In the October of 2017, our school took classes 8th and
9th to Ramgarh for 3 nights and 4 days as part of our SUPW project.
I can always talk about the obvious traits of a camping
trip to a hill station - how beautiful the scenery there was, how cold it was,
how the people of the camp truly cared for us and took good care of us, how the
adventure activities were honestly designed perfectly to overcome our own
fears/anxieties and that it was overall a truly great, fun and learning
experience...instead I actually want to address a couple of quite overlooked
and serious issues of outstation school trips here WHILE obviously, talking
about the positive and fun things as well!
First of all, we all paid money to go to such a
breathtakingly wonderful, pollution free place to experience nature, take part
in all the amazing adventure activities, to overcome our fears and to also
enjoy ourselves in the process. But what happened was that children were
totally absorbed in their own talks and were more concerned with cracking jokes
and discussing their own problems instead of paying attention to the scenery
around them as we were trekking.
Yes, we cannot be one hundred per cent absorbed in the
wonders of Mother Nature the whole time - but these children were not even
paying one per cent of their attention to the birds, trees and fresh, clean air
surrounding them. All they cared about was who had eaten the last piece of
chocolate the night before.
The people in the camp woke us up in the morning at
around 5:30 am to exercise. It was honestly refreshing to work out early in the
morning. The girls were made to run, what, like 3 times around a circular ground
which was about the size of an average classroom and do a few stretching exercises.
The boys, on the other hand, had to go for a three kilometer trek every morning
and do more stretching exercises.
In the evening, during snack time, the boys often complained
that the girls had it easy and weren't overworked like them, while they had to
go every morning for a three kilometer trek and also go for the general 5
kilometer trek every day. Upon hearing this, a few girls asked the camp people
if they could go for a three kilometer trek just like the boys the next time.
They agreed, and the next morning the girls were all set to do the same workout
as the boys, but when they were done with the trek, they realised it wasn't
even two kilometers that they'd made them do. They had deliberately cut the
girls' trek short and made the boys do the exercises the girls did, only they
had to run around the small, average classroom sized field 15 times without
stopping and do the same stretching exercises ten times more than the girls
did.
Okay now time for something positive.
To earn our SUPW grades, all of us were divided in groups
and each group had to go to a couple of houses in the village of Ramgarh and
interact with the inhabitants of the houses about their livelihood in Ramgarh.
Our group stopped at a beautiful house and talked, sang, joked with and learnt
more about the life of the beautiful young woman and her husband who lived
there. The people were really kind and genuine, and they were not at all
reluctant to interact with us.
We learned about the kind of music the Pahadi people
listen to, the food they kept and did not keep as ration in the six harsh
months of winter when it was not advised to step out of the house, the clothes
they wore in the cold months, how they made snowmen when it snowed and how they
enjoyed eating Maggi to keep themselves warm!
The scenery around us was, honestly, indescribable. The
vegetation, the clear blue skies, fluffy white clouds, fresh air and trees made
us ask the school to allow us cameras on trips!!! Almost all the houses we
stopped at had pet dogs. We weren't allowed to touch them, but they were such
well-behaved precious fluffy creatures. Then there were the kind of mushrooms
growing randomly in places we read about in fantasy books as little children.
If only they hadn't been poisonous!
The adventure activities were amazing. You really did get
a sense of accomplishment after you completed them. They were created specially
to overcome our fears.
But by far the two best things about the trip were the
bonfires and the trek. We had a bonfire all the three evenings we were there,
and we had a hilarious skit competition on the second evening. We went on a
long, tiring but wonderful trek all the four days. We really enjoyed the exercise,
and a few of us also lost our footing and almost fell off the trek route, but
all of it - the tiredness, the dehydration, the bodyaches, the falling, was worth
it in the end.
To conclude I would say that all trips have their ups and
downs - we actually had a few major fights, gossips and adventures amongst
ourselves in this trip - and I think that’s what makes trips memorable. Not
just the sweet memories, but the rough times contribute a lot in really making
a trip worthwhile. So yes, I do look forward to another year of silly fights,
hilarious skits, nice bonfires and the tiring, but worthwhile treks. ☺
