First Week of Camp Recap

So after a disastrous Monday trip, the rest of "travel camp" went relatively well. Tuesday we went to a Science Center that was more designed for 9 and up than 6-8 year olds, but the kids seemed to enjoy it none-the-less. Wednesday we took the kids to Taunus Wonderland Park (an amusement park for kids with mostly self automated rides). The fact that most rides moved of their own accord w/o an attendant around was a bit scary for me, but again the kids seemed to have fun so that's all that's important. Thursday we took the kids to the pool on base and spent the majority of 5 hours playing in the 2 feet pool. I did get to use my lifeguard skills, which is a good thing and a bad thing. One of the boys really wanted to swim in the deep end and although he hadn't passed the swim test another Youth Programs leader had told him as long as a counselor is with him he could be over there...bad idea...he and a friend decided to swim to the middle of the pool and back...he got out there fine but when it came time to swim back he freaked out and couldn't swim anymore. He quickly splashed over to the nearest lane line and was clinging to it for dear life...well instead of jumping in to save him like a good lifeguard should, the lifeguard on duty continued to blow her whistle at him to get off the lane line. I was looking at her horrified while keeping my eye on him waiting for her to recognize that the kid was in great distress and the whistle blowing was doing more damage than good. So I swam over to him and pulled him to the side (which is much more difficult without a lifeguard tube). I told him he needed to go back to the kiddie pool if he was going to try stuff like that again and instead of listening to me and getting out he ran over and tried to get on the diving board. It was a very long day at the pool.
Today we took the kids to Spyre Imax and Museum where the kids got to watch an Imax film about Dolphins...only problem is the movie was in German...but the dolphins swimming aroud was enough to entertain most. The museum was mostly planes, trains, and automobiles with a few space shuttles, helicopters, and ships. By the end of the day everyone was ready for travel camp to be over with.
Even though camp was only a week I feel like I really bonded with a few of the campers. My favorite story of the week was a little boy who was telling us about how he was born in Japan. Another counselor asked him if he knew any Japaneese phrases and the boy proudly said "yes! Como estas?" We all laughed and he looked really sad and asked "Did I say it wrong?" and we told him no, that was just spanish. So he exclaimed "I can speak spanish?!" It was really cute.