Sweet gigs at Sugar Bay

If you are young, active and looking for something rewarding to fill the vacant hours of your planned gap year, then why not relive your childhood glory and go to camp? The Courier visited Sugar Bay camp for children in Zinkwazi to find out about the highs and lows of being a camp counsellor, and no lows were found.

After four years of involvement at Sugar Bay, 23-year-old Mthobisi ‘Raven’ Dludla said that working as a counsellor helped him to find himself and to discover the focus and direction of his chosen career path.

“I came here with the idea of finding myself. I was full of questions like, ‘how do I fit into the world’, but Sugar Bay gave me a sense of belonging which confirmed what I already knew – that I would work with children,” said Dludla, who said working with people, being outdoors and doing sports is a great way to spend your time and earn a living.

Activities at the camp include field sports like football and ultimate frisbee, water sports such as surfing, body boarding, paddle-boarding and swimming, with rock climbing, beach volleyball, arts and crafts, obstacle courses as well as theatre and music. So cousellors get to act like kids while taking care of kids.

“I enjoy it and I have fun. I can be a kid 24/7, which is great because it prolongs your youth,” said Dludla, who works alongside a number of other young counsellors from across the country and around the world.

Nineteen-year-old student, Camille Spitz, came from France two months ago to embark on a journey across the world.

“I wanted to discover South Africa, and what better way than to live and work at camp with really cool people,” said Spitz, who is returning to France to enroll at university. She plans to return in November.

Communications officer at Sugar Bay, Anitta ‘Tweet’ Banjwa, said that the camp’s mission is to inspire children to be anything and everything that they want to be.

“Our main goal is to provide a place where children develop emotionally and mentally in order to leave camp with a greater sense of self-esteem and confidence,” said Banjwa, adding that Sugar Bay enabled her to re-discover her own calling to journalism.

Established in 2001 by Nic and Zoe Ellender, Sugar Bay is South Africa’s first and only American-style camp, which provides children aged between seven and 17 with a week of fun and memorable activities, and they are always looking for new members to join their energetic team.

Another counsellor, Roxanne ‘Mozam’ de Bruyn is currently on her second gap year and said she has loved her time at Sugar Bay.

“I want to become a teacher, so I came to Sugar Bay because it is a great place for work experience. We are one big, happy family here and although I don’t want to leave, I have a clear picture of where I want my career to go,” said De Bruyn, who said the camp brought her out of her shell.

Counsellors work long days of between 15 and 18 hours when taking care of groups of children, but downtime is also possible at the counsellors’ huts, where there is a communal chilling area complete with its own jacuzzi.

Sugar Bay is a member of the American Camping Association (ACA), which regulates more than 15000 summer camps in the United States. Counsellors ‘Raven’, ‘Tweet’, ‘Mzansi’ and ‘Mozam’ all strongly recommend the experience as something that will live with you for the rest of your life.