Alaskan Bulgarian

Bones

Since I was once, in a time long ago, a certified EMT, the other Americans running the camp decided that it'd be a good idea to make me the camp's "doctor" for all the minor injuries that usually accompany these things. When I learned that our camp would have a nurse on-duty all the time, I was understandably overjoyed. What I didn't see coming was that the other camp members would still reference me in the manual as the guy to see for medical things. Also, I did not anticipate that the nurse would be gone most of the camp and give me the keys to a mostly empty medical room.

So I've been the one left to deal with (so far) a small cut by a fingernail, a jammed finger, two upset stomachs, a sore throat, and a scrape on a shin. It's kind of hard being the camp "doctor" and not getting to tell kids to suck it up and move on with life. They expect things out of me, especially after the nurse goops up a scrape with some strange brownish guck, puts gauze on it, and wraps it with a bandage. Not having trusty bacitracin or Neosporin at my disposal, I've been content to clean the little cuts thouroughly with soap and water and put on a band-aid. And it's vitamin C, water, and cough drops for the sore throat; And rest, a bit of soda, and water for the kids with upset stomachs. So far, everything's turned out well enough and everybody gives me satisfied reports about their "illnesses" the day after. Comfort and a few good pieces of advice work better than telling kids to get it together and push past the pain, but it's still not as fun.

Backstage is still mostly improvisational and good times as we're figuring things out as we go. But things onstage, in front of the kids, have turned into a real triumph. The sessions on life have gone very well. The guys are all very willing to discuss gender roles, race, nationalism,, and stereotypes, and do it all in English. After a light first day, we've supplemented the food to the point that I'm almost full after eating two of the meals and the extra stuff. I assume that this means the guys are getting by on what they get, too. They're enjoying the time on the beach, and every indication points to these guys having a great time.

The most interesting thing to come out of the sessions so far has been the incredibly solid view of gender roles these guys have. A man must, for example, take out the trash. He's bigger for one thing, and it's tradition for another. Also, only men must be police officers. It's a size thing again. They were all very open-minded about cooking, though. The most famous chefs in the world are men, so it must be okay for men to cook in the kitchen at home too.

We offered some reasons for being more open-minded about these roles, but we never tried to force them out of their mindset. It all came down to the general theme of the camp so far, or my group's them at least: You can have lots of stereotypes, it's hard to get rid of those things, but in the end it comes down to treating each person you meet as someone new and seeing everyone as an individual. It's all very lovey-dovey, but they seem to be getting the point.

Posted by Rob at July 21, 2004 03:55 PM