Month: January 2017

Today during feeding the hungry, Mr. Howard Allen talked with us about the homeless life. He is doing a documentary about homelessness and wanted to talk with us about our thoughts as scouts. We asked questions like “Where would you find a safe place on the streets?” and “Do homeless people without families have funerals when they die?”

Mr.Howard answered all of our questions, and what he had to say was pretty interesting. He said, “There really isn’t a safe place for the homeless to stay” and “There’s a cemetery at – where they have a part of the field for homeless.” While I was relieved to know that the people who die on the streets at least got a burial, it was sad to think of them being buried alone.  Homelessness seems like a lonely way to live, and die.

I learned a lot from Mr. Howard and I’m glad we talked with him. I think it made us all appreciate what we have.

Although it was pretty hard leaving turkey leftovers and a warm bed on December 27, winter camp was pretty fun this year. It was my first time at Latimer, so it was nice going to a different place. Latimer was a different experience from Boxwell, which I liked.

I think overall we could say that the food, bath houses and classes were nicer than Boxwell. Since Latimer is only a few years old, everything seemed to be fresh and new.

Unlike our Boxwell experience, we spent most of our days in one single class. We had one approximately seven-hour class a day. When we weren’t at class we were generally at camp, hanging around at the dining hall, or at the trading post.

One notable class was Climbing. Climbing was pretty thrilling (to my standards at least). In this class we learned how to rappel, climb, and belay. The bluff was decently tall (about 60 to 80 feet).  A couple of people decided that this wasn’t the sport for them, and went back to camp. I really can’t blame them, it was pretty scary having to trust someone you don’t even know to not let you fall off a cliff and onto your head! Those of us who stayed were glad that we had in the end.

(Although this isn’t a photo of the cliff, this is what it felt like!)

Over all, our experience was pretty great!