Brno Suburban Camp – August 2013
A suburban camp differs from a traditional summer camp in many aspects. We do not go to sleep in one room, which would give us some time for talking in bed, and we do not wake up in the mornings seeing those with whom we have fallen asleep. This however does not necessarily diminish the fun we can have together – and which we certainly had this year!
The entire camp started “in a starry way” – as soon as I entered the gym of the Kridlovicka Primary school, I noticed Dana Havlova, who stood apart with a lady holding a microphone. The lady was Czech Radio reporter, Martina Pelcova (note: you can listen to the report in Czech here).
The first day after breakfast started with a collective game, during which we got to know each other. Everyone was asked to take a few sheets of toilet paper without knowing its purpose – and then had to tell as much information about himself as the number of sheets they had. After this game, the children were divided into three teams – Vladan’s “Fiery Chicken”, Sarka’s “Piglets”, and my “Anti-Vladans”.
The second game of the day was played in teams. The game was called “Potions”, and the children were running outside in the garden looking for ingredients we asked them to bring. In the middle of the game, we had jointly winked four times and in the end we kept jumping on one leg saying “Hoppsicum universum”. After that, we parted and went home.
We met the next day around 8:30 AM, when we sat down to board games and played in groups that we liked. A little info – probably the most played game was “Time’s Up”, where the players keep describing a character on a card.
However, we did not laze around playing board games all day. After the second breakfast, we went to the garden to play a game called Frogs. What was the game about? In the garden, there were coloured paper cards with frogs that had to be put into pens made from matches, which were also placed all around. We cannot forget about food – every frog had to be fed with three kidney beans that also had to be collected, so as to be counted in the final score. The Piglets won by a mile, the last were Fiery Chickens, 20 points behind.
The third day began right away with a game of individuals, irrespective of the teams. It was a “Debate tournament”, during which the participants were divided into pairs, and each pair drew a discussion topic (e.g. culture vs. sports). In the pairs, everyone had to reason why his subject is more important and better than the other. Some gave such bulletproof reasons that they would be able to convince the others about anything.
During the contest, we started making cards to expand the “Time’s Up” game, whose characters started to be too well known. Altogether, we made 40 cards with 80 characters, including the authors of the individual cards.
The afternoon was devoted to a cipher game. It was quite difficult to guard all of the children in the team who were jumping around the streets and running on the pedestrian crossings. The kids yelled, squealed, and would never stop speaking. In the end, however, we all reached the finishing line, and all of the teams managed to decipher the codes.
The fourth day started in the garden again. We got a paper with twenty-four numbers, and everyone had to find cards with descriptions of various fairy-tales or fairy-tale characters. I still remember the description “A fashion icon of the fairy-tale world, showing an unyielding preference for a particular colour”, by which the Little Red Riding Hood character was meant.
In the afternoon, another outdoor game was played, a team game this time. I do not know its name - let’s just call it “Try to splatter as many opponents as you can!” Food colouring was fastened on white T-shirts by duct tape, all participants put the T-shirts on, everyone got a syringe full of water, and started to splatter water on one another. The piglets were eliminated first, the subsequent fight of Anti-Vladans and Fiery Chickens ended with a draw. Everyone was wet through, and I believe I will not be very wrong if I say that everyone had fun.
The following day was the last one. Friday came so fast that we were surprised, and it was, in my opinion, possibly the funniest of all days. Some participants switched their names and spoke in a fashion they believed the other, whose name they currently bore, probably would have. We even swapped the names of some children they had not even known about.
From the collective games, we played a “bat-game”. Paper bats were arranged in the garden, and the participants’ task was to search for them and count them. Many of us had a hard time finding the little mammals, and after some time, began just to roam this way and that through the garden, and just randomly found a bat now and again.
When the afternoon came, we played various games – and then, the end came. We handed round some small presents, took collective photos, and then had to say our goodbyes.
If I can judge, the camp could probably have lasted a week longer. Each of us found a friend there, and it would be nice to be able to spend more time together. Hopefully, we will meet again next year, and we will be able to repeat all the great experiences we had!
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19.8.2013