35 kids, 2 instructors and a whole lot of chaos; is the closest definition of how I spent this week. Junga is near Shimla and I was part of an outdoor training camp for school kids. My role as an outdoor training instructor is to get kids to do activities that only outdoors permit. Kids build their own bridges over small rivers, create rafts that actually float, walk on fire, play with snakes, gaze at stars and learn Newton’s laws by cycling down the hill.
The kids this time were mostly older. Class 9-12 kinds. This meant that old fogeys like me had to demonstrate a larger amount of stamina (i.e. smoke-less) and do a lot of things that I usually don’t do, run, for example, down a hill.
I came back on Thursday and narrated the last 3 day’s events to my wife. It took me almost all of breakfast and another 2 hours to give her the complete download on the exciting stuff I’d done (this was the first time I’d done the fire walk myself).
Whilst we pride ourselves at the learning these kids have, this time I learnt more from the kids, than they learnt from me. I had the usual winter running nose and sore throat; and the Junga chill made matters worse. I also made sure that the entire camp knew of the huge sacrifice I was making …working at 3 degrees Celsius when I should be with a hot water bottle. The kids love the camp and the community soon starts to behave as a family. Mayank , Ayesha, Ajay and Shruti were the senior-most of the kids and in a way, the leaders of the pack. After listening to my sob stories about the ever running nose, the kids decided to reverse roles and treat me like a kid. So, come day 2 evening, they first got a hot cup of soup, then made sure that I was given my hot water bottle, and along with that left a small card. The card wasn’t the ‘get well soon’ kind. Made out of an A4 size plain paper, it had the names and cartoons of 9 kids in the camp that had running noses and sore throats, with their signatures certifying the actual existence of the situation. On the inside of the card were just the following words…”grow up, you’re not the only one”…
I guess there’s God in Junga somewhere, and I just got my wake-up call. Thanks kids.
Vineet Panchhi ow
ns and runs Audio Wagon, his lifelong passion and now a music company. He blogs at Unplanned Journeys , and can be reached at: vineet.panchhi@audiowagon.com
ns and runs Audio Wagon, his lifelong passion and now a music company. He blogs at Unplanned Journeys , and can be reached at: vineet.panchhi@audiowagon.com
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