An "insteresting" night...

So I was planning on posting this weeks goings ons but I reckon last night is worthy of a post all on its own! This weekend was the first course we were working on, local school children sponsored by Vale to do a 3 day course. It started with formalities like admin, showing kids to dorms, ice breakers etc. Me and Ali were to support primary children and Libby the secondary ones. 7-12 year olds seem to have a continuous supply of E-numbers! You would think if they were still running around at 11pm they would be shattered at their wake-up call attacks 5.45am, oh no already up and ready before we had even got up to "wake them up"! From here there was the usual morning exercise followed by us spending all morning belaying on the climbing wall. Already tired we were glad that the primary children got to go over to the camp site on Pangkor Island on the motherboats! All went well the boats were loaded and unloaded and camp was set up in an amazing bay. It wasn't quite the camping experience I was expecting, lots of tents from other groups, lots of shacks/huts and an awful lot of rubbish on the beach and surrounding trees. Oh yeah and there were toilets! Not nice ones, we're talking hole in the ground, with a bucket to wash, under a tin roof and a towel as a door! It gets dark really early like 7:30 so we set up our hammocks for the first time ever before dinner. Now the placement of our hammocks wasn't exactlly ideal, we went for between 2 trees right on the beach, this wasn't a good choice apparently! Once we had dinner which was tinned chicken curry, malaysian style of course so it had bones in and was far too hot, we went on a night walk with the kids. It was only about 100m in the jungle but leading a line of kids when you don't know where you're going and have given your head torch to a kid whos scared of the dark and stopping the circulation to your hand is pretty difficult! A nice wee night cap of Milo and sugar crackers(yeah I know they're weird) and off to bed we went! The real drama begins...

Things started off well, the view was incredible and everything was calm. But then 4 hours, 3 hammock adjustments, no sleep, goodness-knows how many bangers and and a high tide later and we were forced to shift our hammocks!! As we were packing up a few flashes of light lit the sky, after a good bit of discussion we came to the conclusion that it was in fact lightening and we couldn't hear the thunder for the noise of the sea lapping at our feet! We decided to join Daus and Boy in the raised floor, tin roof hut with no walls! Almost immediately the thunder and lightening got a lot more exciting, flashes that lit the whole sky for seconds at a time and rumbles of thunder almost right after! We spent a good half hour just watching in amazement, we could see the actual bolts hitting the sea in front of us! As we tried to get to sleep the rain began. When it rains in Malaysia it really does just bucket it down. This mixed with a wind that was picking up and a lot of holes in the tin roof resulted in multiple very wet and tired instructors!! So what did we do in this situation, ah yes cracked open a packet of sugar crackers and a pot of peanut butter and chocolate spread, I mean what else would you do at 4am during a storm?! Finally we got a few winks of sleep literally less than an hour for me and Ali, of course Libby got a good few hours she has some magic ability to sleep anywhere (on my leg in this case), anytime! Again the kids were up ling before we were! Supposed to be loading the boats at 7am but we were only just waking up! Loading the boats was interesting with massive waves rolling in and the boats rocking and swaying. Lucky Ali got to ride in the safety boat back to the centre, I'm a little jealous it would have been fun!! I went back on the motherboat with some of the kids. Once back ashore and everything sorted out the leftover rations was left for the staff to salvage, we managed to get 2 big bags of Milo, half a bottle of diluting juice, 3 packets of sugar crackers and some soy sauce for Libby! Added bonus, expeditions will be more rewarding from now on!! I have to say I slept like a baby last night, 13 hours sleep!! Hope you're all enjoying freshers!! Selemat paggi :)