Bao Yi's Camp Reflection

Anderson Annual Training Camp
This year’s training camp was a very memorable one despite having rain for the first two days. I really enjoyed it and I was surprised that it was not as tough and difficult as last year’s training camp, according to what my fellow sec 3 guides told me about the camp last year. I think it is because of the rain and the amount of time that we took to do things, so that everything must be either cancelled or delayed. My patrol was the best patrol! :)

For day 1, we report in school at about 6.45am.Some of us are late and the seniors were counting our punishments. Loaded the things into the bus and I think everybody cooperate with each other very well. We went on the bus and set off. On the bus, we sang a lot of songs on the bus without stopping and before that everyone was not that enthusiastic. We invented a YES! after cheer on the bus and it was very funny. I loved the after cheer. :P After that we reached the campsite and began unloading the things. We did that quite fast. We began to pitch the tent. There were quite a lot of problems at first as we could not pitch the tent under the trees and there was not enough space. We did not take 15 paces properly and therefore, our tents were very close to each other and we had to shift place a lot of times. After that, we started pitching our tents. I do not know why we took so much time to pitch the tents but I think it was because we made mistakes and we had to redo a lot of times. We were also quite unsure of what we are supposed to do and we kept asking each other to check. After pitching the tents, our patrols had some problems because we had missing pegs. We had to look for them and count the no. of pegs we have again and again. But in the end we found everything and it was quite silly because the pegs were either covered by the tent or lying somewhere that it was quite obvious to see. Had a delicious lunch. We were orderlies for the first day and there were a lot of things to do so we started doing gadgets much later than other patrols. We used a lot of time because we wanted to do very stable gadgets and we kept retying the knots. But in the end our gadgets were the best among the other patrols and I was quite happy about it:) It started raining and we played games in the rain. The games were very fun and interesting and we end up being “ illegal immigrants”! Had our dinner and it was time to wash the plates again. After that we had night walk. Everybody was trying to suppress their fears. We started out and walk through the steep and forested routes. I saw the team spirit that we have and everyone was very caring. They informed us what was in front (e.g. rocks). I thought I would be very scared for the solo walk but to my surprise, I was not scared. I managed to overcome my fears. Zhiling played a trick on us and I felt very cheated. Later we had green bean soup and we went to bed at around 1pm because we have to wash the cups.

For day 2, we woke up at around 5.20am to do punishments. The grass was so wet and dirty that we had brown patches on our shirts and shorts. Felt very dirty. After that we played some interesting games. We did not have PT for that day. Had breakfast and we were doing wood and water that day. After that, we had outdoor cooking and I helped to prepare the food. I realised that I do not really know the things that we were supposed to do and I kept on asking Ziying what to do. Felt guilty and ashamed. But in the end we finished preparing the food quite early and we had to wait for the amber to be ready. We were lucky to have Mr Mail helping us and I am really grateful to him. We had to wait a very long time for the charcoal to finish burning and we needed a lot of amber. Thanks to him, our food was all very delicious and our chicken looked very nice and delicious. After that, we cleaned up the place and went to play games. We were playing the water bomb game when suddenly lighting strike. It started raining and we had to bring our clothes in and close the tent doors. We did it very fast and it showed that we could do things very efficiently. After that, we played some games and the games were enjoyable and fun. When it stopped raining, we played the water bomb game again. We were all wet and shivering. Some of us even had tofu on their heads. We all had fun. After that we had dinner and our mini campfire. Due to the rain, we had our campfire indoors. It was quite disappointing. But in the end the campfire turned out to be a success and we all enjoyed it. Next, we had our night game. I was surprised that the game was optional and many people backed out from the game. The night game was scary but it was very fun. I was happy that none of my patrol members back out and we all played the game. The night game was the most memorable thing that I had from the camp:) at first we were not really scared but as we heard the screams from the other guides, we started to feel scared. But in the end nobody backed out and we all played the game till the end. After the game we got to do our patrol duty, we all went to bed at around 2pm. Everybody was very tired and fell asleep very fast.

For day 3, basically was to pack up and go home. We untied the gadgets and strike down the tents. The tents were not dried so the sec2s had to go home first while the sec3s stayed to strike down the tents. We strike down the tents in about 30 minutes and it was very good. Went home after a long wait for the bus. And tadah! This was the end of training camp 2007 and my reflection. From this camp I really learnt a lot to be independent and it also trained my physical and metal health. Thank you to the seniors for making this camp so fun and memorable and I really enjoyed the camp. Thank you!

Baoyi- Dare to dare (d2d)