Wednesday, September 06, 2006
I'M BACK FROM MAWAI!!!
This is hand's down probably the best outdoor camp that I've had in a very long time.
We went for a swampforest walk on the first day of the camp when we reached there. I had only brought two shoes and I still wanted to keep both lol, and they told us we were going for a swamp walk. Then mr sutari introduced some trekking shoes to us. They were like budget soccer boots. They had studs and were made of rubber, lol. But it was very good, seriously, like what he said, "C&G, cheap and good". The first part of the walk was not so bad. Mr sutari showed us the asli animal traps and how they worked. It was surprising when he said that the demonstrations were only 1/8 of the actual traps in the forests, lol. Man, they were bloody deadly and I would really hate to be an animal crossing it's path... We saw many trees and mr surati explained their uses and which plants could be eaten. Haha, we ate the long grass and the fern leaves, which tasted like apple. Second part we entered the real forest full of MUD. The mud is really no joke, one step into the forest and your shoes are immediately brown. There was one part where I got seriously stuck in the mud. It was all the way up my knees, omgoose. I was afraid my shoe wouldn't come out. Then with help from jia hui I pulled out of the mud, and it was a damn horrible feeling with all the mud in my shoes and tracpants. We made it out alive and muddy as hell.
We had a movie screening that night of The Emperor's Club. I had watched the movie in P6 and knew the story but didn't really understand it. Now, in terms of a leader's point of view, I understand the deep meaning of the movie.
We played a team challenge the next day where we had to do alot of funny things like finding indentical leaves, reciting the aslis' names, exchange shoes, and even throwing a teacher into the pond, LOL. Of course, none of them would let us throw them in.
Then we played the asli water obstacles. It was fun, I fell for the first time at the long pole crossing. Quite a waste, coz I didn't fall for the other obstacles, haha. I crossed the asli bridge four times without falling, haha. Alot of other people were just eager to jump into the swampwater. Damn, your shoes could get stuck there as well and it would be really sad if that happened, lol. We then played water captain's ball in the swamp omgoose. Our team OWNED, lol. 18 to 4 was the score, haha. I tasted the water and it was horrible as hell.
Later we went for a firefly cruise at the river. Unfortunately, I forgot the name of the river, damn. It was quite good, coz I have never seen fireflies before at night. But truth to be told, I was more on the lookout for crocodiles in the river. Didn't find any, though...
Third day was the climax, for we had to trek up gunung arong, the so-called mountain, lol, not really, coz it's only 390m high. But it's damn steep man. I wore the C&G shoes and they were reallly very good for trekking up. The studs gave good grip and the rubber sole allowed our feet to feel and grip the ground. Not good for walking on flat surfaces though, coz it's really bothersome when you're stepping on rocks, it's like you're walking barefooted. Man, the ants there are HUGE. Probably 50-100 times bigger than singaporean ants. Not joking.
We reached the summit in about like, 50 minutes, which was supposingly good coz the estimated time was two and a half hours, lol. The climb down was way longer and more fun than the ascend. Long because we kept on going up and down. I don't understand why we had to go UP even further when we were actually descending. Fun because alot of people were falling down, lol. The asli climbed up and down the slopes like walking in the park, in SLIPPERS.
We returned that night to prepare for the campfire. It was pretty scary because we hadn't prepared our performance yet, only the planning, and we were left with less than an hour to wrap it up. It was supposed to be hillarious, and indeed it was, haha. I became the birdseller and there was a singapore terrorist and osama bin laden and HARD GAY, lol, won't say more, it's very funny.
Hah, I couldn't really sleep that night, coz people were all too high and talking bullshit all over the place.
This morning we woke and after breakfast we had a game on an egg astronaut. Very funny, we had to build a structure to propel the egg as far as possible on the gravel and keep it intact. Ours was pretty crappy, coz it cracked upon landing, but, we had the fun of seeing it fly anyway, WE THREW THE FURTHEST LEH. Then we had our final debrief for the camp. It was nothing much, just talking about what we learnt as leaders and what we want to bring back to the school in our own ccas. I feel that I really need to improve myself on the points that I had mentioned today.
Then we had AREA CLEANING. Surprisingly, it was super fast and only less than half an hour, lol. We had to clear the egg yolks on the gravel, haha.
After that lunch, then it was off to the bus and back to singapore. We said bye to mr sutari and the aslis. I was astonished to find out that he lived at the campsite itself. He has a house in singapore, but he said it was better at the camp, where there was more freedom, lol.
Back home now!!! Haiz, still feeling quite tired even though I slept on the bus back. This is really one camp where I enjoyed the most and created new bonds with other people.
--< blabbered at 6:01 PM >--
