4th of July

Well yesterday was the 4th of July - Independance Day for America. It's a public holiday in the country but obviously camp is camp so classes continued and everyone celebrated after evening formation.

Brian has no kids in his morning class this week so he's been roaming around camp and helping people out. He went rock climbing that morning while I was teaching and Kevin took some photos of him climbing the tower for me. (Wednesday is my day in medlodge so I couldn't go but I have the afternoons off this week so hopefully I can rock climb tomorrow afternoon.)

After classes and formation the staff headed to Corneil's house (the Ranger who takes care of camp and lives up the road) for a big feast and some running around time. Dinner was 2 large turkeys a ham, potato salad, coleslaw, garden salad, bread and other side dishes. Everyone ran around and played frisbee and I swear it was as if they hadn't been outside for a year. I have never seen so many hyped up kids running around! Must be all the testosterone from being in a boyscout camp, who knows.

After that we headed to camp fire and Sandy and Diamond sung 'Our lady of America.' Then there was the flag retiring ceremony which consists of folding up old flags and burning them in a fire. America has a big thing about their flag and how there is a specific etiquette. When the flag is lowered it can never touch the ground, it has to be folded in a specific way and when it is no longer fit for duty it has to be retired in a ceremony. There's alot more to it but that's all I know of.

There were a few war veterans in the visiting troops so they came down to the stage and burnt a flag each after some of the staff folded up a flag on stage and Peter went through what each fold meant.

After that there were fireworks (some of the scoutmasters had bought from South Carolina) which were fired off across the otherside of the river whilst American celebration music was played. After the ceremony alot of the kids hung around the campfire the flags were burnt in and stood there salluting for ages. It was pretty interesting to watch. My take on it all was that the 4th of July is more a day of reflection as apposed to a day of celebration. It was pretty intense at times.

Well it's staff night out tonight so I better find Brian and see what we're gonna get up to. I've also updated the photo album so remember to check that out too.

Cheers

Jess