Last Week

Phew!  I’m back.

A week long residential in Hampstead may sound like a jolly to the uninitiated, but believe you me, it is not!  Oh yes, we visited Camden and went to the theatre, but both of these things lose their attraction when accompanied by 30 hormonal teenagers!

Actually, it wasn’t as bad as all that.  For a start, none of the young people got into any real conflict and there were no fights.  However, we did have a relationship breakup (two fourteen year olds), so we had floods of tears and dramatic “But he’s my life, how am I going to cope?” type wails.  Er… you do the same as everyone else the world over and get over it.  Sometimes I think I come from the hard school of youth work.

The theatre trip was amazing.  Amazing in a way that made me feel amazed we’d taken them there.  The show was “Spring Awakening” and was about young people reaching puberty and discovering their sexuality.  It sounded quite educational and was a musical, so we thought it would be a good show for them to see.  It was based on a play written in 1891, so we assumed it would have “Victorian decency”.

Not a bit of it.  The play covered everything from masturbation to homosexuality and everything in between.  There was a song that consisted of the word “f*cked” over and over again and allusions to abuse and other issues.  To this play we had taken some 13 year olds!  There were older ones too, but 13! 

We had them write reviews after the show and one of the 13 year old lads (from a strict Muslim family (oops!)) said that the best bit in the play was the sex.  He then said the worst bit of the play was the sex.  Clearly it made an impression on him!

Then another girl had a kidney infection and was in the worst pain ever.  She could hardly walk and was sobbing.  On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is unbearable, she claimed it was 10.  We had to call her mother to come and collect her; and lo and behold, the next day she was better.  A severe case of homesickness, methinks.

Needless to say, none of the staff got much sleep.  We couldn’t go to bed until all the young people were quiet and sometimes that took a looooooong time!

But I’m back now and have my own bed to sleep in and my own microwave to cook in.  No more meals that I don’t really like, but have to pretend are nice to set an example; no more narrow 2’6” bed with broken springs; I can get online again; can watch TV again.  Basically, I can now slob around if I want to!

How has your week been?