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Camp number 2 - Austism and intellectual disabilities
On our day off on Saturday it was so nice to have a lie in!! We then went to a mall in the afternoon for a few hours. It was fun but a little boring when I'm saving my money for travelling afterwards. We were supposed to be going to the local town but plans were changed last minute - a little disappointing. I did have an amazing Starbucks frappaccino though - double chocolate chip!!
This weeks camp only has 9 campers. A little different from the 41 last week. They all have autism or some form of intellectual disabilities and many are non verbal making arranging activities much more difficult as many do not want to participate, preferring instead to just sit or pace.
Sunday's arrival was a little different to the first week as the camps from now are run just by us, with no input from any other society. Everything was a lot more organised and will run much more smoothly for the following weeks.
Yesterday was our first full day and it became clear that this would be a different kind of hard work, emotionally instead of physically. It is a lot harder to communicate with these campers and so even finding out what they want to eat or do is very difficult. I ran ladderball as my first sport activity yesterday. This seemed to grab the attention of most campers with one, jungha, loving the repetitiveness of the game, whilst some of the others preferred to play with basketball.
One of the councillors left yesterday. So sad as we had only just started to get to know her and she was great fun. This means that we are going to be one councillor short for the rest of camp and we were one short for night duty that night. I volunteered to help out with Danielle. In this we had to wake up every 2 hours (12, 2, 4 and 6) to check that all the campers were there and were ok. I had a mattress on the floor outside a campers room who likes to wake up in the night a bit and look at you while you sleep. This puts you on edge and means you don't actually get any sleep as you worry that someone might leave their room or look at you sleeping!
I went straight to sleep when someone took over from me and Danielle and slept until 10.15am ready for sport at 11am. When I got down I discovered that sport had actually been swapped with archery and was instead not until the afternoon as a storm was predicted with a potential tornado. This was a little annoying as I had planned to nap in the afternoon to catch up with sleep but couldn't do this now - meaning I'm a little grumpy and tired now! The storm was actually a little disappointing. It just rained and lot and we had a bit of thunder and lightening with very warm, humid weather. We were told the storm had passed.
I'm already looking forward to Saturday where we are going to early 4th July firework celebrations (we are working on the actual day) and although this week is a bit more relaxed I'm looking forward to being busier on the weeks to come!
- comments
Ann Spary This week sounds quite challenging and different. I guess difficult if communication is a problem and autism is difficult to manage. Still sounds like your coping although tiring. The fireworks should be fun and I hope will be impressive as July 4th a special celebration in the States. You write great blogs and I am looking forward to next one already. Like a writing this at 3.30 am UK time!!!! Have fun xxxx
Lynne Embley Just sorted my ipad out, not sure what's wrong but couldn't get on the site! All sounds very good and now it the end of another week. Seems to be flying by! Waiting for the next blog please
Alice Wilson Omg tornado warning?! Incredible! I'd love to witness one before I die (from a distance!!!). Silly thing I know but think they're fascinating! Based on this post, I now believe you have the patience of a god! I think I'd have gotten frustrated. Keep going and keep enjoying!!! Xx