Camping 101

Grade 4 kids, all 89.5 recently went "camping" on a teamwork development life skills program for two nights and three daze.

As in participating in a tightly controlled, scripted program under the direct, immediate supervision of 10 teachers armed with cell phones; watchers and minders. No parents, drivers or maids to do ALL the simple daily work.

Here are the highlights. No one died.

a) a four-hour walk through villages, planting rice in mud, harvesting yams, identifying trees, plants and feeling the reality of heat, mud, water, and narrow wet slippery trails under a broiling sun.

b) how to put up and take down a tent.

c) how to tie a variety of knots and use a compass.

d) how to prepare basic, simple cooking materials and deep fry delicious foods like banana pancakes, tempe, and tofu over a smelly kerosene stove without suffering 3rd degree burns from hot bubbling oil.

e) coping, surviving, laughing, screaming teamwork perspectives while crawling up a steep muddy wet obstacle course and staying connected to the person in front of them.

f) some even learned how to develop a greater sense of independence and teamwork attitudes.

How to accept personal responsibility versus being lazy and avoiding responsibility; a deeply ingrained cultural attitude.

All the meals were catered. Trucked in from a nearby restaurant. A real struggle.

As one of many little campers standing in line with a pile of fried rice on their plastic cartoon plate, said, "I WANT MORE!"

"Don't be greedy. Next."  

Some people are never satisfied with what little they have. So it goes.

Metta.