[blindkid] Blind Camps

[Heather]

Well, the second sounds nice, but the first you mentioned is one of the 
horrific ones I went to, and many of my peers suffered through.  I got into 
a screaming match with a counsilor once because I wasn't particularly good 
at the long jump, and on my first try I jumped and landed in a heap and 
started lauging.  I said "Ok, that sucked, let's try that again, shall we?" 
in a good humor.  She instantly jumped on me saying "That was fine."  "Erm, 
no it wasn't, but I'll try it again."  "No, you have to stop having such a 
negative attitude."  "Lady, it sucked, it's no big deal, I'm not upset about 
it, but it really and truly sucked.  I didn't go hardly anywhere and I 
landed on my butt, so what can I do to make it better?"  "If you don't think 
that you can do it then you will never be able to."  "Uh, I do think I can 
do it, eventually, but I need some pointers, what should I do differently?" 
"Well, if you are just going to insist on putting yourself down then maybe 
you should give the next girl a chance."  Another counsilor got angry with 
me because they were having kids throw plates, glass plates, from the dining 
hall on the grass, because starting right off with a diskus is sort of heavy 
for small hands.  I expressed my concern that I would throw it too far and 
break it on the parking lot, and the man assured me that I wouldn't, that if 
I did it wouldn't be a problem, and then advised me to give it a light toss. 
I did, it overshot the other campers, the grass and smashed to pieces on the 
parkinglot.  He yelled at me telling me that "You did that on purpose.  You 
can see can't you?  You are just acting like you can't see all that much. 
You think you're funny don't you?"  When this man should have known full 
well, that I was a medium high partial, and that I had tried to warn him 
that I was afraid it might hit the pavement and not the grass.  My first 
year when I was seven, a deaf blind girl who was pretty low functioning, 
either because of mental retardation, or improper management by the 
counsilors or improper socialization and education by the parents, came up 
to me where I was sitting in the dining hall, grabbed my bowl of very hot 
soup and dumped it into my lap after grabbing various things off of the 
table and throwing them, including my silverware, my brandnew diskman and my 
plate.  It hurt like hell and my diskman shattered.  I was seven for crying 
out loud, so I did what a lot of normal seven year olds would have done.  I 
grabbed her and started yelling at her and shuvved her.  She didn't bleed, 
no bones were broken, she didn't hear the mean things I said, no clothing 
was ripped or property of hers damaged.  All that she got was me grabbing 
her and pushing her down onto her but on the floor, and I was half her size. 
They were going to kick me out for that.  My stomach and legs didn't get 
seen for the nasty blistering oozing burns for at least a half an hour of 
them lecturing me while I kept insisting that "It hurt" and "she burned me" 
and "I need a bandaid or something.  Finally, a girl who was diabetic and 
had special concintrated sugar disks that were for if her blood sugar 
dropped was being hastled by a counsilor, who was not aware of her 
condition, for "not sharing her candy" when one of the low functioning 
camperrs heard her grab the bag out of her drawr and take one because she 
had tested low and was feeling faint.  Here she was, about ready to pass 
out, trying to politely and calmly explain to the counsilor that they were 
medically neccessary and not candy.  I was trying to tell the counsilor that 
the candies were not ordinary candies, but she was starting to give one to 
her camper, the MR one.  I grabbed the bag out of her hand, made sure that 
the older girl had taken one, then went into the hall to find her counsilor 
who knew of her condition, and only then did the first counsilor stop 
insinuating that my friend was selfish and childish, but neither of us ever 
got an apology.  It's not the indiviedual events, it's the attitude that I 
had a problem with.  I will look up the second camp you mentiooned, since it 
was more of a normal summer camp experience.  Thanks.  Wasn't planning on 
pointing individual fingers at camps, but since it came up, I thought I sort 
of had to say something.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jessica" <jess28 at samobile.net>
To: <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, June 04, 2010 4:55 PM
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Blind Camps


> SUNY Brockport I believe runs Camp Abilities. They run the camp to give 
> students in their Adaptive Physical Education Program experience working 
> with students with Visual Impairments and prehaps other physical 
> disabilities.  When I was between the ages of about 6-12 or 13 I attended 
> Easter Seals camp called Camp Hemlock in Connecticut I don't exactly 
> remember where in Connecticut the camp is located. It was just at normal 
> overnight summer camp.
> Jessica
>
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