you’re…old!”

I couldn’t argue there: she was right. At 19, I was a full three years older than one of my co-counselors, a rising junior who hadn’t even begun to think about SAT preparation yet, let alone her potential college major and career path. Why was I, a college sophomore, spending my summer inhaling pizza at 10:45 in the morning when I have no idea what I want to be when I “grow up”? Doesn’t a college student’s definition of summertime read “three months of withering away behind a desk to forge networking connections and resume-building experiences in exchange for little-to-no pay”?

For most students, a hopefully eye-opening internship is the easy choice. The summer decision’s always been an easy one for me too, and it’s always camp. Camp Ramah in Nyack, New York is one of ten summer programs in North America affiliated with the Ramah branch of the Jewish Conservative movement. It’s a unique concept of “camp” as most youngsters, tweens, and teenagers know it. Day by day, Ramah creates an ideal balance between learning and playing by instilling both Jewish and secular values in entertaining and recreational activities. A typical day includes t’filah (prayers) and swimming; shiur (class with esteemed Jewish educators) and art; brachot (blessings) and sports.

In many cases, the two-month Ramah experience has been shown to affect campers more strongly than a year-round Jewish education, and the considerable amount of former campers on staff is a testament to that statistic. But I wasn’t a lifelong Ramahnick. So, why do I load my car with a duffle and a suitcase every June to spend two months in a bunk bursting with mold and mildew and mess?

For me, it’s all about the people, campers and staff alike. Even among the specialness of the Ramah organization, Ramah Nyack is unique. From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. it is a day camp for kids aged 4-13, but from 4 p.m. to 9 a.m. it becomes a sleep away camp for staff.

During the day, we get the opportunity to infuse our campers with the enthusiasm, energy, and teaching that make our camp singular among typical American summer programs. After 4 p.m., the same level of activity is available to the older set. The counselors become the campers and participate in both structured activities (staff climbs at the ropes course, heated games of basketball, trips to Broadway shows) and copious amounts of time to relax and get to know each other in a comfortable, welcoming setting. The community that spontaneously forms among the staff contributes to the magic of camp as much as the calculated pre-summer scheduling does.

Every year I contemplate getting a “real job” for the summer—one that doesn’t allow me to wear eight-year-old stained t-shirts or play kickball in the rain. But after every summer I am reminded that being a counselor is as real as it gets. We spend seven hours a day looking after children who come to camp each morning with smiles from ear to ear and expectations just as large. Our job isn’t simply to remind them to put on sunscreen after they swim or to console them when they don’t get their favorite ice pop flavor. We engage them—spelling out “Feel Better” so they can write cards to their sick bunkmates, listening to their six-year-old fascinations with God and the world around them, being an unconditionally patient friend and role model.

As CampRamah.org puts it, “Ramah impacts over 9,000 campers and staff every summer.” For three years I have been lucky enough to be on both sides of those vital impressions, affecting the lives of my campers and friends and benefitting from my contact with both as well. So while it was sometimes hard to tell friends of my parents that I was spending my first collegiate summer as a camp counselor, like Hannah Montana says, “It’s all about the climb.”

The author is a Barnard College sophomore. “Happy camper” is an installment of Summer Dispatches, an opinion feature series that seeks to showcase the diverse summer experiences of members of the Columbia community.