Camp Part Deux

There is a certain loneliness here, a sense that no matter how hard I try I will continue to remain at the periphery of their lives. Sure, there are brief moments of acceptance which though possibly feigned feel increasingly real. But then the next day or possibly the next hour when the alcohol has settled or the moment has passed I return to the sidelines where I belong. I want to help, but I think in their minds I am little more than an experiment, an American to observe and to be observed.

My three weeks at camp were a rush of comedy and drama and excitement and education. I learned a lot, my language progressed, my vantage point of this country and its people continued to morph.

When I first arrived, one of the prospects of the camp experience that excited me most was the other counselors. Ranging from the ages of 18-25, these were a group of young, educated, intelligent and motivated adults, patriotic, interesting, outgoing. These were the people who could become my friends in my increasingly isolated world.

My first hour at camp, not a soul spoke a word to me. I was understandably a bit nervous, unsure of what exactly I was supposed to do or where exactly I was supposed to go next. Finally, somewhere in the middle of hour number two, Katya, the 25 year old head programmer, started quizzing me on my background and purpose and why the fuck am I here, the usual hodge-podge of queries which were old habits by this point. Silence followed by intense interest, strangers to best of friends, this was the beginning of my roller coaster ride at Ukranian summer camp. I wavered between being an asset and a burden, much of the group seemingly undecided as to whether or not they were glad I was there.

The counselors were, for the most part, a tight knit group. I arrived at camp at the start of the second session, the majority of the group having already spent three weeks together, bonding, getting to know each other. And in comes striding this American, with his fancy gadgets and strange attitude and slightly odd sense of humor. And why the hell is he always smiling? What the hell does he have to smile about?

The third night in, the Director of the camp asked me if I would stay up and have a few drinks with some of the other counselors. I readily agreed, eager to ingratiate myself to the group. For the first time I really felt like I was beginning to connect. We were laughing and joking and prodding and poking and we were friends and I was happy. Then the next day came and the reset button had been hit. I was again extraneous. I was again alone.

This was a common occurrence, a few days going by where the counselors would drink without inviting me or the gang would hang out without nary a word to that silly American, then an invitation and a jolly good night followed by days where I was a pale ghost wandering the camp’s pathways. Why was I trapped in these middle school insecurities?

And sometimes, when they weren’t ignoring me, there were treating me like some combination between a child and a slave. Why don’t you go to sleep Jeremy? Why don’t you go shower with the kids? Why don’t you get out of bed immediately? Why are you still awake, reading deep into the night? Why are you here? What do you offer that we don’t, what besides your place of birth makes you special? Who the hell do you think you are?

Kids are remarkably perceptive, and they could often tell that the other counselors viewed me as something immensely less than. And so sometimes when I would tell them not to touch my things they wouldn’t listen. And sometimes when I would tell them to stop talking they would spit more words in my face. And sometimes they began to mimic the same questions as the counselors, who the fuck are you, why are you here, you can’t tell me what to do.

But these moments were all a collection of sometimes, a seeming indecision on the part of everybody there whether they liked me or grossly mistrusted me, whether I was one of them or a perennial outsider who could never belong. Their indecision became my indecision. Their uncertainly about why I was here became my uncertainty about why I was here. And sometimes I felt very alone.

Why aren’t these Ukranians clamouring to get to know me? Why aren’t they all groveling at my feet, imbued with gratefulness for all I have done for them? For all I plan to do for them? Why won’t they be my friends? Why wont they say thank you? Why do I need them to say thank you?

I began to reflect upon an experience I had two summers ago, when I was taking a Statistics class at NYU. A kid in my class was named Jacopo, and he was an art history student from Italy who was spending his summer exploring what he had always heard to be the greatest city in the world. Jacopo was fine---nothing special, not exuding coolness but not terribly bothersome, either. He took down my number, he friended me on Facebook, he texted me to hang out. And sometimes we did. But other time I just didn’t want to bother, it was to much work, his language good but not great, my patience wearing a little too think. He was fine, but I have my life. He was interesting to learn about, but my interest only stretched so far. He was a sometimes. Just like me.

I am now Jacopo. And yet do I regret what I did, how I treated him? Has standing in his shoes changed the way I felt? Unfortunately, not really. I had my own life to live in New York that summer, my own issues to deal with, my own struggles and challenges and girls and friends and activities.

And these people have their own lives, as well. This country will go on with or without me, summer camp would have been summer camp all the same. So how can I continue, knowing that I am forever an outsider? How can I allow myself to care, while knowing that sometimes, others won’t have the time to care about me?

One day at camp, I was shooting around the basketball by myself when I noticed a skinny girl of about ten playing volleyball by herself, if you could call it that. She was smacking the ball in the air as hard and as fast as she could, chasing it down, lathering, rinsing, repeating. The whole process looked ridiculous, and yet I sensed in her some of the same loneliness I felt in myself. She was too old to play on the swings with the little kids, and too small and not a good enough player to get in to the real game.

SMACK and one of her misplayed hits rolled right up next to me. I dropped the basketball and ran the volleyball towards her, and I asked her if she wanted to play.

Her accuracy didn’t get any better with a partner, her gauge of her own strength gave me plenty of exercise as I ran after wild bumps. But I learned her name was Ivana, and I learned she was wildly uncoordinated. I learned she had a great smile, too.

About ten minutes in, the kids needed an extra for their volleyball game, and asked me if I wanted to play. I said I would, but only if Ivana could play, also. The kids protested. So did Ivana. But I stood firm and soon there we were in the midst of a heated completely unimportant game.

When it was Ivana’s turn to serve, she tried to renege. Ya ne Mozhu, she proclaimed, I am not able. Mozhesh i Budesh, I proclaimed, you can and you will.

Turns out she couldn’t. Not on the first try, at least. The second and the third failed too (I convinced the kids to give her a couple extra whirls.) Ivana was devestated, but through a variety of funny faces and self deprecation I managed to dig out a smile.

The next morning Ivana and I practiced her serve for an hour. I showed her different ways she could make up for her lack of strength, how to hold the ball, how to hit the ball, how to believe she could do it. When we stepped into the game later that afternoon, the kids on our team groaned as Ivana stepped up to hit it. The groans morphed into gasps as she smacked the ball in its center out of her flat hand. Gasps turned to cheers of triumph as it sailed over the net and an older girl swung and whiffed, Ivana’s triumph in the form of an Ace.

It didn’t matter to Ivana that the next serve went about 30 feet out of bounds, and that she never really had a good serve the rest of the day. Until she went to sleep that night she had a smile on her face, the satisfaction of her momentary acceptance, the joviality of that brief instance where she was part of the team.

I realized that Ivana did need to always be accepted, she didn’t need to sit with the cool kids at lunch and she didn’t need to be loved by the world and she didn’t need everyone to be her best friend. She was so damn satisfied just accomplishing something, just improving something about herself, that nothing else really seemed important.

I will never be a permanent member of any team here. I will also be the alien, the foreigner, the American, the outsider, the short hairy Jew with contact lenses and fancy gadgets and strange customs and clothes and my God his accent is terrible. I may not become best friends with anyone, I may never truly make it into to some “inner circle.” I will almost certainly never be Ukranian. I can, however, learn to be satisfied with my best.

Accepting things the way they are has never been easy for me. I’ve never been one to take failure lightly. Yet if Ivana has taught me anything, it is that we cannot expect to wake up one morning and be the star, to change the face of a nation, or a village, or a person while standing on one foot. Life here has to be about incremental steps in a positive direction, about going up to the line and trying to land that serve and being happy if just one makes it through.

Sometimes we won’t be welcomed. Sometimes we won’t be thanked. Sometimes we will not be included and we will not happy and we will be lonely and I will be alone.

But other times I have to find ways to be content with small victories, to be satiated by those transient moments of success, however fleeting.