I will admit that upon arrival to climate camp I was scared. Amelia had warned us about the police being a pain, but I thought, Im certainly not here to cause any trouble, and Im perfectly happy to be searched, so I didn't forsee any problems. However at the train station we met a girl who said that there were some fights taking place between protesters and police, and she even had the bruises to prove it! After waiting at the station for half an hour we were eventually told by someone from the camp that the driver of the shuttle bus had been arrested. Wonderful!

So our little crew of people toddled our way down to the bus stop in Rochester and eventually made our way to the camp. We were searched on the way in but had no real trouble at all coming in to the camp. Once over the turnstile we were instantly welcomed and completely struck by the lovely community feel of the camp, there were even 'showers'. Everyone was pitching in and working together to create a community and it was evident from the second we walked in.

Walking around the tents I had literally no idea why there were even any police present! The camp was not in any way a place of violence, it was a place of discussion, of trying to work out how to actively make the world a better place. There were people in wind block showers, compost toilets, doing cooking, cycling, making their own media voice and mostly just relaxing and discussing things.

Check out www.nonewcoal.org.uk for a really good video and more info about the reasoning behind the camp.

We walked in to the cinema tent and watched a very in-depth independent film about the DFID (department for International development) A British Government organization who should be providing aid to the impoverished people of India, but instead seems to allow large companies to make cheap use of India's land and people. For example Indian people had been told to grow plants that could be used for biodiesel, but not given any information about whether the companies would actually buy them, as well as the crops making their animals ill and ruining land that would otherwise have been used for growing food. I left the amazing little cinema tent having learnt a great deal and had gained a sense that large companies, organisations and even the government will do all they can to be seen to be 'good' and 'green' without properly trying to solve problems and take into account indigenous people and their thoughts and ideas, let alone their basic human needs.

A little googlebased work enabled me to look past all the government websites about how great the DFID are at giving money to poor people and I found this government document containing these little gems of information "It is crucial that each of DFID’s spending decisions is linked to the eradication of poverty", and, "Early and robust assessments of the impact of any proposed course of action on poverty is an effective safeguard against bad spending decisions." 'We were therefore disappointed to learn that this matter had disappeared from DFID’s annual
publication on the World Bank as the result of an apparent oversight." Hmmmm. nice to know that millions of pounds of our money are being looked after!

Then we kicked our shoes of and joined in with a strange South American dance on a rug outside that mostly involved jumping a lot and following the moves of a lady with a massive colourful feathery headdress. Brilliant!

That night when I left the camp. I walked to the bus stop and found three other campers sat there, they were incredibly nice to me and began offering me chocolate and crisps. One guy said that his rants on the subject of climate change had become so lengthly and out of control that his friends had imposed a 9pm 'climate rant' watershed on him. Before I knew it half an hour had passed and we began to cotton on that the village of Hundred of Hoo (yes yes it is a village from a childrens storybook) does not have night buses. So we began to stroll further into town looking for other bus stops. On the way we met a local man who said that the villagers were all behind us campers and that they thoroughly appreciated our coming to their village, he told us that when the power station first came to the village, the pollution was so severe that it somehow removed the paint from everyones cars and that they eventually won some money to repaint them! Some local lads then helped us to find a functioning bus stop at which point we met a fantastic old pearly queen lady on the bus who said that when she first came to Hundred of Hoo she used to travel by horse and cart,( children's story book! ) and told us that soon everyone would probably have to do that again. I giggled then swiftly realised that she of course does have a point. When we've used all the oil perhaps we will all be clip clopping around on horses and carts.

This strange long journey home would normally have been quite frankly a pain in the arse, but meeting these people made it actually really lovely, I came across great folk who helped me so much to get home, were really friendly, talkative and completely full of the camps spirit about pulling together for a common good and helping each other out. I remember one guy talking about how if people who had worked in a car factory could learn to make aeroplanes then the rest of us could bloody well apply ourselves to creating and using renewable kinds of energy. Convert coal fired power stations to wind farms! I thought a lot about how all that needs to happen is for people to truly apply themselves and use their own simple personal resources in a different way.

I learnt a great deal from them and it just goes to show that the ethos of the camp and its ideals and companionships extend far beyond the camp's gate. Climate Camp to me was far more than a protest camp, It was a true learning experience about the power of what people can do.

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