After attending Camp Modin in Belgrade, Maine, for eight summers, choosing one story to tell is no easy feat. However, one memory that always gets a strong reaction is Swine ’09.
I had arrived a few days late to camp, and by the time I got there swine flu had already begun to break out. The infirmary was filling up with sick campers, and the camp was acting fast with quarantining and treatment. At that point, all that many people knew of swine flu was that many patients had died in Mexico from the illness and everyone was a little worried. No one knew what to expect.
Within three days of my arrival, I had a fever. The following few days were a cloud of nausea and fatigue. Of course, I was disappointed, at best, about missing out on a week of my two-month session after getting to camp late, but, as fitting for the Modin community, we bonded in the Quarantine Bunk. We capped out at upwards of 90 cases of swine flu within only a few weeks.
Inside and outside of the Quarantine Bunk, it was hard to have a conversation without the mention of Swine ’09. The irony was not lost that as one of the oldest and largest Jewish (kosher!) camps in Maine, we were infected with a swine disease.
There were movies, video games and art projects for those who felt up to it. With newfound friendships, we were all there for each other when it came to the inevitable meltdown, all of us wanting nothing more than to be healthy again and outside with all of our friends, at camp, a place which was for most of us was our second home.
Jenna Zimmerman, an eight-year veteran of Camp Modin, is a junior at Jewish Community High School of the Bay in San Francisco. She lives in Mill Valley.