Burning Ovaries of Desire!

The above title a nice quotation by yours truly while out with nearly half the camp staff (and all of the camp bosses) last night.

The buzzword over here is, "Safe" so I thought I'd write about it, as it's been re-defined for me over the last 4 days. When I used to think of 'safe' I used to think of being physically safe from harm and being safe was being cautious (so as to ensure that no physical harm would come to me). Safe means those things here, but it means a good deal more too. Because we're taking kids who are in circumstances that put them in the most extreme categories of 'at-risk' (the application that must be filled out is weighted HEAVILLY in favor of those children who have insanely difficult circumstances, one example is that any child with a parent in jail gets an automatic acceptance) the biggest part of our job is to let them be real kids... kids like we were. That means they have to be more than just physically safe, they have to be emotionally safe and secure, perhaps even moreso. And that puts my job into a new light. Because the camp is secluded and because I'm a pretty big guy, I have no doubts about keeping these kids physically safe. I can put them in lifejackets, ensure their harnesses are secure for the ropes course and I can typically spot a fist-fight long before it ever breaks out, but I'll be damned if I can spot a kid's feelings getting hurt. One more emotional scar.

Maybe I'll learn some ways during training, before camp actually starts. I certainly hope so. I hope to update again sometime this weekend or possibly early next week. We're going camping tonight so that should be interesting and we're supposed to be meeting up in about 10 minutes to get packing lists so I need to wind this up.

Take care guys, and may you all be... safe.