Personal Narrative: A Career As A Camp Assistant

Only two more hours left and then I get to go home and sit in the air conditioning” I thought to myself as sweat was dripping down my face.

It was in the muggy day in the middle of July and I was stuck outside watching a bunch of bratty kids run around in the woods playing tag and hide and seek. A few months earlier, I was applying for the Camp Counselor job at the M.E Lyons YMCA, which would be my first job. In the beginning of the summer, I had no idea that being a counselor would be extremely challenging, but very rewarding in the end.

Day Camp at the YMCA consisted of several kids from all around Anderson Township coming together for eight hours everyday Monday through Friday. The ages of these kids varied from being six years old to
The other counselor names consisted of Papaya, Pikachu, Pachinko, Pancake, and Pumbaa. Marcus never told me why, but he “loved” my nickname which is why he liked me out of the other Counselors. He also told me that I was the only one who really listened to what he had to say and that I was the sister that he never had. To make sure Marcus did not injure campers by throwing balls at them, he became my “Camp Assistant”. So, Marcus would follow me all around the YMCA and pick up trash and helping me lead activities. We would make a deal that if he was good and did not throw a fuss throughout the day, then he would get a star that he would put on his backpack and once he obtained five stars he would receive a surprise.

Later that summer, I found out that Marcus did not have the best life at home. His father ended up leaving his mother once he found out he was going to have a son and as a result Marcus’s mother drank all of her worries away and went out every night with a different guy. Marcus was never able to make any friends in school or play any sports because his mother was never home to take him to practice and he was an only child.. She would even be late picking him up from camp. So, I decided to take him under my