Today was camp building day.

After yesterday, we had only the bare minimum of a camp. All the tents went up of course: sleeping tents as well as tents for all the special functions such as kitchen, medical, supply etc. But that was it. The camp was liveable but bare.

Today – between the rain showers – the scouts built all kinds of amenities and decorations. A flagpole, of course. Stands for the hand-washing basins and washing-up tubs. Clothes lines. Sheltered benches and tables for mealtimes. A portal for the camp as a whole, and for all the “villages” for the different groups.

The number one camp building material is birch poles.

The number two camp building material is sisal twine.

The camp uses enormous amounts of both. Literally hundreds of birch poles, and hundreds of metres of twine.

The number one construction element is the tripod. First-year scouts may not manage the advanced structures that the older ones build – strong enough to climb on – but they quickly learn to make tripods, and you can get far with those. Make a tripod, and you have a washbasin stand. Make two, and add a long horizontal pole on top, and you have a portal, or the skeleton of a shelter.

The reason I’m talking about building materials today, instead of kitchen utensils, is because I was kicked out of the kitchen. I caught some kind of stomach ailment and the medical team banned me from even being in the kitchen for the next 48 hours at least. So instead I am now assisting the supply manager, handing out tools and materials to whoever needs them, and sometimes even getting them back afterwards.