Scouting's Summer Camp - 2009

The most peculiar and utterly amusing affair of Scouting’s Summer Camp



Introduction



The doors to charterhouse had just closed. The young man had seen an announcement inside the journal. It was about exams to enter into the royal army.

He'd tried it and had been very successful, in fact so successful that he was immediately named under a lieutenant of cavalry in India.

1899, Mafeking, Southern Africa: The very same man had the most brilliant idea to use young boys as sentinels to arrange a seven-month-long siege because he did not have enough men or food and he was fighting malaria.

They did a most wonderful job, and so, the man was the first fully-grown adult to trust 13 to 17 year-old children. And thus scouting was born.

If yet you don't know whom I speak of, you should know that it is none other than lord Robert Stephenson Smith Baden Powell, first Lord Baden Powell of Gillwell.

By year 1957, there were about 30,000 scouts in around 80 different countries. Lebanese scouts had started in 1936.

1967, Brother Nazario founded Scouting at Champville's school, in Lebanon. You'd know that only if you know any Champvillean scouts. And I am one of them, at your service.



Primly



What is about to be spoken of happened by year 2009.

First thing to know: there was a twenty-year-old man called Yann. He happened to be an assistant in the Comanche troops. He had both an older and a younger brother.

And both had been or would be scouts some-when in their lives. Yann lived in a very artistic family, especially in music. He played the guitar and the harmonica, his older brother played the saxophone, and their younger brother played the flute.

Another interesting person hereby mentioned: Yann's much younger cousin, Christian. He was to be a scout as well.

Yann's younger brother, Loïc, was fourteen. He went to the IC school in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, and was most definitely very well-witted.

Christian, who was thirteen, was probably not quite as bright as his cousin. He nevertheless went to the Lycée Français school.

There was never mention of any instrument Christian could play, but it was told that he had some kind of twitch in him that made him very cheerful... and quite mischievous at the same time.

Not that these two states of mind are to be opposites, no, quite on the contrary, really: cheerful as Christian may be is justified by his playfulness, and playful often means mischievous in a lot of ways.

Now on with the story.

It so happens that, during the eventful year of 2009, Yann was already an assistant to the Comanches’ troops’ chief, Karam; Loïc had spent three years as a scout in the Wolves' patrol, and Christian had been in the Jaguars’ patrol for two years. I myself had been in the Lions’ patrol for three years, and was fifteen of age - Forsooth, I had been one year late to become a scout.

As such, my patrol was a most jolly patrol of friends, who had but one problem: they never seemed to be able to do any decent paperwork. Therefore, as soon as we were assigned our functions, others were put on kitchen duty, or photography, or animation, or other things which I would do better, and I was set as my patrol’s secretary.

Eventually, we were told that we would be part of a summer camp later that year. And the best part about it was that it would last thirteen full days!



Secondly



As time went by, I got more and more excited about going to the camp as I had spent my summer doing absolutely nothing. Indeed, my family waits for me to go somewhere some why to actually start doing interesting projects.

As such, the only nice activity we went on with during the whole summer was visiting the Qadicha valley, and it had to be with my American uncle who had come to visit - possibly only for his sake.

July pulled in with my getting my official exam’s grades. The original agreement with my parents was: I’d need a fifteen over twenty on the math exam to get a cell phone, and I’d have to pass with a GPA of at least ten over twenty to get internet at the summerhouse. I did get my cell phone as a reward, but although I got a GPA of twelve point eight, I did not get internet as it doesn’t reach my natal village.

The results were out on the eighteenth of July, my birthday was on the twenty-second, and I got my cell phone on the twenty-fourth.

Meanwhile, I spent my days visiting my American uncle, and my American-Vietnamese and French cousins, which had all decided to come to Lebanon for a month in summer.

And one August morning, precisely two days before camp, just like that, I got a phone call of assistant Yann, saying that, as a secretary, I would have to do a research panel on any cultural subject I should like to research, for my entire patrol’s credit.

I sent a message to my patrol’s leader, asking for help, at least regarding the subject on which I should make the researching. His answer was, ‘Maybe the idea is everything, love. Try doing something about Lions, as it is supposed to be the Lions’ patrol’s work.’.

Jolly god. Exactly what I needed. I had to do research, on an unknown subject, in two days’ time.

I first thought of something no one other than I would like, something very much like opera or ballet... But then I thought of an even better subject. What is the essence of our culture?

Speech, I daresay.

That is how I decided to do quotes. I put pictures of some interesting people, like Martin Luther King or Jane Austen, with things they’d said, like “'I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” or “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”



Few are aware that the second sentence on my work is one of the most famous sentences of English literature, and the worst part is, even fewer actually care, especially because it is British English.

I say, no one does care about origins anymore!



Thirdly



Time goes by... It is the only thing it does. And it was time for camp sooner than I could ever hope for.

My father took me to my school, Champville, where our troop would join up before going to our camp’s location.

We were there soon enough. That is when we discovered that some girl scouts had been camping at the same spot, and that they wouldn’t be leaving for another three days.

We would take their spots to put our tents then, so we would have to sleep outside for the moment.

The first six days of our camp were dedicated to mounting stuff, like wooden towers or shacks, or stone ovens for our cuisine competition.

Eventually, and after a lot of effort on our parts, the first day and night passed. On our second day, the girls worked on what scouts call “Campfire”: a show with - of course - a big fire in the middle of the stage (actually a patch of the woods without any trees, on which sketches and songs are presented), and the show is presented to the parents of the scouts. The day after that is usually the last in the camp and is used to un-mount whatever might have been mounted in the first few days.

That evening, the girls presented their Campfire to their parents, then went off to bed - or, should I rather say, sleeping bag? - and the second morning, we helped them un-mount what they’d made and their tents.

During the girls’ Campfire, though, we saw a scout of the Apaches’ troop who had come to stay with us in our camp.

It took the biggest part of the morning but was eventually done with. And by tea time, the girls left and we got a shipping of wood for more mounting.

As time went yet on, each patrol had its tent, its mountings and the people that hadn’t been able to come before came in.

At the end, the patrols’ mountings were as such:

The Lions (that’s us) had a three-level, boat-shaped tower with a draw-table on the first floor.

The Beavers had a one-level tower and a two-level tower with a shack on top of the short tower and a bridge in-between the towers’ first level.

The Wolves had what looked like a spinning stairway with a Stonehenge-like overall aspect.

The Jaguars had a tall three-level tower with a giraffe-shaped base and a sliding table.

The Panthers had a leaf-covered shack with a retractable bar.

Finally, the Tigers, the most pathetic of all patrols, had a one-level tower with a triangular table aside from it.

Each patrol had its tent at three to ten metres from its mounting as well.



Fourthly



With the mountings done, the camp could start.

The first thing we had to do upon finishing the mountings was endorse our uniforms and wait for the chief’s inspection. As he went from place to place, he requested cell phones, music players, and mainly any technologies that weren’t cameras.

I had to hand him my iPod Touch and my two cell phones. Each of us had at least a cell phone, and one even had his laptop with him - but there again, he had a concert, so he needed it to practice, which is why the chief left him his laptop. He nevertheless took his iPhone and went on.

After the Inspection, the chief called us for supper and asked us to prepare for bath and then for the evening.

After we bathed, we went back to our tents to invent sketches for the night. Yes, one thing any scout must love is the excessive staying up, way past midnight, in which time each patrol is to present a couple of sketches or more, and these sketches get nominated to make it to Campfire.

That night, however, we weren’t really excited about staying up late, and we couldn’t get any good ideas for sketches, seeing as we’d been working nonstop for the past six days, and we did feel a little physical fatigue. Therefore the Wolves’ patrol came to us at that time, and we simply lay down and talked.

The Wolves’ patrol’s chief (or PC as we call them), Michael, was one of us Lions, but upon the old Wolves’ PC leaving them to join the older scouts, he’d been assigned as their new chief. As such, he had always been our current PC’s friend. Indeed, Michael and Pascal still were friends long after Michael left us.

I had a Wolf friend... He was Loïc, the assistant’s younger brother. Both of us seemed to really appreciate loneliness, which had finally brought us together as close friends. His function in the Wolves’ patrol was that of a First-Aid attendant. He had taken an optional First Aid course at school, and used it on his patrol.

As both my parents are doctors, I would’ve liked to be First-Aid attendant of my patrol, but I had been set to secretary and couldn’t change unless something very important happened, like the chief himself reassigning me.

That camp, one of my friends, Jean-Maroun, who was about my age and in my patrol, had to come late because he had an exam in the centre which taught him Spanish. Hence he was sad because the part he preferred in camp was mounting, and he’d missed it. So he decided to spend the time when we rested to cut some wood for Campfire. And he accidentally cut a circle of flesh in his hand.

We, as Lions, don’t have a First-Aid attendant. But I had been taught by my parents how to deal with such emergencies. I asked Loïc to bring me band-aids or the such, and I took my friend to the water gallons where we cleansed the wound. It wasn’t deep but it was quite large. Next, we used alcohol to disinfect it, and the band-aid Loïc had brought to isolate the wound from potential microbes.

Almost the same thing happened a while later with another Lion, Georgio, who simply walked onto a nail the size of his finger. We had to deal with his hurting foot.

The rest of the eve went rather well, I should think. No one else tried to cut or elsehow wound themself. Georgio “decided” to leave the second morning - we would later be told that he had been kicked out of school and had started at another.



Fifthly



As Pascal had told us, we did get ready to go to the swimming pool the next morning. We were to go to the Pine Land hotel and resort compound, straight to the swimming pool within it, by foot.



As it so happens, we were lead by our chief’s two assistants, Yann et Mazen, on our two-hour route. And we got lost on the way. Eventually, they told us to wait up and went a little bit in front, evidently to find the way.

But a few minutes later, they came back to say, ’OK, so here is your Great Game: You’re lost and you need to find the hints to the way that we’ve hidden here.’

Obvious lies are so much worse than just lies.

Before long, the chief was there and lead us to a fifteen minutes long pathway that took us straight to Pine Land. All the way with nothing to drink.



When we first got to the resort, we had chocolate and banana sandwiches and lots of water to drink. It was eleven o’clock.

We did go to the showers - and we were quite the sight to see, forty-four people trying to fit in three small showers before getting to the water.

One single person wasn’t interested in bathing. It was none other than PC C*******. He simply could not be gotten to “go to the bathroom” unless seated, and hadn’t “gone to the bathroom” since the start of camp - he hadn’t “gone” in nine full days.

So he simply went to the bathroom. Three people were in and out before me in the bathroom next to the one he was in, and it was only when I got to that other bathroom, that C******** went out, proud and happy.

Then we went to the swimming pool, and the chiefs organized a badge-signing task:

Mazen would play drowning and each candidate would save him. If able to rescue Mazen in one minute’s time, the candidate would get his Swimming Badge.

We also made human pyramids in the swimming pool for some pictures, which was fun.

Then Loïc and I opened a figurative spa, and we were giving professional soothing massages to whoever wanted them (we’d taken courses for the eventual muscle cramps).

After we’d been swimming for quite some time, I should think, we were told to go take a shower and meet up at the parking lot.

There, we had some pork sandwiches for lunch. Then we were off to location. It did take us quite some time to get there. In the end, we were forming small groups that were a little homogenous, to talk together while we walked as fast as we could.

It was already afternoon, and we hadn’t drunk since eleven in the ante meridiem.

I was left in the second-to-last group in the back, with Loïc, the Beavers’ PC Jad, and one of his first-years, called Alec, that looked a lot like him.

Eventually we got to location, and there... We drank.

Suddenly I was told by my fellow First-Aider Christian, cousin of Loïc, that his PC, Christian of the Jaguars, seemed seriously ill. I simply requested that he rested.







Sixthly



When the sun rose again, we went to breakfast, then we started our day. We were told by the chief that we would be participating in what we call a Great Game.

Scouting vocab., the Great Game concept does not necessarily mean that the game would be great, but that it would be big, in the meaning that it would be scattered all around the village. Sometimes, Great Games include investigations. This means asking people about the region you’re in, collecting the information on paper, and presenting it to the chiefs.

The girls had already given us information about Hammana, so we just needed some information about Btekhnay.

Eventually, the first step, or ours anyways, was to guess a number of songs upon listening to only a few notes of each.

Then we had many steps, among which were guessing the names of thirty instruments by just looking at their pictures, which was easy by the piano and the guitar, but hard by the differences between the bass, baritone or alto saxophones.

PC C******** hadn't played. During the game, we had many steps, with a ten to twenty-minute walk in between each two, so we actually would change tee-shirts and buy juice or sweets on the way, ask people about the village, and sell our Brazilian bracelets.

Eventually we made sixty-five thousand Lebanese pounds (forty-three point three united-states dollars) from selling our bracelets. We added some money to reach seventy thousand LBP (about forty-six point six USD), in the knowledge that the chief would give us thirty thousand LBP, and in the intention of reaching one hundred thousand LBP (sixty-six point six USD, but we sought a round number in Lebanese pounds).

When the game ended, we saw that we Lions had the most money, and that the Beavers had the least (they’d won the game, but hadn’t sold anything, and so were left with the mere thirty thousand LBP given by the chief, and that’s only twenty USD).

We went to the camp’s location for a decently well-earned shower, then lunch. Afterwards, we started collecting wood for our Campfire and that evening’s fire.

By the time we went to sleep, we’d spent that afternoon resting and preparing that evening’s fire.

Pascal was off to the Chiefs’ Council as soon as we were all in our respective tents.

More Scouting vocabulary: Each and every camping night, all PCs meet up with the Chief after the other scouts go to their tents, and before Curfew. This meeting’s use is actually to improve Camp’s quality, communicate to the Chief the main impressions and who hasn’t been a good scout, and also to pick out who will be on Night Guard duty.

I had forgotten that it was time for the chiefs to meet again, and I went near the tent where it was going on. Call it eavesdropping, or call it not, but I could hear quite clearly whatever was said.

“... And don’t try to imply under any circumstance that anyone can take more than two litres a day. No body can take two full litres in twenty-four full hours! And...”

But I could suddenly hear voices coming out of the Intendancy - which is the name we give to two or more tents in which the intendants cook, sleep and store food. Who the intendants are is now obvious.

I therefore went into hiding and lay in the grass, awaiting for the PCs to come my way. It so happens that three of the four PCs that would come my way are very close friends of mine, so I could talk to them and make my appearance as eavesdropper without any fears.

I spoke to PCs Pascal and Christian of the Lions and the Jaguars. None believed that two litres would be too much. I told them that, forsooth, two litres are a minimum to a sixty-kilogram human body at rest.

PC Michael, the one of the four PCs who liked me less, but liked me whatsoever, told me that he was a full hundred and fifteen kilograms!



Seventhly



The next morrow, the chief called us around him and said that we would be having the survival that day.

What is survival? Well, it’s like community service, but you expect to get fed for it.

Generations ago already, PCs didn’t do it anymore and went to buy food in restaurants or snacks instead, because, even for scouts, it feels degrading to go do housework, sometimes for free, and ask for food in return.

That is why I felt reassured.

But one thing I wasn’t expecting is exactly what happened. The Lions’ PC, Pascal, who had never done a proper survival, decided, since it would be his last opportunity, to go for it and try the concept.

After walking for a while from our camp’s location, Btekhnay, we got to another village, Hammana, were Pascal had decided to try his luck. We could see houses at both sides of the road, but none of them had people in it, because most inhabitants were either at work in the city, or enjoying summer at the other end of the world, because most of the houses were huge, and the others quite large. Elsehow saying, the people were rich.

We were about to capitulate when, all of a sudden, we saw a groceries store called S***** with a man swiping the counter inside. Pascal sent two of us in, Joseph and Joe, to ask the man if we could work for him and if he’d feed us in return.

Well, Joe and Joe went into the store, and made us a sign to go in a minute after that. The man said he was called David F. Jackson, and said that “F” was his family name. Then he said he’d give us work to do. He made each of us do something different, from wiping the mirrors upstairs to wiping the external window. David first tried to show the window-wipers how to literally ride each other to wipe high spots, then stood in front of Jean-Maroun with him at the other side of the window, and obviously started to openly check him out.

After a good half-hour of hard labour, we were stopped by David who told us all to wait for him outside. We went out of his store and sat around an external table.

And while Joe still swiped the floor with a broomstick around us, Joseph told us that, at the start, Joe and he had gone into the shop and asked the man whether he needed any help. He said he only needed ‘one’ to ‘help him out’. Then, as they told him they couldn’t be separated, he said he could use a massage. We couldn’t believe it.

That is precisely when David came back, and gave us each an ice-cream cone; each except Joe, and Pascal had to insist for Joe to get his cone.

We then asked “David” for directions to the Hammana Park, where all the troop would meet. He told us how to get there with speech and hands, and spent ten full minutes explaining. Then he said, ‘or there’s a shorter way which I could lead you on for some money’. Pascal told him we had no money, so he just told us how to get there with a sneer.

As Pascal thanked him and asked him whether he needed anything else, he told us to follow him. He closed his store and went to a small van. He opened the back door to it, and told us to get in with a smile.

Pascal refused, muttering an excuse, and telling us to go.

Now, homosexuality is acceptable at limits, but paedophilia is a crime!

It was already two in the afternoon and we were getting starved, so Pascal told Joseph and I to change our shirts (you’ll know why in a while) and to go to a nearby snack, H*** Ch*****, to buy chicken sandwiches for the patrol, with some money from each of the patrol’s members (in order to hide our uniforms in case the chief asked the staff of H*** C****** if any scouts (in scouting uniforms) had bought anything from there). Which we did.

Then, after eating lunch and thanking the Lord for it, we headed for the park. It only required two hours of walking, and although a couple of girl-scouts who lived in the region offered to take us there, Pascal refused, saying that breaking one law would be enough for one day.

Eventually we got there, but the park was closed for a security reason (go figure out what it was!), so we just sat there waiting for the chief, Karam, and his assistants, Yann and Mazen.

We told our crazy adventure to the others,. However, we didn’t say we’d paid for our food: instead, an ancient scout on who’s door we’d knocked would have given us some money (we said thirty thousand Lebanese pounds, which is about twenty united-states dollars) to buy our lunch.

The other patrols had found some pathetic stories, except for the Wolves, who had gone to the house of the grandmother of one of them. She fed them hamburgers, chicken, fish, and cake, food that we aren’t supposed to see during camp.

Then the chief came in with his girlfriend, and she showed us how to make Brazilian bracelets. We made some for us, then went to the camp’s location by foot.

The chief told us we’d have dinner, then we would make more bracelets to sell the day after for extra money for the cuisine contest.

We did, then we had our sketch session, and we went to sleep. One of our sketches was about “David”.

That night, we’d have loved to sleep, but obviously, Joe wouldn’t have, as he started talking to each of us alone while we all lay in the tent. He spoke about David, and how he thought the man had gotten his store, and his ideas of David’s adventures.

Then he’d say, ‘That’s it, to be continued...’ to sighs of approval from some of us. Then he’d smile or laugh and say, ‘... Right now!’ and go on with his endless chattering; and if he’d stop for a minute to gather his ideas, he’d start singing some electro songs that David had put for us to work on.

Of course, none of us really likes these songs, so we’d send Joe and David to hell... Until Joe finally decided that he had done enough muttering about David and his musical likes.

We noticed that night that, since each of us in the patrol could do something about music (I could play the piano and the guitar, sing and compose; Pascal could play the drums; Jean-Maroun could play the guitar; Joseph as well; Joe was a DJ in his free time; and ask for Jason, the twelve-year-old, well... Anyone can dance, right?), we could do some sort of band...

All pretending, of course.



Eighthly



That morning, when we woke up, Pascal told us that we’d be having our cuisine competition.

We called Pascal’s mother (he’d been given his cell phone back) and she gave us a couple of recipes.

Then we were with the chief and assistants, signing steps to advance in scouting; steps like the promise, second-class, first-class or badges.

Then all PCs went to the store with assistant Mazen. Meanwhile, as Pascal had told us to do, we went to our tower and thought of an entrance sketch for the competition. And we prepared for a song to be sung - as such, I’d been taking singing courses.

When Pascal was back with Mazen and the other PCs, he went straight up to us and we began cooking our bacon chicken, our tiramisu, and our toasts with feta, pesto and tomatoes.

Within the hour in which I became a scout, with PC Bassem at the time, Pascal and I had proven to each other we were brilliant at the art of cuisine. But as Pascal is a year older than i am, he was to be called the Chef, and I was to be the Sous.

And that had gone on with time. But as such, a year before that, we had three older people who did whatever we’d tell them to. That year, all the people in our patrol were excessively lazy.

That had me running to the water source up to six times in half an hour to retrieve and wash knives and pans, or to clean up the chickens and clear their bones, or yet to actually cut the tomatoes.

Pascal stayed beneath the tower’s first level and mixed the tiramisu paste and the chicken’s sauces. The other four people in the patrol just sat there doing absolutely nothing. Joseph had put on a fire in the stone stove that I had made almost entirely alone during the first six days of camp, and saw to it that by the time we needed the fire, we had no firewood, so he had to go get some more.

Jean-Maroun went to get a few gallons of water but that was all. Ask for Joe and Jason, well, they just lay there in the grass, vegetating and mumbling some Campfire songs.

Eventually we were done with the cooking, and the chief came to us with his two assistants. That’s when we showed them our sketch:

Jason is in the tent. Captain Joseph and his mates - that’s the rest of us in pirate costumes - are on our ship, the tower. We’re starved, and all of a sudden, we see a glowing duck - that’s Jason who came out of the tent and wears Beavers’ PC Jad’s glowing swimwear - which we borrowed from him. Pascal asks the duck about his secret to shininess. The duck tells Pascal that it only eats the most delicious Lions’ foods at the Lions’ boat-restaurant.

That’s when assistant Yann told us to join up on the boat, and took a picture of us. Then the chief and his assistants went on the boat’s first level, and I went on to the second.

You see, our tower-boat was shaped like a simple two-levelled tower with a third level coming out somewhere in between the two levels, in such a way that I could be standing on the second level and reach the food we had on the third. I’d then pass it down to Joe and Joseph who were on the first level near the retractable table which we had put down.

Then I went down to the first level were we had benches on which the chiefs were seated and they started eating.

I winked to Pascal, so he told Jean-Maroun to start playing the guitar. As he did, I started singing “Il Padrino”, the Italian theme to the “The Godfather” trilogy of films. (Il Padrino literally means The Godfather in Italian).

Assistant Mazen, who was a PC merely two years earlier, had driven me out of my shyness toward everyone because of my liking for opera. That time, he told the other two to close their eyes and take a bite, while listening.

The chief didn’t eat because he’d been tasting every patrol’s food, and some patrols had done really heavy stuff like burgers or steaks. Add to it the fact that we were the last patrol, and you’ll get why the chief was so uninterested in our cooking.

When we got the tiramisu out, though, the chief forgot his apparent neglect to our food and ate a whole plate to himself.

He smiled and told Pascal, “It’s amazing how the other PCs always do something easy and it never works out with them... You on the other hand, Pascal, you always try your luck at the hardest things, and you always succeed!”.

Then he turned to me and said, “You ought to rehearse the song for this evening and we’ll see if you’ll make it to Campfire with it; it’s definitely got potential and adults like this musical genre... Good job!”.

Then he turned to the patrol and said “Thank you for this wonderful meal”.

He was off to discuss the winner with the assistants, while we had our lunch with all that food the chiefs had left.

Then assistant Yann called me to help him do the slideshow for the Campfire - it was something new to Campfire activities, and Yann knew that I was brilliant at handling computers.

Pascal called me the minute after that to discuss something with the patrol. Yann said it would be OK, and that we’d meet up later to work the show out.

We collected firewood for Campfire, that afternoon. And I noticed that Christian, PC of the Jaguars, had gone missing. That night, we were all too tired to stay up, so we didn’t prepare for Campfire in the evening.



Ninthly



Next morning was a cold-weathered day. I went to the place where we’d met the night before for the sketches, and where the fire was dying. And the two twelve-year-olds who were on guard duty for the last hour of that night lay in the grass, asleep, near that cold smoking mound of ashes.

That’s when I saw Christian, PC of the Jaguars, for the first time in two days. He said he didn’t feel good, and I daresay he did not look any better.

He said that one of his rookies, Bernard, had gotten diarrhea and had decorated their tent in front of it, in its back, and all around. Then he’d been crying.

I had his young First-Aid attendant, who also happened to be called Christian, awakened, and had young Christian take older Christian’s temperature. He was thirty-nine Celsius degrees (that’s like a hundred and two Fahrenheit degrees).

He had the really fast heart rate of a hundred and twenty beats a minute, and shook like he was cold. So I had young Christian give him certain medicine and keep a follow-up of ill Christian’s temperatures and heart rates.

That day, the chief and assistants had us join up some wood for Campfire. It was the main program for the whole ante meridiem, so we’d be doing nothing else until lunch.

I managed to go check up on Christian with the help of younger Christian every half-hour. He did eventually get better as his temperature broke, but then had a relapse.

I was somewhere in the process of breaking his temperature again with young Christian at my sides, when we were visited by a twelve-year-old Jaguar called Joe, who had bruised his leg with some wood.

We removed the pieces of wood still in the hurt, and we disinfected his leg with oxygenized water, than put a big bandage on his foot.

Then we were told by Joe that one of his patrol-mates, John, had received a tree on his head. I sent little Christian find out what that was about.

He came back, telling me that John had been taken to a drugstore where the pharmacists had simply disinfected and bandaged his head.

How jolly God relieved I was when I heard he hadn’t had an internal brain bleed! For heaven’s sake, I would rather be asked before patients are taken to the drugstore or hospital! The time of them being transported there might be enough for their cases to worsen!

As such, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopaedias state about First-Aid:

“First aid may save a life or improve certain vital signs including pulse, temperature, a patent (unobstructed) airway, and breathing. In minor emergencies, first aid may prevent a victim’s condition from worsening and provide relief from pain. First aid must be administered as quickly as possible. In the case of the critically injured, a few minutes can make the difference between complete recovery and loss of life.”

As the reader will notice, the article says “In minor emergencies, first aid may prevent a victim’s condition from worsening and provide relief from pain. ”

Well, most fortunately, John’s case didn’t worsen.

Eventually, Christian got better by lunchtime, and had a sandwich. He even cared to solve the problem of Bernard who was fighting with other Jaguar rookies about some more decorations he had made around the tent and in his clothes. He then took his guitar and played some.

Later on, Bernard went into the tent and made some corporeal noises and decorated his sleeping bag with this brown substance. Christian, who had finally fallen asleep, woke up and asked what the smell was. Joe tried to get Bernard to leave the tent, which resulted in a fight between Joe and Bernard. The ill one tried to throw a stone the size of his head at Joe’s face, but it fell on him and broke his glasses instead.

Bernard took his bags and walked away from camp, just like that. The chiefs gave him some time to go on, then went after him in the car.

Needless to say, Bernard was back with them less than ten minutes later.

His parents went in a while aftermath, took him home, saying he’d bathe, take some new clothes and be back. He didn’t.

Then the chiefs had us prepare some chandeliers to decorate the path to the altar which the chiefs had made for Campfire - which would start with mass.

Christian got better.

We were then told to get ready for that evening’s Campfire preparation.

All of a sudden, I heard assistant Yann yelling my name, searing the silence of night.

I went down to him, and he gave me both my iPod and my cell phones back. Then he said, “come with me, we’re going to do the slideshow for Campfire”.

I went with him in the car, and we were at a girl-scout’s house before we knew it.

She had arranged with Yann and the chief to allow us to use internet and electricity at her house.

We downloaded scouting songs, and the assistant made his show while asking me occasional questions on how to do that or that.

When we got back, the scouts had all eaten, but as I wasn’t really hungry, I simply came into the encampment. They were playing the night-game, but as soon as I went in, Christian and Loïc came to me and said that we had three more illnesses.

I went directly to the Jaguar tent where two of the three illnesses were there: Jaguars’ PS (patrol’s second) called Joseph-Emanuel and Jaguars’ PT (patrol’s third) called Rudolph. They certainly had the same symptoms as Christian had had.

On the other side, and ask for the other case, it was a Wolf rookie, Michel.

I had Loïc and Christian administrate them all the same medicine as the older Christian, who, by the way, had healed.

Then we got back to the game, and then into bed.

That was when I noticed that I still hadn’t sung Il Padrino in front of the other scouts.



Tenthly



When we woke up on the next day, which was to be the day before the last of our camp, and had to have our Campfire by night-time, I went to check on my convalescing patients.

As it turned out, Rudolph had only been tired, and he was all better by then. Jaguars’ PS Joseph-Emanuel was still ill, but getting better, and Michel was all better except for temperature.

I was heading toward Michel when Pascal called me. Yann needed me to work on the music for the slide show, which we did together with Pascal, and it was decided that Pascal, who, as I already said, is a drummer, would be giving us the rhythm to which we would advance in our entrance sketch, using his snare, that his parents would be getting him later.

We bathed. By the way, scouts bathe as such whence in camp and far from the shower: the fire-fighters come to them and spray them with water, then they are given time to soap up and then they go back under the fire-fighter's stream of cold water.

Then we rehearsed the sketch then, and the assistant had us advance as Pascal drummed on his snare with his enflamed wooden sticks. Then the PCs would come into view and spring into action as all of them except Pascal and Michael would be juggling long sticks with fire at their extremities. Pascal would give in a drum roll, then Michael would come in with fire at his arm - a trick that involves some ointments and tissues on Michael’s hand.

He would then come near the fire and throw a flame shaped like a bowling ball toward the wooden mass that would soon become Campfire’s fire.

It soon was five o’clock, and parents started coming in. My parents did, and they brought me my laptop, from which I took some music and the lyrics to Il Padrino - at least I checked the ones I had in my notebook to be able to sing them. Chief’s orders.

Then I got ready for mass, but Yann told me to stay next to him because he was finalizing the show’s music and video.

Mass was over before I could go there, and people came onto Campfire’s site to watch our show.

The ceremony for promises, second-class and first-class started, and I didn’t expect to be chosen for the promise - I thought I’d already done that! - but I was called by the chief, and so I had to do it although I wasn't ready for it.

Then the entrance sketch started and we lit the fire before Yann and I could get the slideshow exported as a video for smooth playing. I didn’t get to be part of the sketch, but I did run to my parents who offered me pizza - I was starved - and Pepsi - I was dry - and I cuddled my little cousins who had come as well.

Then I rushed back to assistant Yann to actually get the show over and done with...

We had to restart the computer because of a technical difficulty, so we asked of Pascal and Michael, who were presenting the show, to stall until we could start projecting the slideshow.

Both PCs announced that the sketches would start. And start they did. The Jaguars had to show in about more then half the sketches, because Rudolph, Joseph-Emanuel and Mark the Jaguars were very funny.

Yann and I struggled to have the show done, and it soon was.

Pascal presented the show, which was projected to a screen. It was full of images of us since Christmas camp and over to the mass a few minutes before Campfire.

There were even pictures of Arm Eve - the most important eve of scouting, in which scouts are to pray and get ready to make their promise and earn their first grad in the scouting realm. It is particular to each troop and each troop’s practises within Arm Eve are supposed to be secret. But the pictures didn’t show those, so we were clear.

There was also a video clip of the Eastern Camp, which I had made and put on YouTube. A wonderful clip, I must admit it was.

When the show was over, Pascal stood up and said, “Everything is not about jokes and fun in scouting; we even do with opera! And here to tell us all about it is George Sakr singing Il Padrino from The Godfather!”

Assistant Yann put the music I’d given him, and I was put to stand near the humongous fire. Mazen actually threw an entire gallon of gasoline into it, and the flames sprung to his command.

Then he and the chief held lights onto my papers and microphones practically into my mouth as I started the song.

I must say I did pretty well.

Then we went on with a few sketches, and that was it.

We thanked our parents for being there, and some of us gave them our stuff so they’d take them home.

After that, they left and we were told to bring our sleeping bags down to the Campfire’s emplacement. But I preferred to simply go to the tent and sleep there. I figured I would need the sleep for the next morning’s packing.

Pascal had some friends over to Campfire and they said they’d sleep with us and help pack the next day.

Their help was simply priceless the next morning...

We un-mounted the tents, the towers, tables, shacks, and everything, we cleaned the ashes from where we’d had fires, we demolished our stone stoves, we packed the tents and sent them to the school with a special truck that had been sent for that, then we packed the wood and osier that we’d used for the towers and sent it to Champville as well for future use in new mountings, then we sent our things to school as well, except for a few friends and I because I’d be leaving the bus on the way to Champville, as I happened to live, in summer at least, in between the encampment and the school.

Finally we were off sometime by noon, and as we were on the bus, Loïc and I spoke about asking the chiefs about making a special tent for us health-helpers (calling us First-Aid managers is demeaning since we can do more that that). Yes, the chief had reassigned me and made me one of those First-Aid people.

Pascal asked to sit near the window, so he exchanged with me, and we could talk in our new position. He gave me proof that we weren’t angry at each other for anything that we’d done wrong during that camp, not even for the fact that I’d spent most of the time caring for people who weren’t in our patrol. Oh, I really would miss that year’s PCs... Pascal, Christian, Michael, Jad, and Serge. I’d really miss them. The last one, Julian, was only PC by luck, and he would yet be PC with us for another year.

Then, as we went through my natal village, the bus stopped and I went down, with Marc from the Tigers, who is from the same village.

Sometimes, as I think about them scouts, I really feel like a pinch in the bottom of my heart for the fact that I would not see some again, or the fact that new ones would come in their stead that I’d have to care for, and teach, and then leave them to be PCs by themselves again, conscious that they would probably not know the names of the scouts that came before them, or their deeds; also aware that maybe they would come to teach younger scouts, that would surely grow up to shine, but that would however not know the names of the people in their patrols, who came to make their patrols, who made their patrols shine before them, and whose names some might tarnish by being foolish and devilish, and come to destroy the wonderfulness left behind by those old ex-PCs...

Some patrols die and are born every year... Our Chief himself comes from the Patrol of the Eagles. And Pascal is only the fourth or fifth PC of us Lions... I’ve come to know two PCs before him: Bassem and Moussa; I’ve been told of one before them, who founded the Lions, and who was, since he left us, chief of the Apaches troop, Patrick.

But as time goes, the greatest names are yet forlorn, and man’s best friend, forgetfulness, comes over to become his worst foe and drive him to woe and despair.

And I seek to know as I contemplate the future that impatiently awaits: Shall I be eaten by the sands of time? Shall my absence shine in the scouting world?