Day two of scout
camp found me getting up at 5 to watch them exercise, then coming home to get
ready at my house, then going back to where my group was. I met with my group
of girls and made sure that things were going well as they had to cook
breakfast on a fire by themselves. Then I went and ate where they were
providing meals for the teachers. After breakfast we got ready to go on a 8-10
kilometer hike. They broke into 8 groups, and let them go out 5 minutes apart.
There were several stations along the way that we had to stop at to learn about
something one of the guest leaders had prepared. The students had to walk in a
straight line holding their bamboo pole in a certain way, if one wanted to stop
they all had to stop, they were also to pick up trash along the way. So, you
can imagine what it was like when the leader found a piece of trash and they
all had to stop and look for things to pick up.
I walked with my
group for most of the way, then the last few kilometers ended up switching to a
group of boys we were passing as they ate lunch and I was chatting with them. I
must say walking with the boys was a lot easier, for some reason they didn’t
pick on each little thing as much and they just enjoyed the hike and chatting
with me. with both of the groups I talked with several students and got to know
them a little better, which was fun to hear about their lives and compare
things.
When we got back
to the school they then had to go through a series of over ten stations set up
with different outdoorsy type skills. I started at one station, then went in
the opposite direction the students were rotating with so I would get to all of
the stations and see most of the groups. I’ll let the pictures speak for
themselves J
In the evening
they had a campfire in which it was opened by 8 of the 6th grade
boys dressing like jungle people with banana leaf skirts, and black paint on
their chests. They did a sort of dance with torches to light the fire, however,
they had poured a lot of gasoline on the wood, and one boys torch dropped a
spark and when it hit the gasoline the whole thing ignited and the boys had to
jump back. Definitely scary to watch as a teacher…Then the girls did a dance to
bring in a pot with the group numbers on it for their skits. Most of the skits
ended up to be about drugs, or loving your parents. After every two or three
skits they would have some students play a game or sing songs. The one game
they had a bigger student and a small student come out from each group. The
bigger student had to hold the younger student like a baby, and then when the
guy said the smaller student had to then be transferred onto the bigger
students back like a piggy back without touching the ground. They went back and
forth between these two positions several times until there were only three
groups remaining. The guy then asked them if they would continue to do this for
a week to earn something, some said that they would, then he asked if they
would do it for a month for an even bigger prize, eventually he got asked if
they would carry that younger child for 9 months for an even bigger prize. Then
he said that that is what their mothers did for them, carried them for 9 months
in the womb, and then took care of them once they were born. Having spent the
morning walking and talking with several students who didn’t have parents, or
whose parents had given them to someone else to raise, I felt bad for them, and
wondered what it would be like to not have parents and then hear stories like
this. Would I cry? Would I become calloused to it? Would I feel hurt? These are
questions that I can’t answer and I hope that I never have to, but it does help
me try to be sensitive towards the students and each of their individual home
situations.
As the campfire
was nearing the end I felt like I was getting a fever so I came home to go to
bed and trusted someone else with my group.
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