The Point boys kicked off the Arowhon theatre season with a real banger. The traditional first play of the camp season is an originally written satire on life at camp, where the 14 and 15 yr old boys dress up like staff and poke good-natured fun at them. This year’s theme was Star Wars, and the premise was that various rebel groups were trying to take over the Arowhon galaxy and our staff had to come together to protect it. It was a riot to see the boys dressed up in staff’s clothing, and the whole audience was shrieking with laughter. After the show, the boys’ pride in themselves and each other was radiating off of them and I could not help but thing how wonderful it is for adolescent boys to experience this wholesome, IRL group challenge and bonding, supported and celebrated by their incredible staff team.
After the show we had our first dance of the summer, which was a great testament to Arowhon’s community values: camper off all ages and genders were dancing and singing together with abandon, without of hint of the boy/girl or appearance pressure of the camp dances of my youth.
Another highlight of the haven of wholesome youth we have here was at our first cookout dinner tonight, where our head of windsurfing, a 20 yr old wrestling star who all the boys look up to, demonstrated to the camp how he could eat an entire burger in just one bite. As silly as it was, it was a great example of role modelling being goofy, not worrying what you look like, and finding fun in the little things.
We also opened the ice cream shop today to help everyone cool down after lunch, and the water activities have been packed with campers trying to beat the heat. Thinking sympathetically of all of you in the city in this heat!
