Camp Tali....

Ok..
So..
Summer CAmp is almost over :(
SAdness..
BUT!!
I got the job here for semesters!
YAY!!
I cannot wait.
I feel as though this summer has been really good for me. I have engaged a LOT more with staff and with the children.. I have become more of a counselor and less of a cleaner..
One particular In-between session was pretttttY scary..
We had gone to the Carl Sandburg House.. There were about twelve kids ranging in age from 11 to 19. AND ranging from Low functioning Autism to extreme ADD.
It was rather interesting... One particular child.. lets call him Max.. has had a history of instigating trouble. One of the other kids.. lets call him Alex (one of my favorites) was quite low on the social skills scale.. he had wet his bed the night before (he had NEVER done that before.. we figured it was because of the shock of change.. going from Academics to Sight) Anyway. Max had been making a noise that sounded like someone peeing and screaming "BEDWETTER! BEDWETTER!! PSSSS! PSSS!" over and over and Alex kept shouting "NO PSSS! PSSS!" And running around in circles.
Anyway. Max ended up calling Group every 5 minutes to call issues on the kids around him who accidently tapped him or accidently bumped into him.. The others were all pissed off at Max for calling issues on silly things... I could tell everyone was on the verge of bubbling over...
Lunch time came around and Max started instigating trouble again.. "PSS! PSS!BEDWETTER!!" and when i tried to take him aside to talk to him, he spat out his peanut butter nad jelly sandwitch at me (already chewed up and nasty... I was weating a dress with nice big pockets and the food ended up IN my pockets..) He calmed down for about 2 minutes.. we gave him some pretzels and he spat them out at me again.
"If you cannot handle sandwitches or pretzels in your mouth, you obviously cannot handle cookies in your mouth."
So he got no cookies..
More anger and frustrations were bubbling up...
Less than 5 minutes later, we piled on the bus... made it to the next block and had to pull over...
Max was standing on his seat on the bus, leaning over shouting hte same thing at the top of his lungs, "PSSS!! PSS!! BEDWETTER! BEDWETTER!!"
Everyone on the bus was getting sick of his antics..
Dave* crawled up on his seat and ran up to Max and attempted to hit him with a water bottle.. we settled him down for a minute..
Andy (18) went into his own little world shouting at the top of his lungs "GO AWAY!! YOU DONT BELEIVE ME!! NO ONE CARES!! AHRGG!!"
Alex had had enough and ran to the front to bite Max.. The other counselor had to restrain him.. I had to restrain Max... Dean was trying to crawl over all of us..
One of the girls, Amelia was curled up outside thebuss in a ball of tears..
A stranger came on the bus asking if everything was alright in the midst of all of this..
"We're good! We're okay! No Worries!!"
They didnt listen..
Max ran away.. out the bus.. across the street.. down the busy road.. in and out of the woods... I talked him down until he was able to be sensible... one of the administration pulled up beside us and had to restrain him by the side of the road... i ran BACK to the bus while cars kept stopping on the side of the road asking "Is everything alright back there?!"
Out of breath and running in the opposite direction, i would stutter, "Yeah.. its all good.. no worries..."
We finally made it back to camp.. the kids were tramatized.. one kid was curled up in a ball on his bed and didnt move for nearly 2 hours..
Anyway...
more later..
internet is scarce here.. and so is free time..
I dont want to leave this place..