chief lydia vs. the box

33 weeks.

I've been a Taskigi for somewhere around 3 months now, and nearly every single day of those 3 months, I've been fighting an uphill battle of wastefulness.

My kids have no sense of conservation or maximizing resources. I find entire rolls of paper towels sitting in puddles of mud. Nearly three times an hour, I will pick up a bottle of hand soap, put the cap back on, and return it to its home by the cistern. Toilet paper goes down the box by the roll.

It turns out that toilet paper wasn't the only thing going down the box, though.

"Chief, can you huddle up your group on morning logs, please?" says my supervisor in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

I'm dreading what his message might be. Clean up your tents. Pick up this trash. Sweep this out better. I hate when someone else comes into my campsite and picks up on something left behind that I passed up and didn't get my kids to take care of.

"Because you guys continue to throw things down the box that shouldn't be there, we are unable to pump out your bodily waste which is causing the box to pile up and will eventually overflow if you don't clean it out immediately. We are putting in a phone call today to have someone pump it out which means you have until dinner to clear out everything that is not toilet paper or human waste."

All of our faces dropped, mine included as I remembered the time Tutelos had to clean out their box. Rumors of sick, nasty, smelly treasure came to mind, treasure I wasn't quite ready or willing to scavenge for. Alas, part of my job is to joyfully follow leadership and role model a positive mind frame. Not to mention my fascination for all thing feces. There was a mission to accomplish, and I was ready and willing to do my part.

After breakfast, we all marched solemnly back to campsite--everyone very aware of what monster we were about to challenge. I worried about who would step up, who would be the brave and fearless souls to conquer the box. I worried I would be the only one. My twelve boys, my co-counselor, a visiting counselor, and I sat down near the box, each of us gazing around, all avoiding eye contact with Chief Lydia, knowing that meeting my gaze would mean meeting their fate. Finally, I broke the deafening silence, "Okay, fellas, who's up for it?"

Surprisingly, three of my boys stood up and accepted the poor excuse for protection I offered their trembling hands. We all put on the thin, plastic gloves and turned to face our nemesis. I looked back once more and realized that I was the lone chief stepping up to this challenge. Neither my co-counselor nor the counselor visit, both men (surprised anyone?), were standing up. Both avoided my hateful glare.

The battle commenced. I entered the box first, the fearless leader looking out for her little ducklings. If I can do it, they can do it. I took a shovel and began to blindly search the intestines of the dark abyss of the box hole. I brought up the first item: an empty plastic bottle of cleaning fluid. Its removal from the box unleashed the stench I was waiting for, but a stench I wasn't prepared for. Instantly, my stomach convulsed, not ready to accept the fowl intruder that invaded my nasal passages. I ran out of the box dry heaving followed by all three of my campers. "Oh no, no no no no no, Chief! We ain't doin this! F*** that!"

"No, guys, we can do it. We'll get used to it. Let's cover our faces." Now armed with t-shirt masks, plastic gloves, and shovels, we went to work.

2 plastic kitchen gloves, a winter glove, a hat, 4 plastic bottles, hundreds of plastic gloves similar to the ones we were wearing, and thousands of maggots (yes, maggots) later, I encountered a larger, much more complicated roadblock to our victory over the box.

The four of us stepped out to reset our approach. The object wouldn't come up with the shovel, but we knew it was big. Big enough to prevent the box from being cleaned out. Big enough that it needed to come out of there one way or another. After 3 minutes of counsel, I made a decision. I was going in...as far and for as long as I needed to get whatever that beast was out of the box. For the sake of the children and their freedom to poop without fear of a maggot crawling on them or being grazed by a floating plastic bottle, I was going in.

I put one hand in and grabbed on to the beast by the horns. It felt stringy, and at first, I thought it was an entire roll of binding twine, the material we use to tie lashings when building tents. I couldn't maneuver it with just one hand though, so in went my second hand while I tried to avoid any unnecessary skin contact with the toilet. By this time, any barrier provided by my gloves went to crap (pun intended) as the putrid liquid seeped into my gloves. It was too late now. I had to get it out.

It breached the surface, and I saw that it looked more like pine straw. Could it be the lump of pine straw I tried to burn months previous? Did my kids really throw it in the box? Why would they do that? Wait. No. Not pine straw. It's sewed together. That's strange.

I kept pulling, and it kept fighting back. I was no longer fighting a monster, but a broom. An entire freaking broom. I wrestled the broom head out then maneuvered it sideways to get the handle out. Filled with disgust, anger, shock, and poopy water, I threw the broom in the direction of my lazy campers and stomped off to disinfect my body amidst howls of laughter and fake vomiting.

Everyone refused to touch the broom of the trash bags filled with the contents of the box. Our campsite smelled for nearly 2 days until I finally gave in and took the broom and bags to the dumpster unable to handle the smell any longer.

At night, I still think I can smell the box coming to get me. I'll never forget that smell or that broom...or these kids and this camp.