You've got a leech where?!...

We had a good few weeks where OB has been really busy, all staff have been on-course and extra instructors brought in, that is all staff other than the 3 mat salleh. While everyone else has been rushed off their feet with back-to-back courses we've spent our time training for the course we're supposed to instruct: KTJ. They are malaysian participants who are studying A-levels and hoping to go to university overseas so pretty smart people, I was a little nervous about instructing though as I've done very little work with people of my own age before. Training included a lot of theory based stuff like WI briefings, admin, debriefings and first aid as we've got a pretty sound knowledge of the practical side of things having been on-course a lot. To familiarise ourselves with the trekking route we would be following we followed a course on HTM. The group I followed was pretty average with no remarkable events. However the watch that Libby followed had one incident. I heard about this incident like this: We were sitting in the van waiting to return to OB. I overheard this conversation in the front of the van between two instructors explaining why we were taking a female participant back to the medical bay: "pacat masuk..." which prompted my shocked response of "leech entered where?!" Libby then proceeded to tell the story of how a participant in her group had come to her hysterical because she thought aforementioned creepy crawly had gone somewhere it shouldn't have! You know Libbys response, "It'll drop out when its had enough"! Sound advice. Alistair appears to be making it a thing that he doesn't trek, he claims its not deliberate but I don't know...this time it was a recurring ear infection. 

 As we weren't on-course we made the most of a free weekend me by going to visit Xiao Wei in Penang, Alistair by going climbing with Amri an ex-instructor in KL and Libby by going to Aishahs house. I am always told that Penang is like the New York of shopping but for food, epecially chinese food. My days it certainly lived up to expectations! Thats pretty much all we did for the weekend; went to temples or ate food, a weekend well spent I would say! Penangites love their food so much that the place we went for breakfast we had to wait 10minutes to find a seat and twice as long queuing to order food! It was most definatley worth it though, dim sum is an incredible creation. Xiao Wei's family were great and allowed me to stay at their house despite only a days notice and took us to the best places to eat :) 

I have recently learned a lesson in life, a very valuable lesson. You shouldn't lock people in the shower. I may or may not have been joking around and locked one of the shower doors while Mera was showering and genuinely forgot to unlock it, my bad. That resulted in Mera breaking the lock, stronger than she looks! And me getting a right telling off, apparently its not quite so funny when you're the one locked in. 

So the course that we had been told right from the start that we would be instructing was upon us and before it had even started it was stressful. When we went to sort our equipment store we were told there wasn't enough equipment so we would have to share. There also wasn't enough actual store rooms so they would also have to be shared adding extra problems. Then the name lists changed last minute. Thankfully once the participants arrived we got a bit more settled in and relaxed. The course was 7 days with 2 big expeditions, one trekking and one round-island kayak. I had the task of doing the Knotting & Campcraft lesson where we teach the participants everything about how to survive the night of camping, from pitching tents to toilets and cooking to tying knots. Its a long lesson where its difficult to keep everyones attention. Luckily for me the participants were eager to learn and very cooperative so the lesson  went smoothly. I even got compliments from the two instructors who were observing for the structure and content of my lesson, a small proud moment :) 

For the trekking expedition I got more praise from the staff as my watch, called Gayong (no laughing), were first to complete the route and were the fastest group that I've ever followed for that route! The participants impressed me a lot during trekking showing a lot of determination, keeping good pace the whole way and working incredibly well as a team by encouraging the two watch members with injuries. Unfortunately we didn't get to camp in the jungle that night as I got a call from MJ the Course Director instructing us to return to OB asap. Know why? 'Cause the haze we'd had for the last few days had reached hazardous levels so the participants were getting sent home that night :( Not going to lie I think Libby, Alistair and myself were pretty gutted that we wouldn't get to finish the course, especially considering it was supposed to be our last course at OB! We made the most of the night before they went home with some good craic, they were shocked  to find out I was the same age as most of them, younger than some! I'd go as far as to say that they were some of the best participants I've worked with all year, just a shame they had to go home early because of the stupid haze!

Mumma Katie...

Sailing! I finally got to go on a whaler course, and an awesome one at that. It was 2nd Boys Brigade Subang Jaya here for only 5days doing round Island on the whaler. 17 kids to each boat, some were as young as 13 but most were 16-17. This was Outward Bounds first childrens/youth whaler course and it didn’t go too badly, some may be too young but there were enough people on each boat to make good time. There were tough conditions and 2 out of the 4 boats needed towing a little but 2 didn’t. I got to helm one of the boats for a whole 10 minutes! The participants were excellent though, they showed so much discipline and teamwork throughout the course. One participant forgot his name badge one morning so one of their teachers told his whole watch to do 10 press-ups; amazingly the other 3 watches who weren’t required to do the press-ups voluntarily did them! When doing the press-ups they would count “one sir, two sir, three sir…permission to get up sir”.

 The next wee while we just did odd jobs around OB and prepared for instructing the 7 day programme KTJ by doing lesson plans, mock lessons, debriefings and first aid. Down time was spent playing snool, cycling to Biriyani’s, and getting a little bit more running done. We went out with some of the staff to play bowling where I played pretty well for the first game; I was winning for the first few shots but the second game wasn’t quite so good: I think I may have set a new record for “the most balls bowled without hitting a single pin” => 10, such a pro!

I supported for Pack N Paddle, one of the OB run courses although all but like 2 kids were sponsored by Vale! The size of the course was cut so there was a greater staff:participant ratio therefore our participants were always finished early and had everything done efficiently. Our course involved a 3.5km kayak to Teluk Sekadeh, rappelling the same morning then trekking in the afternoon. The kids were great, all aged 12-14 and so full of energy. They are all local Malays so were speaking Malay to me which was confusing at times but it helps me learn and I was proud of myself for actually understanding a lot of what they were saying! Some of them were adorable and took to calling me either Mr Katie or Mumma Katie, not sure why! We had solo camp where they are supposed to stay in a tent by themselves for one night, however being so young they weren’t that great at it! Most of the evening they were wandering around the jungle talking to each other but when it came to me and Shuek doing the final check before bed, some of the tents were empty. What we found was that all the boys were sharing about 3 to a tent, one boy preferred to sleep outside his friends tent than inside his own one 5m away. The girls on the other hand all slept alone in their tents, what can I say boys are just wimps!

 After course I joined some of the staff down in the field playing with kites, you may laugh at grown men playing with colourful little kites but its quite a part of Malaysian culture. We lost two kites when their string snapped and they disappeared over the jungle. Din and Fendy even made their own kites with some bamboo and a parang(machete).

 I don’t normally like the fact that OB does short courses like 1-3days but in this instance I’ll let it slide. It was a 2 day course where the objective was simply to have fun, which isn’t what OB is about, its about learning, however this was a worthy cause and it was a fun course to be on and we all finished course feeling like we had made an impact. It was a course for children and youths who were directly affected by cancer, either survived it, fighting it or terminal. We basically facilitated a few activities/games and then went to the hotel where they were staying to participate in other activities. We did rafting, wall climbing, kayaking and belay intro at OB. I was impressed how strong these people are, they pushed themselves to complete the activities as best they could, they had great fun racing up and down the climbing wall and cargo net. The instructors went over to the hotel at night to join them in being taught how to play the harmonica, by the World Champion harmonica player! The second night we went along for dinner and disco with a pirate theme, so Alistair, Libby and myself dressed up as pirates again, this time we thought better of bringing real swords to a public place. I got a little emotional saying goodbye to them, one sweet little girl came up to me thanking me so much with a tear in her eye and gave me a kiss on the cheek :)

May...hem

If you see a 6ft long monitor lizard, a relative of the Komodo Dragon, what are you going to do? Run towards it? Thought not. Unless you are one of the instructors at Outward Bound! Shukri followed one the whole way down the beach and disappeared for a while, there was a slight concern that a role reversal had occurred, no worries he appeared safe and sound. Having a few days off allowed me to do my PADI Open Water Scuba Diving course which means I can dive up to 18m anywhere in the world! I did it locally from Marina Island with Syafirul, one of the instructors. Alistair was supposed to do it with us but got an ear infection with the most inconvenient timing, although he did his a few weeks later. We completed the course in two and a half days ‘cause we are such pro’s! To be honest the visibility wasn’t the best, although we did manage to see some cool purple and orange fish, an abundance of sea urchins with flashing lights and a few other things. The main thing was the experience though, it is such an odd feeling kneeling on the sea floor being unable to see your hand and then removing your breathing apparatus to prove you’re good enough! Alistair and myself got a bit bored and weren’t too sure of the rules of snooker so we’ve invented our own game. It is a combination of pool, snooker, drinking games etc. It is played with the same basic rules as pool and snooker. The key rules are that the rules are decided at the start of each game, so generally a game will involve forfeits for potting the wrong ball, a ball leaving the table, hitting the wrong ball first etc. Common forfeits are crawling under the table which hasn’t been swept in 10years, running round the table with the ball above your head shouting the other persons name, dribbling around the table 3 times, you get the idea. An important ingredient is to be high on energy drinks or vanilla coke. That is SNOOL. My next course was one of the best, Nilai University students. The course was a week long including a kayak round Pangkor and trekking HTM. The participants were good craic and because it was a challenging course you could see bonds forming among the group and people changing. Camping at Teluk Sekadeh I actually woke up “cold” in the morning! But for the first time in months I got that nice cozy feeling when you’re cold and put on a jacket to warm up: bliss! You guys probably find it strange that I miss that dreich weather where its cold and wet and blowing a gale, sometimes constant 30+°C heat gets a bit too much! There were strong winds and big waves so we postponed departure slightly. I was the MC for the informal closing ceremony which is always great when you can read Chinese names…nah I’m joking I think I managed ok! I had even more time off so I arranged with Alia, my awesome Malay friend, to go to her house in Ipoh for a few days and go to Penang for a night. When I arrived we went to a school concert that Alia’s cousin Ainan Tasnin was singing at, she is a recording artist in Malaysia! We got a train at 2am to Penang! The train was so uncomfy and had far too much air-con it was freezing but at least we got a few hours sleep and saved ourselves time and money on accommodation. For the next two days we basically wandered around seeing what was about, eating food and taking stupid pictures with the Penang street art. We visited all the classic tourist sites like Fort Cornwallis, Penang Hill, the street art, and the hawker food. This was Alia’s first backpacking experience so she was well excited to be staying in a backpackers and talking to people travelling from Germany and New Zealand and laughing at them thinking roti canai was a pancake! Back in Ipoh we just jalan-jalaned and had to make a run back to Lumut because my visa had run out and it had to be sorted that day. Thankfully Alia drove me back, I got the visa sorted and then went back to Ipoh in time to pick her sister and mother up from work. Next morning we continued Alia’s swimming lessons at a local outdoor pool and she is getting pretty damn good at swimming, must have a good teacher…. hehe