Blog Editors: Ebba, George, Maor, Sjoerd, Wyatt, Zebadiah

The first days at camp 

Last Saturday, campers finally arrived at camp! It was a challenging and tiring day, considering that people had to deal with 60 new faces and a lot of other first impressions. As Benedek from Hungary said; “Everyone was sort of scared on the first day, because meeting sixty new people and seeing where you will spend the next four weeks is a very weird experience.”

The first day was a day of introduction to each other, introduction to the campus and getting used to the Camp Rising Sun feeling. Because of all these new impressions, a lot of campers had a hard time opening up in the first couple of days.  Benedek also mentioned that the evening programs we had during the first days included a lot of Icebreaker games and discussions on how we want this community to work. David from Colombia said the welcoming environment created by counselors and second years was one of the most important things when arriving at camp to feel comfortable.

Day four’s evening program was an introduction to the deeper discussions had at CRS. As second years, we provided prompts that let people open up in deep and thoughtful discussion that made campers really start to get closer. During our feedback session at the end of the night, David said: “This evening program really helped me feel like I was in a safe space, where I had people I could lean on.” As we wrap up the week and compare it to last year’s session, we are impressed and excited for what the rest of camp has in store.

In the video, we are showing how a day at camp proceeds here at Camp Rising Sun. We made a video consisting of fragments showing activities around campus, such as sports, arts, traditions we have at camp and other special activities. During the week, we second years have taken pictures and filmed our days at camp. The video was made for the readers and viewers of the blog to share some of our special daily and weekly routines at Camp. The campers and counselors are having a really good time, we are learning the meaning of what community is, and how we are making a safe and embracing environment through our activities, which are shown in the video.

Projects of the week:

Tuesday

Mapping Campfire spots - This session, the campers split  into groups. Each group gets a map without the campfire spot’s names, and digging and paving tools. They go into the woods and have to find those spots, write their names and clean the campfire area.

Wednesday & Thursday

Dining Hall Murals (Zebadiah, California)

Beaver Dam exploration team (Ebba, Minnesota)

Jack & Jill shower (Benedek, Hungary)

Repair the Old Tree House & Dock (Evan, France) (Rodrigo, Colombia)

Gazebo expansion (George, Bulgaria)

Piano Bench (Konrad,Poland)

Tent Hill Picnic Tables (Johan,Sweden)

Gaga Ball Pit (Wyatt,Vermont)

This Week’s Instructions:

Tuesday

Data Visualization (Sarah, California)

Watercolor (Olivia, Colorado)

Soccer Skills (Katleho, South Africa)

History of Camp (Rick Richter)

Wednesday

Robotics (Shannon, New York)

Baseball (Wyatt, Vermont; Marc, ; Rajvir, New York)

Improvisation (Ritam, New York)

U.S. College System (Rick Richter)

Thursday

Peace and Conflict (Emilia, Finland; Jaime, Spain)

Media Literacy (Mai Ahn, Vietnam)

Boxing 101 (Samuel, Spain)

4 Chords (Andor, Hungary)

Public Speaking (Raven, Iceland)

Saturday

Causes of War (Jonquil, Kenya)

Physical Theatre (Weronika, Poland)

Kung Fu (Tom, Germany)

Binary System (Karim, Egypt)

Guitar (George, Bulgaria; Maor, Israel)

Sunday

Bilateral Foreign Aid (Katri, Finland)

Tennis (Sjoerd, The Netherlands)

Voting Theory (Justin, New Jersey)