The staff gathered the other night, a night before the students arrived and debriefed and hung out.

At one point one of the staff asked the room full of people about a situation that had arisen. Apparently the pool at the camp will not be open for the week, neither will “giant inflatables” which had been advertised, and she wanted to know why. “The students are going to ask.” she said.

Without hesitation, another staff, one of our Intercultural experts piped up.

“Sharks!”

…What? The sharks popped the inflatables? That makes no sense!… I mean I can understand them infesting the pool I guess…

But before I said anything, our administrator answered the question seriously (administrators are good for that).

“Well it seems, that our camp liaison has changed from the one we’ve been working with in years past, and we learned from this new liaison that the previous one had given us a sort of bonus package and included the pool and the inflatables for free, but since we did not order that, this time we won’t have access this year. Nonetheless we’re hoping that as we continue to develop a relationship that possibility will be reopened to us”

The staff response was as unanimous as it was instantaneous

“so… Sharks?”

“We’ll say sharks”