Nicole Brodeur / Times staff columnist
A camp for what's important

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The "10-9-8 Song" seemed too fast and the code words unbreakable, until I realized I was the oldest camper at Camp Orkila by about 30 years.

But I did my best to fit in with the other girls last weekend, sleeping in a bunk, passing the lasagna in the dining hall and sitting cross-legged for pretty much everything. It was worth it to see what happens here every summer.

At this, the YMCA of Greater Seattle's Patsy Collins Adventure in Leadership (PCAL) program, middle-school girls are being shored up for the tumultuous years to come. They are instilled with a sense of self-worth and belonging — and shown the future that could be.

For two weeks, the 18 girls played hard, laughed harder and talked into the night about what mattered to them.

"My self-esteem kind of rides a roller coaster, but not as much, now," one camper told me.

"It's not like at school, where girls are trying to be prettier than you and listening to your secrets so they can use them against you," said another. "These are my friends."

The cabins were just like you remembered: Clutter, cards and Yahtzee. But the bookshelf reveals other challenges being mastered: "Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls"; "The New Our Bodies, Ourselves"; "Winning Women in Ice Hockey."

On the wall, a list of expectations for the girls: No insults, "only put-ups." Be yourself, try new things. Have fun.
 
Counselor Ashley Kmiecik, 23, was a PCAL camper in 1997 and still refers to the binder of notes she made then: "The workshops we do here are the kind adults should do."

One wall of their meeting room was covered with pages on which the girls had pasted and reviewed magazine ads.

"The essence of a woman is perfume?" one girl wrote. "I thought it was our souls, but call me crazy."

And beside an ad with the heading "A Better Body in 10 Minutes!" this: "Why do I need a better body? Is there something wrong with it now?"

Program director Susannah Harris, 29, has spent years in the world of adolescent girls.

"They're only 13 and they have been through a lot already," she said.

Campers are not only dealing with their changing bodies and emotions, but with death and alcoholism in their families, as well as personal bouts with depression and thoughts of suicide.

Back home, I scanned statistics from the Department of Health and Human Services to see why PCAL is so crucial.

Ninth-grade girls are more likely than 12th-grade girls to report being threatened or injured with a weapon at school. They are less likely than boys to participate in sports. And 20 percent are sexually active.

Two weeks here could turn those numbers around.

"I know I've changed," one camper told me. "I'm just not sure how just yet."

But she will figure it out, and, hopefully, right when it matters most.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

She wants to go back — and stay.