Orphanage Camp

Also known as “Golden Autumn,” the camp owned and operated by the Petropavlovsk Regional Boarding School is located about twenty minutes north of the city. I had agreed to spend ten days playing and resting with about a hundred youth aged 8 to 17, and I was expecting it to be very similar to my experience last year working at Camp Dostik. Indeed, in many ways it was. The wooded campground consisted of a square half-mile with playing fields and various small buildings interspersed with rainbow-colored playground equipment and pagodas. All the campers and counselors stayed in fairly large two-story brick dormitory buildings on unbearably saggy metal spring beds, most of the kids having arrived in early June and not leaving until late August. The other buildings resembled any American summer camp, the wooden infirmary, office, cafeteria, and outdoor stage in various stages of disrepair caked with layers and layers of once-bright paint. The old bus carrying us from the orphanage in the city arrived at the camp at ten o’clock in the morning just as the kids were getting up. Mike and I spent a minute catching up with Katie who had been at camp for the ten days before us and was happily boarding the same bus we came in on. About ten minutes after we arrived, we were surrounded by a small posse of boys wanting to give us the grand tour.

We saw the dorms. We saw the football field. We saw the two old rusty swimming pools, both sitting above ground and growing waist-high weeds. We saw the basketball court fashioned from an old bumper-car arena. We saw the outhouses and the banya. And finally we saw the cafeteria. We thanked our zealous tour guides and went in to breakfast. Food at camp was not terrible but it was incredibly monotonous. Every breakfast was a combination of hardboiled eggs, sausage and bread. Every lunch was a combination of buckwheat, soup and bread. Every dinner was a combination of porridge and bread. The monotony was occasionally broken by a desert of gummy bears or a piece of fruit, but more often than not the desert was only for the kids. A few times we were lucky to be given a glass of thick and gooey juice called “kisel,” a drink which reminds me of the goop you put in a hummingbird feeder. In any other circumstances, eating a carb-only diet would cause one to put on weight. However, I gained a belt notch because of our active days.

We brought Frisbees, an American football and various card games to entertain the kids, and we spent a good part of each day throwing and running. The Frisbees were a great hit, and after the first day or two, most kids could manage to throw one where they were aiming. We taught them the rules to Ultimate Frisbee and American football. We played hours of basketball and soccer. Uno was insanely popular – almost as popular, in fact, as Swap, a similar card game my mom sent me last year. The kids had a two-hour nap time every afternoon during which Mike and I went for a walk and then read in our cozy dorm room. I finished one book and read another one in its entirety. I also found time to really start studying for the GRE which I’ll take on September 14th. It’s amazing how much more productive I am in my free time without movies and Freecell at my fingertips.

I had partially expected a camp for orphans to be full of emotionally and behaviorally unstable kids, but I was surprised by the overall contentedness and wellbeing I noticed. There was a couple (from KY of all places!) in town adopting a fourteen-year-old boy from the orphanage, and we spent a good amount of time chatting with them about the general condition of the kids and the camp/boarding school themselves. The kids readily attached to us (much more than my students at school) and were eager for attention and interaction. They laughed frequently and heartily and had great senses of humor. They were witty and strong, playful and friendly. The overwhelming smell of Mike’s crusty socks and the lack of modern comforts were well worth the ten days spent with these extraordinary kids. If you want to see pictures or find a way you can make a difference for these kids, check out the Antares blog here. They do a great job organizing sponsorships and other programs and could do even better with your support.