This past week marked the 6th year of Camp Twitch and Shout. The camp is for children who are ages 7 to 17 who have been diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome. The camp is a partner with Camp Twin Lakes and is located in Winder, GA. For more information, you can visit their website at, http://www.camptwitchandshout.org or their Facebook page at, https://www.facebook.com/camptwitchandshout. When I first heard about this camp, I first thought, it would have been great if there was a camp like this when I was young.I finally got the privilege of attending the camp for the first time this past week as a camp counselor. I was a little unsure of what I was getting myself into, but excited about how the week would play out. Having a small experience with children felt like it wouldn't help, although, having Tourette Syndrome seemed to help make up for any of these insecurities. The week started off with a training day for the counselors, and boy did I feel the nerves and anxiety going into this day. After meeting and getting to know some of the other counselors helped to calm these down, even though my tics seemed to be out in full force. I was glad that I don't have any of my vocals tics at the moment, but could definitely feel for those whose vocals were definitely noticed. One thing I knew for sure, was that this was the place to let go and not worry about what other people are thinking about your tics.
I finally got to the camp location and met all of my co-counselors for my cabin and continued to feel pretty stoked at how the week was going to go and being able work along these fine young people. The training day and up until the campers arrived mainly consisted of getting to know each other and playing games as well as singing some songs that we would eventually sing with the campers. My favorite song of the camp was the one that is the camp song, "The World's Greatest" by R. Kelly. The camp sure does a great job in making everyone there feel like the world's greatest. Other songs that we sung were Peanut Butter Jelly Time and Ice Cream and Cake. I ended the night of the training day at around 2am, which definitely made me exhausted the next morning once the campers came, but I didn't let that phase me.
When the campers came, my tics definitely seemed to be going crazy out of nervousness as well as excitement. We ended up getting 11 great kids to spend the week with and enjoy all the activities that the camp had provided in the schedule. Getting to know these kids was a big highlight of the week, but seeing them interact with each other as well as enjoy just being kids was even better and felt so rewarding. Some of these activities were swimming in the pool, rock climbing, archery, kickball, dodgeball (played this more times than I can remember), and fishing. Capture the flag or Da-nu-waw (what it is called at camp). Da-nu-waw basically consisted of capture the flag (or orbs), defeating villains, or finding clues around the camp. Out of the evening activities, the favorite of mine was the dance. Starting the first day of camp, all that seems to be talked about is the dance and who is taking who to the dance. The other evening activities included the Street Fair, Talent Show, and Pool Party/Luau. The theme going on through the week, which seemed to flow pretty nicely with the week, was a time warp. The week started with being a tacky tourist then went through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s finally ending at the theme of the dance which was, Your Future Self.
