WITH the summer in full swing now, hundreds of children in Cyprus are spending time away from their parents.
Most of them do not mind: they are hiking, getting thoroughly muddy in river beds and roasting marshmallows by campfires at night.
On any given week right up till mid-August, you will find in the Troodos Mountains about 80 children camping with the civil servants’ union PASYDY, 120 young ’uns at Club Jubilee and something shy of 200 kids with the Scouts.
Their ages range from seven to 13 and they come and go in weekly batches.
I arrive at the Scouts’ main camping site on a Thursday afternoon to apparent chaos.
The adults are constantly chasing after little ones. Did this one have permission to take a paracetamol pill? Did that group tidy up their tent properly? And just who is in charge of rubbish collection today?
There are about 25 camp leaders – all volunteers – who are responsible for a total of three different campsites.
Someone points me to 24-year-old camp leader, Antonis Panagides, and we sit down to have a chat. Well, just about, because while he is very helpful and enthusiastic, he is also very busy, children keep coming up to him for advice, to have a chat or because they are looking for someone.
He also has a semi-permanent sore throat from constantly using his voice.
We move somewhere quieter and I fire a bunch of questions at him in between the obligatory interruptions, this time more from parents who are calling to see how their kids are doing.
I ask Antonis if I can speak to some of his charges. “They’ve got different personalities,” he answers, and then pauses to further consider my request.
“Do you want loud ones who will talk a lot or quiet ones who will tell you different things?” he asks.
I ask for a mixture and I’m introduced to a group of four.
Myrto is 11 years old and has a scouts’ science degree, a merit badge showing she is an expert in that field.
“I learned how to construct things in the woods,” she explains.
Meanwhile, Christos is 10 and a half and is first assistant: “I know how to give First Aid and help people.”
Andreas, on the other hand, is 11 and knows all about different types of planes and how to retrieve information from a black box.
The eldest of the group, Sossana is 11 and a half, and knows how to cook and sew.
“It will be useful in the future,” she says of her skills.
Have you come across any challenges? I ask them collectively.
“Oh, many times,” comes the reply -“but we always overcome them”, adds Andreas.
Each of them displays a distinct sense of responsibility, given their position as pack leaders for their teams.
“You have to be tough and have loads of energy,” Myrto points out.
Their eyes gleam as they talk of the ‘battle field’ game they played earlier. Apparently “we got muddy and had to go through ropes”.
Did you have fun?
Silly question, of course they did, and Myrto, the most talkative, adds: “this is what’s so good about being a scout”.
The four will progress from wolf cubs to becoming fully-fledged scouts this coming academic year, which prompts Antonis to remark: “It’s always sad when they go”.
But there is no time to dwell on that with preparations under way to prepare for the last campfire of the week.
A new set of children will arrive at the campsite in the coming week, and contrary to what might be expected, they will not necessarily be missing their parents. “We see our parents all the time,” the four had told me earlier when I’d asked if they were homesick.
As I start making my way back to my car, all is once again as I had found it: the children are busy playing and the adults consumed with making sure everything is in order.
