It has now been a week and a half since I arrived at Gilwell Park Scout Activity Centre and I feel bad for writing nothing. It's that dreaded combination of busy-ness and laziness. The same also applies to photo taking, so this post is going to be pretty skimpy on pictures taken by me.
To start from the beginning, on Thursday Sept. 6, two Lattitude representatives escorted Gustavo, Nicholas, and I to Liverpool Street Station in London. We killed time in the Starbucks during which time a pigeon flew into the shop. I found this really interesting for some reason.
The two Ecuadorian boys and I then boarded the train bound for Chingford Station. It's about a 30 minute ride and none of us talked much. We arrived at the station and Kerry, the assistant director at Gilwell, came to pick us up. Kerry is a man by the way. By car Gilwell Park is no more than 5 or 6 minutes from the station. We parked in Camp Square which at that time was full of people (and no it wasn't raining that much).
Nicholas was assigned his room in the The Den which is adjacent to Camp Square, then we drove up to The White House, where Gustavo and I each were assigned our rooms. My roommate is Nancy, also from Ecuador and she is very sweet and we get along well.
Kerry then took us down to the cafeteria in the White House which serves lunch Monday to Friday, introduced us to 3 other volunteers and then left us. After lunch we were left to our own devices, the other volunteers having gone back to work, so I went back to my room.
Eventually one of the lead instructors, Phil, came and found me and took me to the program office to do paperwork, then Tom took me on a tour of the Park. It was incredibly overwhelming, it's 108 acres and that particular weekend was Reunion, a camping event for adult Scout members with over 1000s attendees. The event has been going every year since 1921! (Save four years during WWII when Gilwell Park was used by army officers.)
The best way I can describe Gilwell Park is that it is like Camp Pringle - times 10. Many buildings, lodges, toilet blocks, and activities. There is also the building which houses the UK Scouting Head Quarters, which is separate from The Gilwell Park Scout Activity Centre.
I attended a staff meeting that first afternoon and met more of the staff. There were Australians, Brits, Brazilians, Mexicans, Ghanians, Ugandans, Koreans, Russians and Italians. I am the only Canadian. After a couple days of being completely surrounded by accents that were not my own, I started to think in different accents. It's kind of weird. After the staff meeting I was taken back to The Den. Oh my. The building was original the Scout Camp Hospital and falling apart both inside and out.
I walked in, down the hall past the laundry room full of dirty clothes and half working machines, into the common room with a TV and a couch that runs along 3 walls. The common room floor was just a mess of cords, laptops, dirty dishes, pillows and food wrappers. The room was full of people, all looking at us new kids of course. Everyone was, and still is, super nice and very welcoming.
That night happened to be a staff social night, so all 44 of us walked to the Indian Restaurant in Chingford for dinner. That meant I didn't have to brave the kitchen until the next morning. Nancy and I went into the kitchen, she kind waved her hand at the shelves in general and said, "you can eat whatever you want." I was at a bit of a loss. I had thought the common room was dirty but it was nothing compared to the kitchen. The dishes were piled high in the sink, the stove was greasy and grimy, packaged food was stuff into crates next to the gross looking microwave. One of the other new volunteers informed me he had seen a mouse in the kitchen the other day. Oh great. I took down some cereal from the top shelf, grabbed a bowl and looked around for the spoons. I asked the others, they laughed and wished me good luck in finding one amongst the mountain of dirty dishes.
After that adventure I was buddied up with one of the Australians, Darcy, and with some others we were sent to do some random jobs around the camp, most of which didn't really need doing. Reunion had the camp very busy and the rest of the weekend was spent cleaning toilets and moving chairs and tables from one part of the camp to the other. 900 folding chairs in all. I'm told the work during Reunion does not reflect the work that I will be doing most of year. That first weekend I met some many people, there were about 40 volunteers at that point, but so many of them said, "I'm so-and-so, but I'm leaving in the next few days." By the time October is over, there will be just 21 of us left for the winter. I will be the only native English speaker left, I might just have to learn Spanish and Korean.
On Sunday night, after all the Reunion attendees had gone home, the staff had a big party to celebrate. The volunteers partied in the tent that is attached the The Den and this is what it looked like the next morning.
Monday morning had the 14 new volunteers packed up to go to the Scout Activity Centre in Oxford for 5 days of training. Most of us slept the whole way. The centre is called Youlbury, it's quite a bit smaller than Gilwell but still quite big, with lots of fields, forests and outdoor activities. As soon as we got there we were sent to meet the trainees from the other centres and try out the giant swing, that was really fun.
The whole week consisted of different workshops on Scouting, safeguarding, rope work, fire building, setting up tents, delivery skills and learning new games. For a training week, they kept it pretty interesting and interactive. I think my favourite part was learning to use a fire bow and actually managing to light a fire with one. Just for the record: it was the two girls in our group who finally got the spark going. I also learned that there are 9 Scout Activity Centres throughout the UK, I might write a post about them all another time.
By Friday afternoon it was back on the bus and we all slept again on the ride home. It was good to be back "home" as it Gilwell is to us now. Surprisingly, the Den was quite a bit cleaner, but only because a volunteer from another centre who had been working at Gilwell for the weekend had got fed up and cleaned it. I've been trying to clean little bits of the kitchen here and there when I have time. I asked some of the other volunteers if anyone had ever got food poisoning from the kitchen. They said no, but that by the end of my stay I will have a crazy strong immune system.
We were given the next 3 days off which was a lovely break. Over the weekend I bought my first legal drink in the Chingford pub, The Station House, which attracts and odd mix of middle-aged people and the scarily Jersey Shore-esque Essex girls. Us Gilwell volunteers were definitely the youngest there. Other highlights of the weekend included buying a cellphone for 10 pounds, buying an Oyster Card, a Rail Card and signing up for a library card. Half the volunteers have been fighting off colds and sore throats, including me, and I barely left the couch in the Den all Sunday. It was exactly what I needed.
I think that is all to tell about my first week and a half as a Scout Activity Centre Volunteer. All in all I'm adjusting well and having fun.
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