10-7-06

As I promised, my camp log, from 10th of July, to the 14th.

It's about 10 o' clock now, on my first night of camp. he tentsite is silent; our guys had long since finished with the night activities before the rest of the groups. The full moon is beautiful to look at.
I had an awesome time today. I started the day with a bus ride to the jetty, where we waited a few minutes for the rain to clear before boarding the ferries that would take us to the camp. The ride there took about 10 minutes. Once there, everybody was seperated into the different watches (groups) (that reminds me, I regretted not bringing my watch along with me to the camp). I didn't mind it, since my best friend and two others from the same class as me were also in my group (called 'Nila Utama'). We had an instructor by the name is Poh Kiaw (she insists we call her 'PK'). She seems like a nice person.
Next, we settled the logistics for the camp, seeing that we had enough food rations to last us the nest 4 days and nights, and ensured that our store room had all the equipment needed for the camp activities.
With that done, we moved on to group activities. There was the 'Trust Fall' and the 'Human Entanglement' activites, the latter requiring us to try to unentangle ourselves from a complex knot we made with our arms, there was much to learn here about teamwork, and how one person's actions could affect the whole group.
Following that was a bit of rock-climbing practice. The watch was taught how to handle their helmets and harnesses, and how to play the roles of the two As, the B and the C. The Climber cimbs, the Belayer manages his lifeline and ensures the climber does not fall from the wall to te ground, the Anchorman ensures the Belayer does't fly off when the Climber falls and pulls the rope taut, and the Assistant sees that the loose rope does not get in the Belayer's way. There were a few rock-climbing commands we had to learn too, mostly stuff the Climber and the Belayer have to say to each other before the Climber embarks on the wall.
With that done, we moved on to pitch our tents in a small lowland grass patch known as Sunshine Valley. It was a little valley, alright, but I could tell I wouldn't be able to see the sunrise or sunset from there, consulting my compass.
Dinner was surprisingly delicious. We cooked some rice in a pot and added chicken curry to it, so everybody could have curry rice to eat. Poor Pearl An, she was vegetarian and had to settle for seomthing else (I think she went for the can of button mushrooms).
When we had eaten our fill, we met with our instructor, PK, at the pier, where we penned down our Hopes and Fears about the camp and enjoyed the comfortably cooling sea breeze, and discussed about our fears. My Hopes and Fears? Tell you next time. PK bade us goodnight when she had collected all our little slips of paper, but not before telling us a small bedtime story.
So far, so good. I will be sleeping well tonight. Outward Bound is very much what I had expectedof it, if not more. I remain anxious of the following days to come, when we would have more activities to enjoy, and more values to learn from them. Our instructor is like no other; she knows what to do, what we could achieve from these things, and her methods are nearly flawless whe it comes to teaching us moral values. I respect that a lot.
Oh yeah, I managed to remember a bit of that story PK told us. Here it is.

"It is Monday. I walk down a street. There is a hole in the floor. I do not see it. I fall in. It takes me forever to get out.
It is Tuesday. I walk down a street. There is a hole in the floor. I pretend not to see it. I still fall in. It takes me a few hours to get out.
It is Wednesday. I walk down a street. There is a hole in the floor. I see it. But I still fall in. It takes me a few minutes to get out.
It is Thursday. I walk down a street. There is a hole in the floor. I see it. I walk around it.
It is Friday. I walk down a different street."