Packing my overstuffed bag that would break apart if I were to place so much as a pair of trousers in it. The day before the Secondary 3 camp was spent with my beloved computer that I would not be able to embrace for the next three days of my life. The stories of the past years Secondary 3 camp was a combination of feelings. Some of my seniors gave the thumbs-up at the camp and started giving a, what seemed to me, never-ending testimony of the camp of how fun and exciting it was whereas other seniors went on to completely contradict the "thumbs-upping" seniors by saying that it was super boring and was not worth going. Well, of course those who gave the camp the thumbs-down were more or less, computer game maniacs. However, the comment that affected me the most was my sister, who went to OBS (Outward Bound School) last year. She explained how team spirit building and fun it was. Well, I found myself looking forward to the camp!
Day 1
The journey to the camp was relatively fun. During most of the excursions, the bus rides were the most interesting part of the whole activity. I mean, who doesn't enjoy chatting with your friends in an air-conditioned area? Anyway, as we entered the Camp Christine campsite, the first thing we did gave me an impression that the camp was not going to be fun after all. We headed for an open field which was placed under the mighty, scorching sun which happily gave us a tan. No pain no gain right? So with the tan came intense heat. But the clouds seemed to pity us and provided minute-long coolness by covering the sun. The camp seemed more like a boot camp to me rather than a fun camp as we sat in the field full of insects that I never knew existed for close to 3-quaters of an hour. After the waiting, the camp chief gave us a briefing that had been already done in school and so, everyone found it to be pointless and started getting restless. After the "pointless" briefing, we broke up into our classes which were given group names, ours was Chil, which was a bird in The Jungle Bird but to us, it was just "relax". After we got to know our trainers a bit better, we pitched our tents which was an experience for me as that was my first time pitching a tent. After the tent-pitching, we started on our first activity which involved building a raft using only long wooden sticks, ropes and 4 rubber tires. The class was split into two groups so two rafts were to be made. The excitement and flurry that the activity brought totally erased the intense heat of the sun. As we set out to test our "masterpieces", the thought of having a dip in the sea was more appealing than staying dry on the raft. Sure, all of us wanted a drink but the salty water of the sea was not what we had in mind. The next three activities were to bond the class through games that required teamwork and pure trust in one another. Another down-side of the camp was the toilets, even the coffee-shops' toilets were way cleaner than these. I couldn't imagine how bathing in these toilets could make me any cleaner and just went about locating my tent which seemed to have disappeared for that few minutes. Sleep had no trouble coming to me....
Day 2
There were more team building activities that day which seemed to help in the bonding of the class but I would like to mention one particular activity, the Nature Rumble. It was a trail where we had to walk into a forested area and wade through mud. Somehow, the mud and dirt was just appealing to me. It was the most enjoyable activity in the camp, or all the camps I've been to. At night, we had the campfire and it wasn't any ordinary campfire, it had stereo speakers and music that blasted from them. The highlight of the camp simply lived up to its name. The trainers joked around and the classes performed their cheers and ours, which had a dance that my classmate, Augustine, introduced to us, it simply made me have a sense of belonging in my class. After the campfire, we all took a shower and settled down for the night.
Day 3
Almost everybody woke up without any problems, maybe its because of the fact that they finally got to go home. Day 3 was entirely just area cleaning and tidying up the campsite. Before we left, we had a debrief by the trainers and the camp chief. It was announced that our class won the title of the best group! We were elated as we didn't expect to win. As I boarded the bus that brought us back to school, I found myself wishing I could stay longer. The camp really made me discover the personalities of my classmates, and gave me a sense of maturity.
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