So after Cochrane Ty and I stayed at Kim's house over the weekend because the next camp was at her home church while Katie went back to Calgary. We actually had volunteer orientation this week in crossfield, yay! I got to see Louie (from last year) again, love that guy haha. We had several young volunteers but most of them had done it before so they knew what they had to do. That night Bev (my boss) was also there and told me that she might be moving one of the coaches to edmonton to help run a AIA soccer clinic. My team decided that I would go if it ever came down to it. That night Ty and I headed to our billets house. We discovered that we would be staying inside an old trailer, which made it pretty inconvenient. We had to go in the house to shower, and use the bathroom and stuff like that. The beds weren't the most comfortable, and that night I was freezing and really hoping I'd be moved to Edmonton LOL.
So day 1 at crossfield we had just under 30 kids with lots of volunteers, which included my head coach from last year. (so 5 AIA coaches) We ran the typical day of camp while Bev was on the phone with the big boss deciding my fate for the week. After a while it started raining REALLY hard and we had to pack it up. We drove the kids to the church and actually managed to have lots of fun still with random games. Just before lunch Bev told me that I would be heading to Edmonton not for the soccer clinic (fell through) but to join the other Alberta team. It was a bitter sweet moment I guess. It sucked that I would have to ditch Ty in that terrible trailer and that I would have to leave my team for the week. It was also kind of disappointing for me because I was really starting to making a lot of connections with the kids at camp already. On the other hand I'd get to head back to Edmonton, and work with my old teammate Lane, who is now head coach.
So after almost 3 hours of driving with my boss (and her trying to convince me to be head coach haha) we finally get to Edmonton. I wasn't able to be billeted with Lane and Esteban (the other male coach) so I stayed with Bev's good friend in the south side. I was told the camp was near taylor seminary and the church partnership was with Renessiance church.
So I started camps in Edmonton on a tuesday because I did monday at Crossfield. Right away there were a few diferences, the field had no nets, the field was also in pretty poor condition. When I arrived on the second day, I gelled really well with coaches and volunteers but felt like I couldn't gel with the kids. It was a really weird experience for me because that's never happened to me before at a camp and I always connect really well with kids. I asked a few kids if they wanted to play pass before camp started and they pretty much all said no. I felt like the camp was lacking energy, and a lot of the kids didn't really want to be there. My small group was pretty difficult to handle too, mainly because i had a group of 5-6 year old girls who either wouldn't be listening or would be chatting away. At the end of the day I shared a bit of my frustration with my team and my boss, and we prayed about it. Throughout the week I continued to try to find one kid to connect with but without much luck. Usually kids come up to me at lunch or while I'm setting up stations just to talk to me and bond but there wasn't much of that this week, and I must admit I was a bit discouraged. I just convinced myself that some camps were harder to work in than others, and this must have been one of those camps. But to be fair it wasn't like the camp was terrible, everything ran smoothly and the kids weren't bad. A lot of the younger ones just didn't want to be at camp, so it was like pulling teeth to get them to participate.
I was so excited on friday that it was the last day. Surprisingly on this day, some of the kids started opening up finally and it was great to finally be able to connect with them. When camp was over, a lot of them even came over to give me hugs and say their goodbyes, which was something I didn't expect. I was pretty sad to see them go too, as I am at the end of every camp. Of course you do get pretty attached to the kids you spend a week with no matter who they are, the weird ones, the cute ones, the good ones, and even the too cool to talk to you ones.
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