Ireland contingent

Camp on camp – Saileach

Author: ireland

So two days ago Saileach got to go on camp in camp , which is basically where you and your patrol go and camp on a different camp site with a bunch  of Swedish scouts. Camp in camp may be really exciting but it means a lovely 6 o’clock start for all the participants ,so not quite bright eyed and bushy tailed off we all set with are rucksacks , sleeping bags and ground mats . At the shuttle bus stop we were separated and my troop Sleibhe na hEireann got rounded into a waiting area with patrols of French Canadian , English , Polish and Danish scouts  . After a while of sitting on rucksacks and trying to recover from the early morning . (This is something scouts have the world over we are all lazy ) the other scouts from all the other troops were trying to wake up too . 

Eventually our bus arrived and like the young , active , boisterous lot we are everyone slept on the bus waking up only after our two hour bus drive when we reached our camp site . After we got off the bus all we were greeted by the camp leader and then received a bit of a shock . In Sweden the scouts are aged between 10 – 14 and their Patrol Leaders were all around 12 , My patrol got paired with a very nice 12 year old called Emil and despite the age gap he was clearly a brilliant scout and to give him his credit didn’t seem even slightly put off by the 9 older scout staring at him in surprise . 

We dropped off our stuff in our already pitched tents (living the spoilt life so we were )and then after a quick lunch met back up with Emil and his troop to experience some bases Swedish style . Our bases theme was Easter which included everything from finding Easter eggs to catching witches brooms , to our troups discovery witches play a large part in Swedish easter  its believed that the witches were banished to the land of blokia (pronounced block – e – a ) and that Easter is the day they try to come back and only by lighting bonfires and sending up fireworks can they keep the witches away . We also got to sample Swedish Easter food which meant boiled eggs that you decorated beforehand and a drink which  tasted like a mixture between coke and Dr. Pepper which is apparently the most popular drink in Sweden though it got mixed reviews from the Irish scouts . 

After our fun on the bases we went back to camp to cook dinner and while our boys slaved over the fire (no gas cookers and no women in the kitchen jokes in this patrol ) and the girls wondered up to our tent and promptly slept till dinner . After a really very nice diner (all praises to the boys ) we went swimming in the lake which was as cool and clean as anything . That night we had a multi cultural campfire with all different countries making their contribution to the campfire by singing their own camp songs , we had a few in common and several others that we had in common with each country having its own tweak on the song . The highlight was being taught in Sweden by an English troop a traditional Icelandic song . 

The next morning at the raising of the Swedish flag  we got another speech from the Swedish camp leader saying goodbye and thanking us for coming and after free time of canoeing and swimming it was time to say goodbye to our Swedish hosts and having a lovely nap on the two hour drive home 

xxx

Lorna

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.