A few people have been asking about my work so I thought I would try and explain my job as best I could here. It sounds simple enough but I find myself having quite a lot of difficulty explaining just what it is I do. I think this difficulty stems from having so many different jobs, from day to day I do wildly different things, they fall into one of four categories: child care, He'eia State Park, Camp Timberline groups, and training.
I officially work for Kamaiana Kids, which is a 700 employee strong non-profit that focuses on “creating strong children” my division is Camp Timberline but we'll get to that later. The majority of the company works for after-school programs. I luckily do not because these are, for all intensive purposes, glorified babysitting jobs. However we do have a program, “strong bonds”, that we run for the US military, which is basically babysitting. Because this program is “outside our regular work” we actually get paid to do it, which is nice.
I also, on occasion, work at a state park that Kamaiana Kids manages. In Hawaii all state parks are managed by local non-profits, we have a 25 year contract to manage He'eia state park (Hey-e-a). At the park we host weddings, rent kayaks and give guided tours of the surrounding islands and reefs. My job consists of surfing the internet, answering the occasional question or phone call, helping with tours and building projects. My first days there I got to build a shower platform, which was silly good fun (no sarcasm, I really loved it). The tours are...interesting. We give two kinds a Holokei tour (kayaking and snorkeling around coconut island, the same island featured in Gilligan's Island's credits) and the Japanese tour. For the most part I wrangle kayaks, schmooze, and soak up sun but on the Japanese tour I have some interesting duties. For example we serve a “Traditional Hawaiian BBQ”. When I think “traditional” I envision slow pit-roasted pigs, beautiful hula dancers, and island music floating on a warm summers breeze. I, however, do not feel a frozen bag of precooked Tyson's® Teriyaki Chicken thawed on a BBQ with a side of precooked Safeway ribs and frozen ears of corn, constitutes a “traditional” meal. This slight misrepresentation pales in comparison to the “Lei-making” activity. My job is an important one in this case, first I buy pre-made leis, second I cut the string and remove all the flowers that were painstakingly strung by minimum wage workers, third I present these flowers and cut strings to our Japanese guests who, naturally, re-string them and wear them the rest of the day. If they find these activities trite I am spared their displeasure because they don't speak American and I don't talk no Japan words. Overall, though, they smile a ton and take lots of pictures, so it can't be too bad.
Camp Timberline, where I live, is a sprawling camp on a large mountain. Groups come and stay in some of our many different buildings. What I do with them though is still a bit of a mystery because we have yet to have one come up and stay, knock on wood. (side note: since writing this sentence i have discovered my schedule...it is full of 12 and 14 hour days coming up...)
Lastly, with any large corporation, there is training and lots of it. I train on low ropes, high ropes, climbing walls, first aid, tours, company policies/regulations, and life guarding. These are all mind numbing but probably better than real work, I guess I'll find out when I do some real work.
Just to wrap things up, this post took me several days to write, Oahu is awesome, my job is pretty cool, come and visit cause I gots an extra bed. Sorry for the lack of pictures I lost my USB cord...
