Camp

After a 14 hour flight from NZ, jumping on a ferry and 30something hours without sleep, arriving to camp was super exhausting!, but at the same time so fun! The first few days were all about getting to meet and know new people, sus out the camp property and catch up on some much needed sleep. There were around 300 or so staff that worked at this camp throughout the summer from many different parts of the world. There were people from Ireland, Australia, Brazil, America, New Zealand and obviously from all over Canada to just name a few. Shaunpaul sat in their cabin and quietly smiled and grinned at eachother, they had stretched their little NZ legs and made it to their first destination of their Canadian adventure. Camp!

Camp Qwanoes as it is called, is a Christian based camp that runs all summer long and caters for kids from the ages of like 8-18. The way it works is that a bunch of 400 or so kids in similar age brackets, pile of the buses from all over (mostly Canada) and stay a week doing loads of fun stuff, sleeping in sweet cabins with their counselors and hopefully walking away with a relationship, or knowing a lil bit more about the big dude upstairs. Then they all go home and it happens all over again week after week with new batches of kid’s right throughout the summer! The property has loads of activities for kids to do, housing and catering for its staff and is set in a mint location next to a super nice waterfront with sik scenery (lots of trees) and abundant wildlife all around. Can’t beat.
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Shauns title at camp was “Events Co-ordinator” Sik title huh…sounds flashy. His job was to help organize, co-ordinate and facilitate the happenings of the camps main event games and activities, generally held on the field, down at the water or running around camp, that all the kids would participate in week in and week out. He loved it bigtime!, and it totally suited to his skills, personality and enthusiasm! He was stoked with the people that he worked with and they were stoked with him. Freakin fun and good times!

My title was “Skatepark Leader” Not as official when on your resume as ‘Events Co-ordinator’ but a much cooler job title I must admit. My job was to hang out and skate with the kids at the skatepark during the day, teach them how to skate, get the equipment and the skatepark ready for skating and make sure everybody was safe. This was a sik job! I had lots of little rippers carving up both the skatepark and me! It was a humbling experience having a 12 year old tear you to pieces but I was stoked when I had them show me a thing or too.

So this was it. Canada! Not knowing what was ahead for Shaunpaul after camp, he soaked up the Canadian summer and was quietly stoked after making his first step out of little old New Zealand. Choice as.

1st week at camp

Cabins. Beach. Dock. New. Camp.