Giving back with stories

How often do you give back to your community or to an organization?  I am not talking about giving money, popping a check in the mail; I am talking about giving your time and energy to something you care about, or have strong feelings about.

Every summer for something like seven or eight years I have been going to a single week long camp held in Fairlee, Vermont. It is run by volunteers mostly and is only available to under-served kids from Vermont.   It is called CAMP! (if you were to say it out loud – or want to Google it, it would be Camp Exclamation Point).  The Aloha Foundation give them space to hold the camp at the last week of summer, when most other camps are over and done with.  The children have plenty of challenges in their lives, but CAMP! gives them a week to get away from it all and share, play, create, explore and have fun in a healthy and safe environment.  The camp is like most any other camp, but these kids are not as well off as most camp kids.  CAMP! serves those who have limited opportunities for such an experience because of a lack of financial resources, rural isolation, and disruption of life and education. Yet these kids are just like other camp kids – they are kids!

There is a sense of love for the children at CAMP! which goes beyond the ‘call of duty’.  CAMP! is a vocation, a passion; the councilors have a desire that these kids get some amazing experiences that they would never normally be able to have. Let me stress that, never normally be able to have.  Most of us have the opportunity to send our kids to a camp of some sort – be it a day camp for a few days or a week camp, fortnight or summer camp.  We have that choice.  But this camp is set up for those who do not have that choice, but CAMP! make it possible.  They get funds so even the most economically challenged family can send their children to paint, write, read, sing, act, sculpt, experience archery, learn to swim, do woodwork, learn about plants and nature, make new friends, know that they are not the only ones who have such difficulties, and of course make their own tie-dye tee shirts!

Each year I go to CAMP! to tell stories and volunteer my services. It is not much, I feel, but it is what I can do and this is how I give back to my community: when I go to CAMP!. For one afternoon, or evening, I perform there and spend extra time with the kids when I am able – and I try to make it so I am able.  Last night with a voice almost gone after a busy summer, I, along with colleague and friend Angela Klingler told stories to the entire camp before the kids were spilt into groups for individual camp fire stories based on age.  It is always fun to work with Angela as she is the consummate professional and has this magic about her when she tells the deep stories, which she did for the entire camp.  I have also worked with Angela around Halloween and know she knows some great campfire stories for all ages.  This is the second time she has volunteered to make the 2 /2 hour drive to CAMP! to tell tales.

I got to walk the hill with the eldest of the CAMP! kids and their councilors to a favourite quiet spot in the woods to tell tales and got to bring out some really fun and creepy tales for the ‘tweens and teens.  There is something about the darkness and the flames that can make a not-so-scary story seem quite spectacularly creepy.

This was in 2008, but feels like a few months ago!

These kids are great.  They are so appreciative of everyone.  I only appear for one day in one week in the year, but the kids remember me.  There are some kids who jump up and run over to give me a hug, there are those who jump out of seats to high-five me, and there are even more who simply grin at me or shout a loud ‘hi Simon storyteller guy’ when I arrive knowing that Wednesday night is story night.  And those hugs, high-fives shouts and smiles, and the stories I have to share are all I need.

A world away

When my family decided to book a vacation in Costa Rica I thought I could find a native storyteller or two, but that, sadly, did not happen.  There was not enough time and this was a family vacation.  But I have come home with a desire to return to Costa Rica and learn Spanish. Not in that order!

We read up a fair amount before taking off for these foreign climes, so we might understand the culture we were about to explore.  We read and were told that there is a thing called Tico-Time!  People of Costa Rica are very friendly and laid back.  We were told that if you want someone to show up, they may not be on time (at least not Western time, but on Tico-Time).  We never found this, everyone was very punctual.  However, whilst waiting for a ferry as we traveled from Curu to San Jose, I was in a line with a bunch of people from all over and learned another part of Tico-Time.  This was my second time in the line, getting a second cup of Costa Rican coffee (in my mind, the best coffee on the planet - even the bad ferry port coffee was really good).  The line was not moving fast due to some of the none Spanish speaking tourists who panic and look blankly at the Costa Rican's with wide eyes!  One guy was getting really up-set.  The ferry was close to leaving, but I watched the three folk in front of me fuddle their way through their breakfast order and get to the check out. Meanwhile the other guy, Mr. Upset, was getting more and more agitated.  In the end he leaned between the group of men and me, jumping the line in quite a major way, ordered a soda, paid and left.  On the ferry I saw him and discovered he was not a native, but an American!  He was the only one NOT chilled out and NOT on Tico-Time.  I guess he was starting his vacation, or had lost some surfing contest!

This really is a land to watch and listen to.  We traveled by taxi, micro-bus and regular bus with a backpack on myself, a backpack on my wife, and with the kids carrying day packs; traveling light.  Walking through forests, or sitting on beaches, and even climbing up volcano's or sitting by the pool, if you stopped and watched and listened, you saw and heard so much.  As I sat alone one morning, on the beach at the Curu Refuge I noticed a hermit crab climbing over the rocks and stones.  As I sat still and watched this little fellow make his way along the shore, I noticed another, and another.  Then, as I broadened my view, I realized the rocks were a hive of activity with hundreds of hermit crabs moving around almost invisible blending into the rocks and stones they traveled over.

In the forest we heard rustling. Turning around to our sides we saw a very different crab.  These crabs were blue or purple in their bodies, with bright orange or red legs - not water crabs, but forest crabs - congrejo.  They rattled over the dry forest leaves and fallen palm fronds.  Hundreds of them, running and hiding or bolting back into the holes they lived in.  We realized that first evening there that the holes around our cabina were not lizard holes, but homes for these crab.  We came back to find the concrete floored porch, and screen door covered in the congrejos.  It was like a sci-fi movie or Hitchcock film as we chased them away and they rattled and clattered back to their burrows.

Volcan Chato

I imagine the first Europeans to visit Costa Rica thought that the forests there were filled with demons: the eery screams and barking that come from deep between the trees.  Well there might be demons but we only saw, and heard, howler monkeys.  From the noise they make you would think they were giant monsters, with frighteningly sharp teeth.  But no!  Over-sized if they were large dogs, shy and those who are not shy, very friendly!  We were so lucky to have many howler encounters.  We watched as they danced from tree to tree, in a way Ananzi would be proud!  We saw a mother carrying, with great care and agility, her young one.  And they watched us too.

The sounds, once you got used to them, were like songs, the sites like a dance.  The scuttling crabs, the howlers had their language and at first we were wide-eyed. But the more we listened, the more we heard the songs and understood the language: the songs of the birds, the songs of the fish, the dance of the incredible flora and exotic birds, the songs of the forests and the songs of the people and the beautiful dances their joyful faces made. I have a desire to return to Costa Rica and learn Spanish. Not in that order!