Depending on your literary standing and general interest in that sort of thing, you may or may not have noticed that my posts have once again taken on the annoying voice of past tense/ story mode, which must annoy some of you.
Besides the fact that I’ve been having far too much fun in the bush to think about blogging in the present, it’s not like I’ve been overwhelmed with access to the resources to make it a possibility; the closest thing to technology I was exposed to for the whole of May was a walkie-talkie, FYI only to be used in emergencies and not for ‘chit chat’ (as I found out too late through a direct message from the Lapalala game rangers after a lengthy conversation speculating the origin of a peculiar species of grass snake).
I know I’m a bad, bad blogger. Please forgive me!
But I digress.
After our excursion into the Lapalala wilderness our next stop was Potchefstroom, where all Outward Bounders were headed to answer summons to an impromptu week of staff training. Which wasn’t exactly a hardship – Outward Bound SA is a pretty tight-knit group of misfits and life’s generally a party when we’re all in one place.
Training involved things like emergency search and rescue scenarios (constructing stretchers out of sticks and sleeping bags and testing them – as the lightest group member I had the pleasure of being stretcher guinea pig), experimenting with new group dynamic exercises (playing ‘zap’ and doing animal impersonations) and discussing certain policies where ‘grey areas’ have arisen over the past few months (a toilet-digging workshop, complete with exhibitions of different squatting techniques).
We also had a visit from the director of the President’s Award for South Africa (alias Duke of Edinburgh Award) for a talk about what is expected of Outward Bound when we run courses in conjunction with their programme, and to define what ‘adventure’ means (which is a lot more complex than you’d think!).
On the last day of training we performed an old Outward Bound tradition – a closing circle for an instructor who’s leaving the family. We each got to say goodbye to Bizo in our own way and share what we’ll remember about him when he’s gone. For my part, Bizo, as you now know I’ll always remember you for your legendary fear of the Sedgefield bush pig that outstrips any of the rest of our inhibitions by a clear mile! Things got emotional, as is usual when an Outward Bounder leaves the fold; you get so used to gravitating around one another that anyone’s absence is keenly felt straightaway. But Bizo’s got an awesome time ahead of him so although he’ll be missed, naturally we all wish him luck (not that he’ll need it with his flair for photography).
It was a really fun few days and it was awesome catching up with faces that I’d not seen for a while. And of course when training was over there was the obligatory Outward Bound, erm, for want of a better word, pyjama party = drinking and dancing in our dorm until the early hours before collectively collapsing in a drunken mess onto a mini-kingdom of mattresses and sleeping bags in the middle of the floor. One of the best things about the people I work with is that when work is over and the sun goes down, dancing like a mad fool is part of our religion.
One of the many reasons why I love being an Outward Bounder.
It's All Fun + Games Until You Move To South Africa - Lauren Devine 2012-2013. 