Coopers Beach - Day 1

Ahhhhhh. Peace. And mundanity. Home at last.

For those who are unaware or just not sure what Coopers Beach is, I would refer you to wikipedia, but unfortunately Coopers Beach is so unimportant in the greater scheme of things that it does not merit a wiki. Suffice it to say that it is a beach on the east coast in the far, far north of New Zealand, which summons up an image of white sand, extreme heat, friendly tanned locals, and painfully pink tourists. There is also a Brethran Youth Camp up there, and every year a group of enthusiastic people from Auckland, Hamilton, and other parts of the country arrive en masse to teach kids about Jesus and instil in them great exhaustion from strenuous activity.

Because I am a verbose writer who considers writing anything shorter than the length of a novella to be a type of failing, I shall split my description of this event into days in order for those who find reading anything longer than the length of a novella don't take one look at my extraordinarily long post and run away screaming.

Day 1 - Wednesday

The day began with the requisite last-minute pack. I have not yet mastered the art of acting promptly. Procrastination, however, is a skill deeply rooted in me, and consequently I made it out the door after thirty minutes of intense panicing. I arrived at the church with time to spare, loaded my gear into the church's shiny new van, rolled out some astroturf (long story), had a prayer session, and we were off! In the car were, in order of seating from front to back and left to right, Sharon (a leader), Peter (the leader of leaders), Chris (fellow leader), Mikaiah and George (both campers), Elliot, myself, Izak, Mikayla, and Emilee (all leaders).

The ten of us set off shouting excitedly, "Whoopie!"

Four hours later, a hot, bad-tempered van of people arrived at Coopers Beach.

We cheered up a bit as we drew close to the camp. There is a big hill that faces the main road, and on this hill had been placed large white letters which read "HOLLYWOOD NORTH" in keeping with our theme for the camp.

We poured out of the car groaning with relief, stretching and unkinking muscles, and after a lot of boring unpacking and flaffing around which I won't go into, because hey, it's boring, a group of us who came up in the van decided to chillax at the top of the camp's infamously steep hill. We felt revived after our trip, and we laughed and joked and told stories of previous camps. Like...

 "Did you hear about the time Izak rolled down the hill inside a bunch of tires?"

As we talked we watched another group of leaders sitting on the obstacle course at the base of the hill.

"I do not like this distinct separation of leader groups," I said. "We should promote a spirit of leader unity. Let us go down the hill and mingle."
A chorus of groans followed this suggestion, for if we were to walk down the hill then we would have to eventually walk back up it - and trust me, this is something one did not do lightly.
"If we go down there they'll probably just move away from us, anyway," said Izak.
"You are so pessimistic. This shall not happen. Let us go," I said, and with sheer force of personality induced everyone to follow.
We flowed down the hill and claimed a spot on the obstacle course not far from the other group. We continued our talk-fest. The other group glanced uneasily at us, got up and made a brave attempt at a touch rugby game not far from us, before walking back up the hill and claiming our previous spot.

"I told you so," said Izak smugly.
"Shut up. We didn't try hard enough. We should follow them back up the hill," I said.
"NO!" said everyone firmly, and I gave it up as a lost cause.
"Hey, Elliott!" someone called, and Elliot whipped around. The other group were laughing and joking among themselves and weren't even pretending to look at us.
"Huh," Elliot said. "I guess there's another Elliot."
"That's going to get confusing," said Emilee.
"I know ay, once there was about three Chrises in my class, and I never knew which Chris people were talking to," said Chris.
"I've never had that problem," I bragged. "I've never even met another Zara. It's great having a unique name."

Shortly after we were summoned up to the hall for a leaders meeting. We trudged back up the hill and filed into the hall. Nothing of great import happened at the meeting, save this: there was a lack of musicians and music leaders for the worship sessions. I seized the opportunity and decided to volunteer. Leading these sessions has always been a Secret Leader Ambition of mine, a dream I'd never thought to see realised due to my profound lack of singing and dancing ability. But surely, with everyone else sucking at least as bad as I did, I'd be able to do this and make up with enthusiasim what I lacked in skill. Two other leaders I'd never met before volunteered as well. I was pleased. I would not suck alone.

After the meeting I decided to renew my attempts at sociability and introduced myself to my fellow singer/dancers.
"Hi! I'm Zara," I said to one of them, a tall blonde girl.
"Great to meet you!" she replied. "I'm Sara."
"Oh, crap," I said.

...

to be continued...