Week at Rocklands Centre

Monday-
We arrived at camp at about 11 and settled quickly into our orientation cabins before meeting the rest of the Solid Ground team. The day was a bit chilly and there was tea and biscuts (my fav!)waiting for us when we got to the lounge area. Shaun and Vyan, who run the camp introduced us to their team, marius, kirk, and tessa before having a quick brainstorm and lunch. We got the opportunity to face some fears and work on group dynamics by trying out the rock wall. Everyone did an awesome job and got all the way to the top, even both of our professors. Instead of being shy like I usually am in new surroundings I decided to tell Shaun that I have experience in belaying to see if he would let me help out the team during the week. HE was thrilled and had me show him what I could do, he was impressed to see that the training is the same internationally. We ended the day with an amazing braai, south african BBQ, of chicken sausage and assorted salads. Time for a good nights rest before the campers arrive.
Tuesday-
8:00 breakfast, French Toast!!!!! Thats a first.
We all brought our stuff into the cabins that we were assigned to for the rest of the week and settled in before the campers started to arrive around 10. We were expecting around 60 campers, unfortunately only 35 showed up. This in the end was a blessing we had a few that were hard to keep track of. We all met as a group and the JWU students put on a small welcome dance for all the kids, they loved it. The campers were divided into their countries, cabins, and we went off to get everyone settled. Our girls were great, they all wanted to be at camp and learn and do as much as the could from the short amount of time they had there.Camp photos were by cabin infront of our flags, our country was Switzerland. Tea break came next where we made braceltes in our group color, white. The girls got to know each other and us during this time. Freetime was pretty much a free-for-all where all our girls split up and joined their friends from school. Lunch was great, burgers and fries! We shared some icebreakers with the kids after lunch in the sports hall.
We broke into two groups and worked as a team to get a hulla-hoop around the circle with out letting go of eachothers hands. The first time it took quite a bit of time for the kids to grasp how to get the hulla-hoop around, once they caught on it only took 2min to get it around roughly 25 people. We broke for tea, again, then enjoyed more icebreakers such as the human knot and trust falls. We decided it would be fun to teach them how to play kickball. Everyone caught on quickly and had tons of fun playing until supper. The group of leaders met with Shaun and Vyan after supper to reflect on the day and solve any problems we found during the day. This was a great idea that I was surprised was scheduled into each day. I enjoy bing able to recieve and give feeback and meeting with Shaun and Vyan everyday was a great way to achieve this. A movie and popcorn was on the schedule for evening activity. Popcorn was homemade and the movie was "Cool Runnings", about an olympic Jamaican Bobsled Team. A great choice for teachig kids more about leadership, strength, and courage. Our group chatted after the movie about what they saw. Yvonne was eager to look further into the movie and give her thoughts. The others, Lindo and Joanne, seemed to sit back and let Yvonne do all the talking. We urged them by asking which character they would relate themselves
with, this helped them open up a bit.
Cocoa and Biscuts, then bedtime. All the girls showered before bed. Amber and I were thrilled with this because it meant we would be able to wake up later and shower ourselves in the morning.
Alarm at 7

Wednesday-
To our surprise the girls wanted to shower in the morning as well. They didn't mention this until both Amber and I had finished and it was already 7:15. Breakfast was at 8, we made it on time but without much to spare and a lot of pushing the girls to move faster when getting ready. Needless to say we will be waking up earlier tomorrow. We were spoiled with French toast this morning. Rotations of activities began at 9:00. Activities included, climbing wall, crafts, first aid, and concert prep. I was stationed at the climbing wall with Kirk so I can't explain to you what the other activities were like. From the sound of it everyone had a blast throughout the rotations. I enjoyed being at the climbing wall belaying for the first 4 hours of the day. I was totally in my element. I enjoyed helping the kids face their fears and get all the way to the top. At the begining of each session Kirk would do a short briefing with the kids with analogies of the wall being their life and all the safety rules. The last rotation Kirk had me give the speech. This gave me an idea of my leadership skills and proved to me that I could run the wall by myself. I will deffinately take this away with me and utilize it back at home where I work the adventure program at Lake Greeley Camp.
After lunch the Reptile Man came and gave a presentation on snakes. It was cool to see what kindof snakes live in South Africa. A lot of people were afraid and I was impressed with how many people would volunteer to hold the snakes even though they were unsure. I took a picture with a 6' Iguana. Once the snake man left we all gathered and took a hike up the mountain. It started off really well. It was sunny out the trail was fairly dry and everyone was in the group. It started spitting so Kirk, who was leading, decided we should take the
short cut instead. SInce we had already passed it the group was told to turn around and follow Tessa. Some people assumed this meant go back the way you came so the group got a bit split up. Everyone eventually figured out that we were going a different way and saw where to go. At a muddy section one of our leaders and his camper stayed to help people get past. The group was really spread out at this point. Amber and I stopped to take pictures at the top of a huge boulder. All the leaders met breifly with Shaun to quickly brainstorm which electives to do and how to best control how the kids decide where they want to be. We all agreed on soccer, kickball, human foozball, and chill zone. The kids had to pick one and stay there for the duration of the time before supper.
Supper was a traditional Braai which I have explained earlier.
Evening activity was a talent show. Our girls came up with a skit about accepting everyone.
Cocoa and Biscuts then Bedtime!
Alarm 6:30

Thursday-
We did a lot better this morning getting ready. We were first to breakfast. The initiatives (low ropes) course began at 9:00. Each leader was either manning a station or traveling around with a group of kids during this time. I was at a station called Break Out, where the group is a family of ants living in a house that had just been raided and the need to crawl on the washing line and over the wall to safety. I found that the groups that had guys in them just went for it and planned as they went along while the groups of all girls planned first and adjusted the plan to what wasn't working. I only found one group that did not think out how to get everyone over the wall. They just went for it and forgot to plan for how they were going to get the last person over. During breaks Donnie and I completed our station with some help from Shaun and Vyans oldest son (9), he gave me a boost to get up over the wall.
During tea Amber and I distributed face paint to each group so they could support their country for the upcoming game of human clue. The game was a lot of fun but Im not sure all teh kids really understood the concept of the game. It was a trial run so we knew it wouldn't be perfect. Our group had some girls that tried really hard to not have to play, they tried asking to use the toilet expecting us to let them go alone, but we saw right trhough it so we went as a group. Unfortunatly this didn't solve everything, A lid of a toilet got flung off and crashed on the floor. Apparantly this happens easily.
Lunch was awesome mac & Cheese.
We then had another presentation, this time on birds. More people were excited about this one, though some did scream when the birds would fly close to them. My favorite bird was an owl named goggles.
Tea break/meeting, we met with Shaun to figure out what would best fit the schedule next. We decided on taking a walk down to the beach until supper then doing a personality test. The walk to the beach was about 30 minutes. Once at the beach the kids could walk around and explore. I found some seaglass and some cool shells. There were a few penguins hiding in little caves walking out on the rocks to jump into the water. They were soooo cute.
After dinner we staying in the dinning hall and took a short personality test before heading up to the forum for certificates and the drum cafe. Each camper recieved a certificate stated they had completed a week of leadership at rocklands centre.
The Drum Cafe is an interactive drumming session. Each person gets their own drum and the band teaches you how to play. It was a lot of fun and was great to learn something cultural. A couple of my campers fell asleep though so after they were wide awake and decided they did not want to be the good quiet girls anymore. I had to ask them multiple times to get the cocoa and take it to the cabin. Amber and I wanted them in bed because we hadnt had time to pack up and we needed to leave in the morning at 8:30. This was the only time that I lost my temper with my girls. There was no way to get them to listen, one of them actually decided that she wanted to hide from us which made matters worse making us think we had a lost camper. We finally got them into bed and asleep by 11:30.
Alarm 6:00

Friday!-
We woke everyone up at 6 so they would start packing while others were showering and vice versa. We were the second group to get to breakfast. At 8:30 both groups got onto their buses and headed for the ferry to Robben Island. The ferry left at 11:00 and we were touring the island by 11:30. Our tourguide was a man that had been imprisoned on the island. He gave a lot of information but I was so over tired and a lot of it was so dry that I did not get much out of the trip. It was stunning to see how small Nelson Mandela's jail cell was, about 5X5, And where they worked in the quarries. After the tour we headed to V+A waterfront to watch the USA vs. Slovenia game at Quay Four, a local bar. It was packed with people, mostly England fans that had been there all day awaiting their game starting at 8:00. Unfortunately we tied 2-2. We met people from the states and joined them for a few drinks before we left at 8:30 for wellwood. We were told to meet at the V+A parking lot we had met at before. Somehow in the trek to the bus Katie, a fellow student, was left behind. We waited and searched for her for almost an hour. As the bus was pulling back into the parking lot after driving around looking we recieved a call that katie was safely back at Wellwood. I was so proud that she thought quickly to find help and get herself back to Wellwood via taxi instead of waiting helplessly around for an hour and being left in Cape Town alone.
We got back to Wellwood at about 10:45 and went straight to bed.
Class Tomorrow