On this first day of activities—the first full day of camp—I am reminded that camp is more than just a chance to retreat from the rigors of the “real world,” to have some mindless fun and excitement, and to make new friends and reconnect with old ones. Camp is a place in which children can become someone new every single day.
Most of the 207 girls assembled here at Rockbrook this session wear some pretty standard labels for most of the year: student, daughter, sister, class president, team captain, honor roll student, and the like. They will belong to categories like these for a while, before growing up, and gaining some more exciting ones like lawyer, doctor, engineer.
This, of course, is all in the normal course of events.
What camp does, is give girls a chance to don a whole host of other identities that most people never get to try. In just one day, I have seen the school-girls who were dropped off here yesterday morph into markswomen, mountain climbers, equestrians, basket-weavers, yogis, archers, and more.
I heard them swapping stories at lunch and during free swims. Giving each other tips on which side of the Alpine Tower makes for the best climb, as though they have been climbing for their whole lives and not just one morning. Boasting cheerfully about getting their wet-exits in kayaking on the very first day. Showing their cabin-mates the first steps of the dance that they will be premiering in the dance show at the end of the session.
A Junior spent about five minutes this afternoon, explaining to me exactly how long the reeds needed to soak in the stream before they would be pliable enough to make a basket. She had never made a basket before. She was repeating to me what she had heard the instructor say just minutes before. But, in her mind, she was an expert, a basket-weaving professional, when an hour before she had been nothing of the kind.
Every day, every hour, almost, these campers get to try something new, become something different, and expand a little more. By the end of the session, they might decide that they never again want to be an archer, or a climber, or a basket-weaver—but the hope is that, through all of this experimenting, they will leave here with a bit more of the confidence that it takes to become the varied and interesting women that they will one day grow to be.
The many looms of the Curosty cabin are starting to really warm up as the girls spend more time weaving. Both the table-top and large floor looms all have completed work on them now. Our master weaver Melanie, who serves as the Fiber Arts Program supervisor at Warren Wilson College during the school year, has been teaching the girls several different geometric patterns that are created by lifting groups of warp fibers as the weft is passed between them. This geometry, added to carefully selected colors for the yarns and thread used, magically creates beautiful cloth. Of course, part of the fun is watching the pattern emerge with each added row. Weaving is an example of a specialty activity that’s not ordinarily taught to kids nowadays, but despite being “traditional,” is still very cool because it’s truly creative, deeply satisfying, and for some, a craft that can become a lifelong hobby. In our 19th-century log cabin in the woods, your Rockbrook girls are experiencing firsthand something that may inspire them for years to come.
Whitewater kayaking is really catching on around here as well, with more and more girls choosing to paddle during one of their activity periods. Jamie, Leland and Andria are happily teaching more and more girls about how fun it can be. After an orientation to the equipment and how to use it (properly fitting a PFD, paddle, and spray skirt, for example), the girls first learn how to slip out of their kayaks if they flip over upside-down. It’s a simple technique called a “wet exit” that involves tucking forward, pulling a loop on the spray skirt, and pushing out of the boat. Most girls pick it up right away, and move on to learning how to maneuver the boat in the water. This morning Leland and Jamie taught girls the next, and more advanced skill in kayaking, the “eskimo roll,” which is a technique that uses the kayaking paddle to roll up-right when a kayaker tips over. This takes practice to learn, but with this kind of enthusiasm from the girls, we’ll soon have some popping right up. Like weaving, kayaking can be a source of lifelong inspiration for these girls.
This afternoon was “Cabin Day,” a time when we pause our regular activities to give the campers a chance to do something with their cabin as a group. This could mean making a special treat in the dining hall like homemade ice cream, going for a hike to one of the waterfalls on the camp property, having flip flop races in the creek by Curosty, having a squirt gun battle, or playing another group game of some sort. Today, for example, one of the Middler cabins played a wild game of “Color Tag.” This game is messy. It’s a complicated contest involving colorful (and washable!) paint, little sacks of flour, and enough open grassy space to charge around trying to splash paint on the other players. As you can see, the flour is also thrown, eventually, proudly marking everyone. While not necessarily something we’d recommend trying at home, this is good camp fun.
Meanwhile, all of the seniors in camp, plus their counselors, took a trip into the Pisgah National Forest for a supper picnic and visit to the famous Sliding Rock. Grilled hotdogs and all the trimmings… plus Watermelon! …made an excellent meal high up at one of our favorite grassy spots in the forest. We played a group game of “I’m a Rockbrook Girl” —which is a bit like musical chairs, only played with shoes— before loading up the six buses and making it to the rock.
Sliding Rock is a natural water slide formed by Looking Glass creek as it rolls about 60 feet over a smooth rock and then plunges into a deep pool at the bottom. It’s been an attraction for years, and a perpetual favorite of Rockbrook girls. There’s really nothing quite like it. The crashing roar of the cold water, combined with the piercing screams of the girls sliding down, makes it intensely fun. The girls plunge into the water at the bottom, and pop up wide-eyed and intent on swimming as fast as possible toward the waiting lifeguards. The thrill for some campers becomes addictive, and soon we had a few girls heading back up to slide again and again.
Perhaps the highlight of the night for everyone, though, was our last stop: Dolly’s Dairy Bar. With dozens of (54 to be exact!) unique flavors to choose from, including “Rockbrook Chocolate Illusion,” it didn’t take long for everyone to be holding sweet cups and cones of what some campers call “the best ice cream in the world.” Ice cream after the chill of Sliding Rock? Sure! It’s just that good. And that fun— to be out at night, happily away from the ordinary, and surrounded by your friends. It’s easy to see why it’s great.
Wandering into Curosty, our fiber arts activity cabin, is like stepping into a working artist’s studio, maybe even a artists’ cooperative, because greeting you are colorful materials, finished and partly finished projects, and many hands busily creating. It’s a wondrous place. The cabin itself is built from 19th-century, hand-cut logs. It has a wood floor and a stone fireplace on one side, and draping its double-hung windows are bright red curtains. In one corner there are three 36-inch floor looms, and along two walls there are small tables with tabletop looms. The walls, though, are the most interesting because almost everything is covered with finished weavings, shelves with spools of thread, balls of yarn and strips of cloth. Embroidery floss, cane, reeds, kudzu vines, twigs and feathers are stacked or hung nearby. Three different areas display example projects the girls can make, things like bright baskets, complex loom weavings, lanyards, dream catchers, pot holders, hats, scarves, purses and wallets. Leading this creative whirlwind of weaving is Melanie Wilder who comes to us from Warren Wilson College where she is a supervisor of the Fiber Arts Program there. You can see Melanie in the background of this photo spinning yarn. She seems to always have a new project in the works for the girls. For example, they have a large group weaving that uses different bits of yarn, cloth and other fibers to create a mountain scene rather than a geometric pattern. She’s having some girls hammer a leaf between two pieces of cloth to transfer color from the leaf into the cloth leaving a neat design. The overall atmosphere in Curosty is joyfully creative as girls experiment with all these different materials and techniques. Sitting with friends, creating with your hands, twisting, threading, and tying different colorful strands, all while having time to chat, tell stories and laugh— being in Curosty just feels good.
At the Alpine Tower, our 50-foot High Ropes Course located in the woods behind our gym, the girls are working with a different sort of fiber, an 11 millimeter braided climbing rope. Instead of weaving, these girls are tying their harnesses to the rope so a staff member can belay them while climbing one of the 30 or so different routes to the top platform. The rope stretches from the climber up and over a pole above the platform and back down to the belayer on the ground. The tower is an excellent introduction to rock climbing because it requires the same balance, smooth motion, concentration and focused strength. Likewise the equipment and safety protocols are the same. With some routes being designed for a complete beginner and others requiring both polished climbing skills and strength, the Tower is an adventure activity that keeps girls coming back for more. After reaching the top platform, the climber is slowly lowered by the climbing staff members belaying. It’s possible— and a lot of girls do this intentionally for fun —to flip upside down on the rope, the belayer suspending you with your head a few feet from the ground. It’s a goofy stunt. After climbing the tower, and perhaps our climbing wall in the gym or one of the five climbs on Castle Rock, don’t be surprised when your daughter asks you to go climbing with her at the local gym. Not only will it be fun, it’ll be because she wants to show you she’s good at climbing, and knows what she’s doing.
Tonight our 28 CA campers, our 9th graders, unveiled the theme of their secret banquet, and it was a great one: the 1950s. They called the banquet “1950s Diner.” The painted decorations, the floor-to-ceiling posters which lined every inch of wall space, referenced not just the music, the movies and television shows, and the fashion of that decade, but also diner food. In fact, for dinner they served classic hamburgers and french fries, with root beer, ice cream floats. Some of the CA girls wore poodle skirts, while others dressed like greasers and “Pink Ladies” from the movie Grease. One girl zipped around the dining hall on roller skates delivering plates of food. We also saw Marilyn Monroe, Lucile Ball, Debbie Reynolds, Ernest Hemingway, and a special guest appearance by Elvis. The skits were dance numbers with a giant cast of CAs reproducing dances like the “Hand Jive” and the “Twist,” for example. Alternating with songs from the 50s (“Jailhouse Rock,” “Rock Around the Clock” and “Johnny B. Goode”) and modern day pop songs, much of time was spent as a celebration dance party.
It’s hard to explain why, but campers and counselors alike often remark the banquet is the highlight of their entire session. Considering all of the zany fun of camp, this is extraordinary. Yes, the banquet is really fun. The surprise might be a big part of that, as is the thrill of having candy decorating your dinner table. More significantly though, I think the banquets are a true expression of the relationships we’ve formed while at camp, the true friendships and connection we now feel with so many wonderful people. It’s that, combined with an awareness that this is our last crazy celebration together before the session closes. That’s why there is so much hugging at the banquet, and often tearful embracing. It’s an emotional time for must of us. We can feel that this is a very special time of our lives.
The first full day of the session, as was today, means several things. First, it’s a chance for the campers to become more familiar with the property and activity areas, to get a better sense of where everything is located. Following their camp tour yesterday, now they venture off on their own to the Alpine climbing tower, the Hillside Lodge for yoga, or Curosty for weaving, for example. There are almost 30 different things to do— organized activities available during the scheduled activity periods —and each has a “home” somewhere in camp.
Imagine all the little pockets of activity spread around Rockbrook… Outdoor adventure instructors explaining how to use special equipment, arts and crafts teachers introducing cool sewing, pottery, or weaving projects, horses being tacked up, bows and arrows nocked. If you scan through today’s photo gallery, you can see the variety of things going on. These girls are impressive already!
What’s even more impressive though, and probably more significant in the long run, is the independence this first day of camp has already brought about in your girls. Remember, at Rockbrook, the campers select their own activities while at camp. Often after much discussion with friends about the options, and “what are you gonna take?” kinds of questions, everyone selects 4 different activities they will try for the first half of the week. For each activity rotation, which happens twice per week, the girls themselves decide how to spend their activity time. Furthermore, during the blocks of free time scheduled throughout the day— before lunch, before dinner, and after dinner —the campers can decide to do even more independent things. With a friend, they might head to the lake for a ride down the water slide, go to the tennis courts to hit a few balls, challenge someone at the tetherball court, or just hang out on the grassy hill enjoying the mountain view.
The very structure of our day, in other words, encourages this budding independence for Rockbrook girls. As they select their daily activities (“Riflery or Drama? Hmmm…”) and decide on their own how to spend free time (“I want to go play in the creek!”), as well as navigate from place to place throughout the day, all while listening for the bell to help make it on time, they grow increasingly confident. They learn firsthand that “I can do it myself.”
As you see your girls smiling and enjoying themselves doing any of the regular in-camp activities offered everyday at camp, at least part of that smile arises from the simple satisfaction, and maybe a little pride, that follows her successful experience of independence. And that’s pretty cool stuff.
One of the most historic buildings at Rockbrook is the log cabin named Curosty. Mrs. Carrier, Rockbrook’s founder, moved it to camp, along with another cabin named “Goodwill,” from the plantation where she was born in South Carolina. Both cabins easily predate her birth in 1889. They are authentic log buildings constructed from 12-inch thick logs set on a low stone foundation and equipped with a stone fireplace and chimney on one end. The Curosty cabin has a wooden porch jutting off the back, and the Goodwill cabin has a stone porch running along its front. Curosty briefly served as an office for the camp, but it soon became the home of one of the original craft activities: weaving. As you can see from these photos, this is still true today. A visitor can peek into Curosty at anytime, and there will be table-top and floor looms clicking away. Nowadays, the girls are doing other kinds of weaving, as this project board shows: Latch Hook, lanyard, and basket weaving for example. Their projects include making belts, purses, bookmarks, potholders, sock dolls, dream catchers, pillows, yarn dolls, and “ojos de dios” (eyes of god)… All from many strands of colorful yarns twisted and tied, carefully intertwined and looped over and under each other. There are some very beautiful things being made.
In a community of all-girls, it can be fun sometimes to get a little messy. Tonight’s evening program gave us exactly that opportunity when we set up a “Color Run” to the gym. This was a crazy event where the campers ran (jogged actually) through a gauntlet-like row of counselors throwing different colors of non-toxic, washable, powdered paint. A few counselors squirted the campers with water guns to start off, so the paint stuck in very cool tie-dye-like patterns on the their shirts, shorts, arms and legs. The girls added colorful face paint to decorate themselves even more outrageously. For those campers not interested in getting this messy, there was also a “dry run” path down to gym.
There, our friend and local DJ Marcus had his light show and sound system set up for a fantastic color dance party. We had glow sticks and more glow paint to make the whole event even more brilliant. For the next 2 hours, we all had a great time dancing and jumping around, posing for silly photos, laughing and singing along to the pumping pop music, Only the occasional pause for a drink of water slowed us down.
And these girls know how to dance! Maybe with no boys around and feeling more at ease generally, we had campers and counselors really working up a sweat. Here again, we have all these girls enjoying the freedom to be themselves, and experiencing first-hand, that doing so is a complete blast!
Most meals at Rockbrook are served “Family Style” in our dining hall, with each cabin of girls sitting together at a table with their counselors and sharing platters of food. Throughout the day, everyone scatters across the camp to attend their individually chosen activities, so meals are a chance to reunite and talk about the events of the day. Tonight, however, we shifted gears entirely and rearranged the 26 individual tables in the dining hall to make 12 large tables, one for each month of the year, because tonight was “Birthday Night.” This is a special surprise dinner party where we celebrate everyone’s birthday on the same night by having all the counselors and campers sit according to the month of their birth. Tonight we made it a Mardi Gras themed dinner, so we decorated the dining hall with streamers, balloons, and posters, handed out shiny beads and masks, and encouraged everyone to dress in their best purple, gold and green. There were so many great costumes! Some girls wore crazy wigs, or hats, lots of sunglasses, multi-colored tights, even fuzzy leg warmers. Rick prepared New Orleans style food for us too: Po’ Boy sandwiches (with lettuce, tomato and his homemade Remoulade sauce), grits with Andouille sausage, mixed berries, and Miss Vickie’s potato chips. But of course, the highlight of the night was the cakes, the 12 different birthday cakes Katie baked, each decorated by the Hi-Up campers to match a particular month. Depending on your birth month, your piece of cake was larger or smaller because the cake was divided by the number of people in that month (June had the highest number, and September the smallest number of people, by the way). With Mardi Gras music playing, the girls had a grand time yelling “Happy Birthday” to each other (and to other celebrities), taking short dance breaks, and of course singing along to the music.
If you spotted our Alpine Climbing Tower in the woods driving up our north driveway (riding the shuttle bus on opening day), you know it’s an impressive structure. It’s almost 60 feet tall, is triangular shaped because of its pyramid design, and offers dozens of climbing challenges. Even more impressive is the climbing ability the girls have been showing on the tower lately. They are swarming all over the thing, hanging upside down, conquering every element (like the “Swinging Logs,” the “Missing Link” cargo net, and “Corporate Ladder,” for example), and even climbing up sections blindfolded! Karen, our lead photographer, took this photo (and others) today by climbing the tower herself and shooting from above. It’s hard to tell from this shot, but this camper is about 45 feet off the ground! I love the look of concentration in her eye. It shows a level of focused confidence that all excellent rock climbers rely upon. Awesome stuff.
Can you tell what’s happening in this photo? Blue yarn and white string, feet in some water, and a fork? It’s not a musical instrument (though I suppose it could be!). It’s a lap loom with a weaving project taking shape as the weaver sits with her feet in a creek. The fork is used to weave and tighten the weft as it traces back and forth taking shape along the warp. The creek beside the Curosty cabin, where weaving is taught at Rockbrook, carries water to fill our lake, and is generally a sunny spot in camp. That makes it very enticing as a perfect place to weave, chat with friends, and enjoy the cool water rushing by across your feet. Something this simple and wholesome, it’s relaxing, social and creative at the same time. Such a summertime treat.
Here we have the view from the top of John Rock looking east toward Looking Glass Rock. It’s one of our favorite spots to experience the amazing green-carpeted mountains of the Pisgah National Forest. A group of girls, led by Emily and Christina, backpacked and camped in the forest Monday night (tents, backpacks, water bottles, camping stoves to cook dinner and breakfast, etc.), and on the way back hiked to John Rock for this view. Their hike brought them through Cat Gap, which touches the Art Loeb trail, and looped back to the Pisgah Fish Hatchery… for a total of about 6 miles. I heard they had an overnight rain shower, but as you can see it was sunny and fair in the morning for the hike out, capping off an excellent trip.
How silly can we be? Around here we enjoy answering that question on a daily basis. It’s another special aspect of camp; it encourages children to celebrate their goofy side, to forget briefly the personal decorum they so carefully guard, and which parents and teachers so urgently strive to form. Camp provides a license to relive the freedom of childhood experimentation, to twist things around, to feel good about letting your inner creative energy express itself however it may. And significantly, being goofy at camp is something we do just for the fun of it, not to achieve some goal or to be recognized as “the best.” Around here, we— and yes, all of us campers, staff members and directors alike! —are quick to make a silly face for photos, to throw on a crazy costume, to take on a bizarre character in a skit, to sing a nonsense song during lunch, or perhaps bust into a wild dance move waiting for the dinner bell. All of this feels really good too. It’s remarkable when there are this many fun-loving people together, all within a broad camp culture that inspires creative silliness. Sure we have our serious sides too, but I hope you can see why Rockbrook has has been called a goofy camp, and why we think that’s a very good thing!
Did you know that everyday between the first and second activity periods, the entire camp converges on the dining hall porch for “Muffin Break?” It’s true, Katie, the Rockbrook Baker, begins each morning by baking a surprise flavor of muffin for everyone. That means powering up her giant mixer, then scooping and baking 300 yummy treats. Her flavors are fun and creative (maybe a little silly?). For example, today she made “White Chocolate Chip and Apricot,” and other days she’s baked us “Confetti,” “Up-Side-Down S’mores,” “Key Lime Pie,” and a big favorite, “Pumpkin Chocolate Chip.” This is a wonderful treat, easily a favorite part of everyone’s day.
One of the old (circa 1888) log cabins at Rockbrook is called “Curosty” and it is the home of our fiber arts activities. It’s wonderful to wander in during the day and see girls weaving, working away on several floor looms, tabletop looms, and lap looms, creating complex patterned material using yarns and strips of cloth. Kimberly, Carol and the other instructors are helping the girls this summer make headbands, bookmarks, straps, and large table mats. Weaving is such an ancient art, and in this historic cabin, it’s neat that these quite modern Rockbrook girls really take to it, ask great questions, are learning all the basic skills, and making some very cool projects. Weaving has always been an activity at Rockbrook, so it’s also neat to see it so popular even today.
Emily and Christina, two of the women on our adventure staff this summer, took a group of girls canoeing down the French Broad River this morning. With snacks packed (some of the morning’s muffins!) and all the necessary equipment loaded on a trailer, they put onto the river upstream from camp in Rosman, NC. This section of the river is just right for a leisurely paddle with its wide course, gentle curves and manageable current. There is also the occasional (class I) rapid to keep things exciting. Large trees line most of the river making it the perfect habitat for water birds like the Belted King Fisher, for example. The weather for today’s trip was ideal too. Cool air and warm sun made it an magnificent day on the water.
Since this afternoon was cabin day, a day when we switch gears from our regularly scheduled activities and instead do things together as cabin groups, we gathered all of the Senior cabins and took a gigantic trip to Sliding Rock. It was gigantic because when we added everyone up, this trip included 111 people! Like a train of white vans and buses, including a couple of cars for extra staff members, we drove our group into the Pisgah Forest for a picnic dinner and a few field games before arriving at the Rock. Zipping down a natural water slide formed by an icy mountain creek… Maybe freezing cold creek, would be more accurate … and plunging into a deep pool at the bottom might sound unbearable, but for the Senior girls tonight it was all thrills. Screams, splashing, chattering teeth, a few blue lips, but also wide, enthusiastic smiles were true to form all night.
The last stop for the evening was to “warm up” with a cone of Dolly’s ice cream, proclaimed by many campers as “the best ice cream ever!” This is a chance to try one the flavors named after the many camps in the area, like “Rockbrook Chocolate Illusion” or “Carolina Iceberg Blast.” Warmed and energized by this blast of sugary cream, we enjoyed singing the Senior Song, posing for a few photos, and having a grand time together.
Today we took our first outdoor adventure trip with the campers, and it was a great one. Two buses and a van of senior- and middler-aged campers took the day to go whitewater rafting on the Nantahala River over in Swain County. We departed right after breakfast, and with a brief snack/bathroom stop we arrived at the river for an early picnic lunch at Ferebee park. The sun was warm and bright as the whole crew munched on the sandwiches, chips and fruit Rick packed for us. A short drive up river to the put-in, we met the Rockbrook guides who had our rafts and all the equipment we would need (lifejackets, paddle, helmets, etc.) ready to go.
As you may know, Rockbrook is the only girls camp that has a permit to run its own rafting trips down the Nantahala. This allows us to have our own gear, hire our own expert guides, schedule the trips to our liking, and send down the river as many campers as we need without having to charge extra fees. Rockbrook was awarded this permit back in the 1980s, and since the Forest Service is not issuing any new permits, we are lucky to have it. Rafting has easily become the most popular adventure trip at Rockbrook, with just about every Middler and Senior taking the opportunity. Our permit doesn’t allow us to raft our Juniors because of age and weight restrictions. Today’s trip was perfect… Beautiful sunny warm weather, very few other rafts on the water, exhilarating moments in the rapids, and fun splashing around during the calmer parts of the river. Singing, sometimes screaming, chatting and laughing all the way down, these girls were having a ball.
Meanwhile back at camp, the looms in Curosty, our fiber arts cabin, were clicking with girls weaving headbands and placemats. Curosty is one of the early buildings erected at Rockbrook that, along with the Goodwill cabin, was moved here so it predates the camp. It once was used as the camp office but now it is filled with colorful yarns, tabletop and floor looms, and girls learning an ancient craft. The whole space, filled with calm yet highly creative energy, evokes a wonderful, timeless feeling.
Down the hill toward the gym, the archery range was busy with girls firing arrows at their targets. Learning the proper way to handle the archery equipment and the important safety rules of the range are the first steps, and then with a little coaching about technique, it doesn’t take long for campers to be able to pull back an arrow and hit the target. It’s such a satisfying sound, that “thunk” the arrow makes when it hits. It’s an even more satisfying sound to hear the girls’ cheers when someone hits a bullseye, and thereby joins the “bullseye club.”
I wanted to call your attention to an short article by Michael Thompson recently published in the New York Times. Thompson is the author of Homesick and Happy: How Time Away from Parents Can Help a Child Grow, a book where he examines the character development benefits that come from a sleepaway camp experience. He believes that letting children go, taking breaks from the shelter and protection we parents instinctively provide, is an important milestone in a child’s development. In his NYT article, entitled “Why Camp Counselors Can Out-Parent Parents,” he makes the same point by observing that camp counselors are, different from parents, “super cool,” admirable role models that kids want to learn from. The counselors at Rockbrook are well-trained, have excellent inter-personal skills, are full of enthusiasm for life, and are simply down-to-earth, genuine good people. They are just the kind of “parents” we’d all be proud to call our own.
Over the last two days, Rick and his friends in the Rockbrook kitchen, have been preparing a special treat for us, and today we all enjoyed it. You may be able to tell from this photo, but the treat was authentic homemade, completely from scratch, tamales. A tamale is an ancient, traditional Mesoamerican dish made from finely ground corn, lime, oil and stock combined into a paste, spread into a corn husk with meats or peppers as fillings, and then cooked by steaming.
Each one requires the masa (corn dough) and filling be combined and rolled in the corn husk by hand. But it doesn’t stop there. In addition, the chicken used for the filling is first roasted an shredded off the bone, but then combined with a homemade Guajillo chili sauce, which gives it a bright red color. They also made a green variety using tomatillos, serrano peppers, onion and garlic. For the vegetarians, they steamed a cheese and Ancho chili pepper variety. Can you see why this took two days, especially when almost 700 tamales needed to be made? And the results… Unbelievably delicious. Certainly many of the girls and a few of the counselors had never before tasted a treat like this, but like many of the “firsts” experienced around here— first ride on a zip line, first time shooting a gun, first time cantering a horse —camp is a great place to give it a try. There’s just the right amount of encouragement and “positive peer pressure” to give hesitant girls a little nudge outside of their routine, to challenge their assumptions.
Naturally, at a camp like Rockbrook, with almost 30 different activities and a special event or surprise planned almost everyday, the opportunities for first experiences are diverse and abundant. The girls here can do some amazing stuff, and even if they’ve already felt the chill of Sliding Rock in Pisgah, climbed a real rock using those amazing “sticky” shoes, or enjoyed a long-range mountain view after hiking a steep trail to a rock cliff, for example, it will be a first for them to do it with these people, with this all-girl group of comfortable friends. The same is true for throwing their first pot on the wheel, seeing beautiful cloth take shape off their loom, learning the “trick” to a one-handed cartwheel. There are so many examples! A girl’s experience at camp is a treasury of firsts that she’ll hold dear for many years to come.
It’s significant, too, that this special place for first experiences, this close-knit camp community defined by respect and cooperation, makes it easy to feel successful, and thereby fosters girls’ self-esteem. We’ve written before about the link between success and self-esteem at camp, so please take a look. There’s the good feeling of discovering a hidden talent when you first try something, a sense of personal achievement, but there’s also success to be found in general “social competence,” and in being included in group endeavors. Since so many of the firsts at camp happen in this positive social setting, they tend to be far less frightening. Knowing that you’ll be supported no matter what individual outcome occurs, seeing other girls laugh and enjoy unfamiliar activities, really helps make any first experience a success and thereby a real boost to a girl’s growing self-esteem.
Our twilight activity tonight was everyone’s favorite, a shaving cream fight down on the grassy sports field. It began with everyone interested (like all twilight activities, it was optional), dressed in their swimsuits, lining up along one side of the field. On the other side, we scattered about 120 cans of plain shaving cream. At the signal, everyone ran to grab a can and then to let their foam fly. Complete mayhem ensued, and in about 30 seconds, everyone had shaving cream on their backs, stomachs and in their hair. That’s basically the point of it, like this photo shows so well; it’s to sneak up on your friends and mischievously “get them” with the white foam. And oh what big fun this is! It almost feels a little naughty to spray people, but it’s also pretty hilarious to do. We also pulled out the slip-n-slide for a now extra slippery ride. With everyone basically covered, in some cases completely covered, and all the shaving cream cans emptied, we rinsed off a bit under the hoses and headed up to camp for a warm shower. Another first at camp? Perhaps, but certainly a good one too.
One of the most traditional arts and crafts activities at Rockbrook is weaving. It’s been something girls have done at camp since the very beginning back in 1921. In the craft cabin we call Curosty (which even pre-dates camp!), there are several table-top and floor looms we use to teach basic weaving techniques. It takes some time to set things up and to learn how to operate the looms, but you can make really cool designs. Bits of yarn and string, even natural fibers you gather around camp, all come together to create fabrics, place mats, belts, and other straps. Weaving is a lot of fun, and if you really enjoy it, it’s something you can do at home too.
