Written by Clara MacMeekin
Art by Lucas Eglin
The smile slips from my face the second I walk into my bedroom. It’s the first time I’ve seen it in two and a half weeks. I’m pretty sure my mom knew something was wrong (more so than me just coming home early after catching whatever sickness was spreading in camp). She had that concerned-protective-mother look in her eye. I was doing anything I could to passively reassure her that I was, in fact, having the time of my life being a camp counselor. There is nothing more humiliating than having to admit that the dream you’ve been chasing for the last three years is as good as dead. As I step into my–gloriously private–bathroom, I stare back into my exhausted eyes and confront the unbearable truth: I just had the worst seventeen days of my fucking life and I’m supposed to go back in two days.
Camp Low Port (this is a fake name because I don’t want any drama from the real place), was not your average sleep-away camp. First off, it currently costs $1,493 to spend a week there this summer. Secondly, this camp is notorious in Georgia. It’s a status symbol, the preppy boarding school of summer camps, the mastermind behind the social hierarchy of white-teenage-Jesus-lovers.
I was thirteen years old (a white-teenage-Jesus-lover myself) when I first entered the gates of Camp Low Port, ready to spend the fifth week of my summer at a camp that can best be described as “luxurious”. The week was fun enough for me to want to come back; but not because I was dying to be a camper again, no, I wanted to be a counselor. Over the week, I had quickly realized that being a counselor at Camp Low Port was the best thing that could happen to me. The counselors were cool, they were popular at their fancy private schools (which, I rationalized, would be my ticket to being popular at my very unfancy, public high school). The girls were pretty and the men were dreamy. It was everything a desperate-to-not-be-different teenager like myself could want, and it actually seemed doable.
At Camp Low Port, you did not become a counselor like you would at any other camp (application, interview, congrats, you’re hired), no, you had to complete multiple summer programs before you could even be invited back to be a counselor. That did not deter me, however, and the next summer I completed the first step; the ALA program, Advanced Leadership Academy. Why a summer camp has a program with “Academy” in the title should prove to you just how pretentious this camp was. Two weeks of learning how to be a better person from the teachings of people whose frontal lobes were not yet developed and I was ready to complete the final program the following summer–being an LIT.
Being an LIT (Leader in Training) was a famous position at the camp. It was the last program one had to complete before becoming a counselor–should they choose to accept you. I have never in my life experienced something like being an LIT. For three weeks, each week stationed at a different cabin, you were worked to the bone. I do not say this for dramatic effect; the LITs are referred to by everyone as “the men behind the curtain”. It should have been comforting to know that every counselor had to be an LIT. I mean, it would’ve been comforting if they didn’t treat us like shit. For three weeks, our mental strengths were tested; it was exhausting. Eighteen-hour days of setting up each meal, being the task people (Clara, can you fill up my water bottle? Clara, can you carry my backpack? Hey, LIT over there–clean up this mess I made), the always expected to accept a job but why did you abandon your post people, the be anything for anyone people. Explaining our duties, I’ll admit, doesn’t make them sound as grueling as they felt at the time. It was our punishments, however, that were truly the tests of our resilience and questioned the morality of the counselors in charge of us. To give you an example of what kinds of punishments they’d inflict on us if we were not performing to their standards: our name tags would be taken away. They would literally take away our name tags, our names–and, no, the counselors did not know our names by heart because “the men behind the curtain” is all we were. The worst part was that the counselors for the LITs were only two years older than us. That power dynamic is super fucked up. Maybe I am a better person for those weeks, but all I feel it left me with was an unconscious weariness of people a few years older than me being in a position of authority. Being an LIT costs $4,179, by the way.
I must have been pretty damn determined to be a counselor, because even after those three weeks, my dream was more alive than ever. Luckily, I got the email a few months later saying that I was invited back to be a CIT (counselor in training, still a counselor, but bottom of the totem pole). I cried–weeped. I called my brother to tell him the good news. I was so inconsolable that he thought our parents were dead. He didn’t exactly gush his congratulations when I assured him that our parents were fine and I was just going to be a counselor at a summer camp. The hold this camp had on me was truly unhealthy.
The summer of 2018 was an eagerly anticipated one, as I would be spending three weeks as CIT of cabin four. Counselor. I relished in the status I would now have at camp. On June 15th, 2018, I would finally be entering the gate of Camp Low Port as someone worthy. I had bled for this, cried for this, longed for this, earned this. I was going to have the best summer ever and walk away with memories that would last a lifetime.
I did not end up having the best summer ever. It was one of the worst experiences of my life.
Things Clara Got in Trouble For While Being a Counselor (to list a few):
- Talking to the LITs like they were humans
The LIT that was stationed in our cabin during the first week was a very nice girl. One day, she asked me about “The Incident” that had happened the previous summer when a few counselors got fired for having vapes (morally wrong, sure, but they got caught because their stuff was raided–which they had no knowledge was happening and was, per our contract, only permissible with the owner’s permission). Yes, the LITs are technically campers and it really wasn’t any of her business (nor mine), so I would have been well within my rights to snappily dismiss her like the counselors usually did when an LIT asks a question. I felt for this girl, though; she was just curious. So, I kindly explained to her that whatever “The Incident” was, it was over now and the rules put into place after were to be respected. I was busted and subjected to a very stern telling-off by my head counselor about “sharing private information with a minor”. By the way, my head counselor was part of “The Incident”; why she didn’t get fired is still a mystery to me. Sure, though, I was the bad-guy for treating this girl like she was a human.
- Talking to male campers too often
This one, I can understand to an extent. If I assumed that a female counselor was spending more time with male campers than her own campers, alarms would be going off in my head, too, I suppose. However, instead of my head counselor chatting with me about the importance of being inclusive with all campers, she said I wasn’t allowed to talk to the male campers anymore because it would “give them the wrong idea and make me look bad”. The male campers in question were seven.
- Talking to male ALCs
Should I have been weirdly complimented that the head counselors thought I was such a temptress? I had the Head of Girls Side (cabin four was in Girl Side) talk to me for this one. I’m sorry, “talk” implies that she listened to my side of the event; she did not. So, I had the Head of Girls Side scold me until I sobbed.
- Breaking curfew and kissing a fellow male counselor
The first part sounds bad, and something I understand getting in trouble for, but let me explain. If you’ve ever heard the rumors about how horny people are at Christian sleep-away camps, then what you’ve heard is true. I was sixteen and not an exception (sorry, Jesus). On one of our nights off, the group of CIT’s decided to stay at the campgrounds and do what teenagers did at summer camps–find someone to make-out with. I’m making this sound way more obscene than it was; there were people who just enjoyed the company of others while keeping their hands to themselves. Spoiler alert, I was one of the people who kissed. More specifically, high on whatever vulgar hormones were controlling us, this guy and I decided to stay out past curfew and sneak into the gym storage room to have an embarrassingly juvenile make-out session. Ever the rule follower I was; breaking curfew was terrifying to me but getting attention from a boy trumped my knee-jerk reaction to follow rules. Sometime later, he wanted to take it a step further (use your imagination). I did not. While I was formulating a response in my head that would soften the rejection I would surely be suffering from him no longer thinking I was cool, my thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of male cheering–male taunting. Outside this very original location of the gym storage closet we were in, multiple male head counselors had shown up to show their support. What comradery! Now, thoroughly embarrassed and turned off thanks to the just-ignore-them-and-give-me-what-I’m-asking-for smile from my partner in this crime gave me, I bolted out of that storage closet. The cheers and catcalls from the older boys followed me as I ran to my cabin. All I could think about as I got into my bed was how angry I was for breaking the rules over a stupid boy.
“Clara, let’s talk outside.” Scarier words have never been spoken. It was the next night and as I was finishing braiding one of my campers’ hair, my head counselor approached me for a chit-chat outside our cabin. I walked out and there was my head counselor and the Head of Girl Side staring me down. Had I not been consuming mostly carbs for the past week and a half, I probably would have shit myself right then and there. Pleasantries were exchanged and over the ringing in my ears, I heard my head counselor say, “Word gets around. We know what you did. Stuff like that makes us look bad.” How foolish of me to possibly hope for an apology on behalf of the older boys taunts or just a scolding on staying out past curfew.
That was the moment I realized that these people were not my people. I felt betrayed and angry, but most of all, I was so ashamed of myself.
The boy I kissed came out unscathed and was more popular than ever after that. The older boys had taken him under their wing. How nice for him.
The hypocrisy and misogyny of the ways in which this Christian summer camp went about their treatment of female-male relationships is not lost on me. If I was younger, or had I not yet reconciled my feelings about Camp Low Port, I wouldn’t have understood that. While I am angry that an institution that flaunts their reputation for teaching the goodness and grace of the Lord had so blatantly not given me that same grace, my experience–quite frankly–had little to do with religion. I didn’t want to be a counselor at this camp to strengthen my relationship with God, I went to this camp because I worshiped the counselors, who–when I was a camper–did model what I thought to be good christian behavior. I guess that stops when you’re a counselor. At the time, I was more angry to learn that these people were mean and sexist, rather than worrying about whether or not they were good Christians.
So, if you are wondering–no, my religious beliefs did not change. I am still a Christian, though since moving away from the American South, a less practicing one. What changed was my expectation that “Christian” summer camps were not mean and sexist; my expectation that people were good people because they were good Christians. These were not kind or good people, and I’m sure God agrees with me.