Scout Camp

Andrew and BJ were invited to participate in portions of Boy Scout summer camp .  Now that Andrew is 11 years old he was able to come up on Thursday night and stay through Friday night's activities.  BJ came up on Friday morning for a separate set of Cub Scout Summer Camp activities.  Camp activities were organized by the La Serena Stake and was located at the same 'camping' as where Jill and Emily went to girl's camp. 

Dave and Andrew went up to camp on Thursday night.  Since we don't have our camping gear with us they had to improvise.  Andrew was invited to sleep in a tent some of the other boys.  He used a bunch of blankets as an alternative to a sleeping bag.  Dave (below) decided to sleep in a home-made hammock to get above the ants and dew that accumulates on the ground at night.

Dave used rope from our clothes line behind the house to make the hammock frame using knots and lashings he learned when he was a scout in combination with a couple of short poles and a little creativity.  Then he used a pillow and blankets from home to finalize the platform and make a super comfy bed.

In the morning camp leaders went around banging pots and pans to get everybody up at 5:30 AM for a morning fireside.  It was mainly organized as a devotional for the older boys who had been at camp for four full days.  Youth were given the chance to share their thoughts and experiences about camp and the friendships they had made.

After the morning fireside the boys started their activities.  Andrew participated in activities of the 11 year old boys (Novatos) and the 12 to 13-year-old boys.  In the morning they had several workshops about government, leadership, and other topics.

In the afternoon they gave boys the chance to go swimming at the local pond.  Things were a little crazy for Andrew in the bigger boys in the big pool so he decided to hang out by himself in the small pool at the head-end of the pond.

Later in the day they had 'valsa' (raft) races.  Boys scrounged through all of their possessions to find items that would float, rope, and wood poles to make their rafts.  Andrew's group was fortunate that one of the boys had an inflatable bed.  They used it as a basic platform, tied poles to the top to  make it look like a raft, and then made paddles out of sticks and flat pieces of wood that were lashed together.

 

Once the rafts were built they had races between the 11 to 13-year-olds and the 14-15 year olds.  The younger boys had the better raft but the older boys had an obvious advantage in size and muscle-power.  At the end of the first for legs of the relay race (with each leg done by two different boys) Andrew's group was in the lead and they tried to declare themselves as winners.  Andrew doesn't like head-to-head competition and wanted the race to be over.  However, Andrew's evil father made him participate, and he was unfortunately paired up with another boy that couldn't paddle straight.  They ended up going in circles and in the end the older boys passed them and won the race by about 12 inches.  The net result was that instead of having a great time with raft races, Andrew came away feeling like he lost the race for his team doing something that he never wanted to do in the first place.

Andrew spent about one hour trying to recover emotionally and finally perked up when he found out about the water balloon fights.  Once the fights began Andrew had a good time for the first few minutes.  Unfortunatelly he decided to try to infiltrate the camp of the 16 to 18-year old boys and they caught him and absolutely pounded him from close range with water balloons.  At this point Andrew was absolutely done.  At 2:00 in the afternoon he decided to excuse himself from all of the activities, curled up in the car, and slept for three hours.  I think this was his favorate part of camp.

BJ, on the other hand, had a totally different experience.  He was paired up with about 25 kids from the ages of 8 to 10.  They had lots of fun workshops on a variety of topics

The leaders kept these boys really busy.  Workshops were all really hands-on.  Below the the scouts are working on their patrol yells.

Interspersed between were lots of fun sports activities.  Soccer is always a favorite here in Chile.  This is BJ trying his best to be a soccer player.  Unfortunately, for us "gringos" we always seem to be a few steps behind where the action is taking place on the soccer field.  For BJ, howerer, it is still fun.

The scouts did lots of fun workshops.  One of them was on fire safety.  Below BJ is working with his team on fire building skills and fire safety.

The boys all really enjoyed the team-building games.  In the game below the boys all line up in a train and the last boy has a tail.  The goal it to pull off the tail of the caboose of the other train while at the same time using your own train to protect your own caboose.

Between activities there were lots of treats for the boys.  There is nothing better on a hot day than some yummy watermelon.

In the afternoon the boys were given some swimming time at the local pond.  The water was a little chilly but was still tolerable.  BJ likes to go in really slowly to get used to the water before he goes in completely.

In the afternoon they worked on first aid skills.  BJ and his friend Samuel (from Utah but also living here in La Serena with his family) show off their skills by finding two poles and using their shirts and a towel to carry around an injured boy during a simulation.

Then it was back to more games.  In this one boys had to pair up into teams to capture other players.  The game worked similar to musical chairs such that whomever didn't get caugh is out.

At the end of the day the cub scouts had a small ceremony to receive their awards for the day.  As part of the ceremony the boys were invited to commit to living the "Ley Lobato" (law of the pack).  It states "Yo, BJ, quiero hacer siempre lo mejor, amar a Dios y a m familia, ayudar a los que me rodean, vivir la ley de la manada y hacer buenas acciones".

After commiting to live the Ley Lobato BJ was given his award for completing the Cub Scout day camp activites.  He had a great day and made lots of new friends.

At the end of the day all of the Scouts posed for photo while the Chilean flag waved in the background.  It was a fun experience to see how the Scout program functions in other countries.