A long, long time ago in a kingdom not so far away there was a girl who worked at Outward Bound Malaysia Lumut. She had a terrible memory. I'm struggling to remember what I did last week, never mind 10 weeks ago but lets see...
Alistair and myself were on two more 10 day CAC/YAC courses. Due to OB being very busy with all instructors on-course and one instructor having to pull out of the YAC at the last minute Alistair was called upon to be Watch Instructor! A big task for an 18year old without much specific instructor training however he did well and managed to complete the course without killing any kids, or them killing him! One girl in his Watch did get bitten by a poisonous centipede! In more good luck Alistairs course assistant blew his hand up with a firecracker! Nothing we can do to avoid such incidents though.
Next course and same thing, an instructor has to pull out so Ali is asked to take his place. 5nights expedition in 10 days because there aren't enough dorms for everyone. Alistair had a bit more luck with course assistants, getting Emily who was sound and did an ace job of telling off participants!
Again I was with the CAC course who are only 9-12yr olds and are a lot of fun to tease with "impossible" riddles! How many sheep jump over the wall?! On the nightwalk the participants were asked to switch their torches off and let their eyes adjust to the dark. A few were scared but one child reassured his friends with this: "Don't worry Katie is here, she's white so glows in the dark!"
Around half way through the course all the female CA's and me get told that we have to supervise the cleaning of the girls dorm block. Why? Because someone did a shit in the shower. What on earth? That is disgusting especially for girls aged 10-18. We did some severe shouting and made sure that the whole block was spotless and they knew their responsibilities.
On the kayak expedition to Sekadeh I was woken up at 5:15am by a bright light in my eyes, the old brain is a bit slow at that time in the morning so it took me a few seconds to work out that it was a child with a torch! "I need the toilet" "go wake one of your friends up..." "but they're asleep" "so wake them up?!" "Hmmmphhh" 10minutes later she comes back and tells another instructor so I get asked to escort her to the toilet, not like I was tired or anything! Half way there she tells me she needs a poo, great what do you want me to do?! Anyway no point going back to sleep for half an hour so I went down to the beach! It was so lush, clear sky above, thousands of stars, lightning bolts hitting the horizon, glow-in-the-dark algae lapping on the shore and best of all it was quiet other than the distant claps of thunder and the waves lapping up on the beach!
Up next
CHRISTMAS IN 'NAM!
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