As most of you know, I am in Scouts with my school here in Chile. This past month there was a camping/community service camp that I took part in. The trip started January 4th, but I had to arrive later because I had other things to do. Anyway so I started my trip on the 20th of January and got home the 27th. I left Wedsnday morning at 12am and arrived in Yungay, a small city 6hours outside Santiago, at 6am. I travelled via public bus with my two host sisters who are “jefas de scout.” I meet my clan in the Plaza of Yungay at 8am because they were traveling in from Chiloe, a small island in the south of Chile, which is 12 hours away from where we were going. Since we wanted to make a grand entrance for “ Campamento de Verano,” we had to wait around all day until night fall. We wanted to wait in the Plaza because it was the perfect place with shade. However the town of Yungay was celebrating something and kicked all 40 of us out of the Plaza and we were left to find another destination. That is when we found the area near some small stream where people bathed and we just sat and hung out. Finally around 9:30ish a truck literally a truck came to pick us up. It had no back so 40 girls and all of our extreme camping backpacks plus random other things were shoved into the back of this truck and we were set to get to the camp. We were dropped of about a half km outside the base camp site. This was so we could prepare our grand entrance. Our entrance was carrying torches of fire (in a VERY VERY DRY area) and fireworks…brillant I know. Luckily no ones face was blown off or anything…however, later one of my friends burned her hand with one of the fireworks…shes fine now. Anyway we ran into the base area where all the younger scout groups were waiting and we chanted random songs and people danced around a circle of fire….very clan/cult like activity. We were setting fireworks off and everything, not a good idea because we almost set the woods on fire a few times because of all the trees that were around :/
After that, we walked threw the camping grounds to look for a place to set up our tents. We found a field and everyone was too tired to continue looking (not to mention we had not eaten dinner and everyone was super tired) so we stopped there set up camp and agreed to move the next day to an area that would have shade. That evening there was a dinner with “las vacas” y “los watones” which is the girl and boy group of the 11th and 12th grades along with the “jefes.” The next day we just hang out, bathed in the river, caught up with everyone who we hadn’t seen in a while. Then that evening, our clan sat in a circle and discussed positive criticisms about each other. However, everyone had to sit in the middle of the circle to make it even more awk and have spotlight haha. Since I had missed the beginning half of the camp I noticed I had clearly missed some events that happened because people were getting harsh “positive” criticisms and I was completely oblivious to the situations they were referring too. The next day we sat around again, hung out, did various group activities. Today was the day that were everyone in scout grouped together and we had a competition with various stations. We had to complete a bunch of activities with our group. There were about 15 people in each group and 16 stations. A few activities we had to complete were memorize a song with each person in the group, fill a cup to a certain point with a sponge but only moving the sponge with our feet, spitting in a cup and filling to a certain point with mucus(joy), memorize 45 random items, and various other team building tests. My team won which was great, however there was the ultimate test between the 1st and 2nd teams to see who would win the prize. That was to guide a person on your team threw an obstacle course to get to a key and open the lock where the head “jefe” was tied up. Luckily, we won that challenge too and our prize was a watermelon, 6 cantaloupes and 6 1 liter sodas. These were delicacies at camp because people had not eaten these items in a month so it made it taste better for them. Anyway, the next day in the evening we did some other random things and then had this secret event that is only done with the 3rd and 4th years and I am very sorry but I had to promise not to tell anyone about it. It is a traditional ceremony that is only done for the 4th years that are leaving scout and this “campamento” for them. It is almost like a prize night ceremony because later on in the camp they have a graduation like ceremony. For almost everyone this is a very emotional time because most of the people have been in scout since 5th grade with the same people and doing these same traditions for years and it is finally coming to an end. This event ended at…7:30 am and we had to be at the base camp at 9 for breakfast and ready to do other activitiesss FML.
The next evening, we had our clan good bye party which consitited of whichever food we bought at the store before we got to the camp and some people who asked a few jefes to go into the center to pick up some of the other foods that we needed. My group had cookies, and hamburgers…I had cookies and everything Chileans put inside a hamburger minus the burger part and trust me, that is A LOT. (Palta aka avocado, tomatos, ketuchup, mayo, mustard and onions…sooo good – on bread of course) J
Now for the problems at camp. ANYWAY. So there were a few people who were getting sick but nothing major but enough to keep people alittle worried. Fevers, stomach aches and head aches what not…but ya no big deal. Well not so fast…the 25th, there were about 50 people who were really sick with fevers of about 104, headaches, stomach aches, diarriah and vomiting. Not good when you are in the middle of the woods and don’t have many resources. Let alone water being not the easiest thing to get. A few of these people had to go to the hospital in Yungay, but the best place for them would have been in Santiago. Anyway, camp was alittle worried and every one tried to stick to their normal schedules of activities. People were still dropping like flies…in the end there was a total of 150/300 people who were sick 68 of which had to go to the hospial. They set up a sick unit in base camp for everyone which looked like a hospital unit in a war. Bodies of the sick were just lying there. The people who were not sick, the only thing we were told to do was to start packing things, clean up, and help the younger kids. That is what I did for the remaining 3 days of the camp. We had to offer extra tents for the sick people and squize ourselves into as little tents as possible because they needed tents for the sick to sleep in during the night. Also at this point there was really no super clean water because the sick were going to the bathroom and vomiting in the river where we were supposed to be getting water and bathing in. sooo wonderful. The people were so sick that some people could not even move their bodies they were in so much pain. Unforunatly the base camp was about a 20 minute walk for some of us because we wanted sites far to do what ever we wanted. So when people got sick we had to work together and carry people on our backs 20 minutes in the sun to the clinic. Ughh not a fun experience. Also they ran out of food because they were spending all the money on medication for everyone who was sick. It was a blissful experience and I was soooo happy when I reached Santiago and took a nice long shower. Ahhh felt great. Here is a link to one of the news sites where they reported what happened at the campsite. The situation reminded me a little bit of the movie Outbreak minus the fact that no one died in our situation thank god. Everyone was super happy once we got to Santiago because we were now safe from the virus. The only downer about the situation was that we missed the two biggest activities that are done at “campamento de verano” which consisted of a “paseo” and “un fogon.” The paseo is the graduation like activitiy for the 4th years who are leaving and any of the jefes who are leaving. This was depressing that it was missed because that would be like cancelling a graduation. Then the fogon is where everyone sits around a fire and the 3rd and 4th year girls (aka my group) performs our presentation. Luckily that was cancelled because we had not prepaired anything long enough because of the chaos with the VIRUS.
http://24horas.cl/videosRegiones.aspx?id=18550&idRegion=8
that’s all for now…WATCH THE VIDEO …hope you understand :P
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