Home (9000 Miles) Away From Home

Joann and Sompy, from Papua New Guinea, are just two of the children who come from all over the world to attend summer camp in New England.

Just after Reveille blew each morning this summer, Sompy Somp entered the waters of Lower Baker Pond for his daily polar bear dip.  Dozens of kids at Camp Pemigewassett immersed themselves in the sometimes character-building cold of the lake.  At the conclusion of the summer, each earned a patch for their dedication.
                           
When Sompy got his, he put it in his backpack and took it with him on a plane from Boston to Los Angeles, and then on another to Brisbane, and then on a third to Port Moresby, and then on a final flight to Madang, Papua New Guinea, where he will finally be home again and eager to share stories of his seven weeks at summer camp in New England. 

Sompy’s sister Joann will have her own summer camp stories to tell – she spent seven weeks at Camp Wawenock in Raymond, ME. 

A Family Tradition

When Joann and Sompy Somp got word in May that they might be able to spend this summer at camp in New England, their father, Nuwi, was especially excited.  “We were very proud,” he wrote in broken English.  “It something very special and unforgettable memories that offered to our children.  As news reached us, [my children] started asking me about what would be like as camper?  Well, I told them, you find out, when you get there.  It’s so much fun!  And you will enjoy the most out of it.”

Nuwi knows firsthand about the value of summer camp.  He was a counselor at Pemi, a boys summer camp in Wentworth, NH, for several seasons between 1991 and 2007.  “During the last staff party, many greatest speeches from fellow counselors and staff how Pemi changes their life being with the group of the nations all the world.  My heart feels the same way with the Pemi,” he wrote. 

Nuwi’s journey to summer camp is as improbable as his kids’.  In 1990, he was working on an Earthwatch Institute expedition to a high altitude rain forest in Aseki, a remote province in Papua New Guinea, to collect moths to study their defense mechanisms.  Austin Richards was also on the expedition and thought Nuwi was “a really nice, friendly guy, and he had a lot of skill in catching and mounting insects.”  When Austin returned to the United States, he got in touch with Rob Grabill, who was Pemi’s director, where Austin had been a camper and counselor.  “Nuwi came to the US the year before to work at Interlochen [now Windsor Mountain International Camp],” said Rob, now the Executive Director of Windridge Camps.  “That made it easier to vet him.  From the moment he arrived, it was so clear that what he had to offer – his humanity and his warmth – served as a bridge for kids, to show them that there are things in life that are very, very important, more so than material possessions.” 

To bring Nuwi to summer camp was always a lengthy process, made more frustrating by bureaucracy, corruption, and 9/11.  “We’d start in November or December,” Rob said.  “Especially his last year here, it was excruciatingly hard, but it was always worth it.”

It was not any easier for Sompy and Joann.  They had to spend two weeks in Port Moresby in May in order to obtain visas to travel to New England.  Meanwhile, alumni, parents, and staff at Pemi were frantically trying to raise the thousands of dollars required to cover the exorbitant cost of airfare.  Larry Davis, Pemi’s Head of Nature, who led the charge to bring the kids to summer camp in New England, described a previous effort in 2007 that had failed when a scandal shut the Papua New Guinean passport office down for several weeks.  In casting about for a summer camp, in the meantime, that Joann could attend, Wawenock stepped in.  Catriona Sangster, one of Wawenock’s camp directors, said that, while they rarely take on new 14-year-old campers, the choice to shift things around to make room for Joann was easy. "I am most impressed by the bravery of our international campers, and their willingness and eagerness to take a risk and try new things. Each of them - [this year] from England, the Dominican Republic, France, Spain, Qatar, and Papua New Guinea - in their own way, succeeded at becoming a part of our greater summer camp family due to their open mind and positive attitude."

Like Any Other Kid

Sompy’s and Joann’s favorite things about their first season at summer camp were not unusual.  Sompy enjoyed competing against Camp Tecumseh, Pemi’s chief athletic rival.  He won the individual freestyle in the 12-year-olds’ swim meet against them, and was on two victorious relay teams, too. 

Joann, meanwhile, excelled at archery and arts & crafts.  Her counselor, Claire Marian, showed me a thick, complicated bracelet that Joann had made for her.  Claire, who runs Wawenock’s outdoor living skills program and is studying to be an ESL teacher, was an ideal candidate to help introduce Joann to summer camp.  “We wanted all the girls get to know Joann as Joann instead of as ‘The Girl from Papua New Guinea,” she explained.  Claire wrote all the girls’ names on flying pigs – the cabin’s theme – and tied them over their beds, which helped Joann learn them more easily.  And she encouraged the other girls to help Joann navigate the daily routine. 

Over at Pemi, Sompy’s counselor was Ted McChesney, a longtime camper and counselor who’s studying abroad this fall in Lyon, France.  He described Sompy as, “simply put, the man” and “quite the little athlete.  He was in my baseball [activity] this week, and you never would have thought that he had never played before.  He had a three run triple in a game recently.”  Sompy picked up tennis, too, to add to the collection of sports – basketball and soccer – that he already knew and loved.  He also performed as a member of the chorus in Pemi’s production of Pirates of Penzance, and participated enthusiastically in the nature program, too.

Campers and staff get more out of sharing their cabins with kids like Sompy and Joann than merely learning lots of facts about foreign countries.  Crucially, it’s an opportunity to discover that people from all over the world share many more similarities than differences.  Joann, for example, mentioned that she and one of her close friends, from New Jersey, both have brothers at Pemi, and that they wrote to their brothers far more often than their brothers wrote to them.  “I got two letters!” Joann said, indignant but smiling. 

That same friend’s mother, Lou Hamilton, took Joann with her and her daughter on visiting day.  Their itinerary included a trip to Wal-Mart, lunch at Applebee’s, and a tour of the Old Port in Portland, ME.  “She found gifts for her family, postcards, and some clothes for the upcoming Agawam dance and for school when she returned,” Lou wrote.  “What a wonderful day and opportunity for all three of us to observe that, regardless of where all our campers are from, they share so much in common, including their values, kindness, curiosity, wonder, respect, and delightful, generous approach to friendship, life, and appreciation for all of our many blessings.”

Welcoming international children to accredited summer camps in New England “helps kids get out of themselves,” Rob explained, “that their way isn’t the only way, their values are the only values, and their culture isn’t the only culture.  They learn that different is okay and acceptable.” Both Wawenock and Pemi encouraged Joann and Sompy to share what they wanted to from their native culture.  Sompy taught everyone a song at a campfire and offered birthday greetings from Papua New Guinea at his summer camp’s annual Birthday Banquet.  Joann’s friends asked her all about her family and her life back home, and she taught them how to say things in a pidgin commonly spoken in her homeland.   Among the phrases was ‘Mipela likum camp bilong mipela,’ which means ‘I love my camp.’

Further Information

Children come from all over the world and the United States to attend summer camp in New England. To search for a great summer camp for your child, go here.