World Vision Famine Camp 2008
This has taken a longer time than expected. Although it's 1 week after the camp, I still have the smooth sequence of events that processed starting on Jun 14 at 8:30am.
Buzz buzz, the morning wake up call received from slave driver and she said, "Don't go back to sleep ah." I gruffed out a response and fell straight back to sleep! Oops, late but wasn't that bad anyway. I was at the concert hall for the first 2.5 hours playing the GOH, principle, guest speaker, as we did a mock up of the flow of events, such as who stands where, who walks them up, blah blah blah. Hee, and I dictated the opening speech where I rambled on for 7 minutes flat, resulting with an extremely dry throat in the end.
Finally ran over to register, collect shirts, dump bag, change, ate lunch, and now, I was all ready for the famine as I posted myself at the entrance to open the doors for the entry of the guest of honour. It was quite funny, the whole globe, roulette spin, Singapore light up board, process. But then, soon, the opening hour had struck at 2pm and I moved to positioned myself at the station where I greeted my helpers and gave them a quick final brief before the simulation activities began at 2:30pm.
My station is the Marketplace: Healthcare and the objective was to gain a hospital for their tribe as they ascend the civilisation ladder. The levels were latrine, doctors, and finally, a hospital. Once the tribe gains a hospital, their members do not need to report to the hospital every 10 minutes for a health status check. Interesting right? And the activity they had to perform in order to upgrade was to first carry tribe members to safety from point A to point B using the fireman lift for men and piggyback for women. Subsequently, they would then attempt to an arm bandage and then a handwrap to equip them with the necessary skills to treat their own tribe members. Most of the tribes began without a latrine and had to do the physical task of transporting members. The briefing was given and I would demonstrate the correct position of piggyback to the ladies. Because I was the only female, most of the tribes who had an odd number of ladies would eventually have to transport me. My stomach, ribs, and sides hurt after the first round as many of them did not do it properly and had their elbows sticking into me as they made a dash and hurtled across the route. I was almost terrified to have them carry me. Gee.
Normally, I am very strict and rigid when it comes to safety precaution. However, the boys were matured and handled their station well, which was why I didn't monitor them very much. Because of that, an accident almost happened. The dangerous part about doing a fireman lift is that you can either break the arm or hurt the back and neck. For piggyback, there was this ludicrous pair of girls who wanted to hurl her partner up by the arm. If I hadn't stopped them, I might have been sending a 2-arm-detached girl to hospital. Do they think their joints are made of diecast metal?! Anyway, one of the campers made a dash across the route and almost dropped his partner. Totally mad, I stopped the tribe from proceeding and reprimanded them including the facilitator who was egging them on despite the safety flout. Frankly, I will not bat an eyelid to stop everything and downgrade the team or even scold and humiliate a person who does not heed safety rules. His friend's life was in his hand. If he had dropped him, who knows what might have happened. The boys apologised after that because they were the ones who allowed the team to go through even though they did not get the technique right. Although I was pretty upset with them, what's done was done and they knew I meant business when I told off the entire tribe. So leaving it at that, I smiled and shrugged my shoulders telling them that it's ok if a team can only walk 10 paces. What matters is that they do not endanger anyone at all. Think they got my message though it was nearing the end of the simulation activity.
A loud sound was heard as Intervention took over. Intervention is one of the key events in the simulation activity as all campers would now return to the concert hall for a formal learning event as an introduction to round 2 of the simulation activity. Each Intervention cycle also resulted in a drop in their civilisation, such as a cyclone hit and health levels have been setback by 1, or there is a HIV/AIDS pandemic and the youngest person in each tribe is now infected with the virus. This aided the visualisation of the issue as it now impacted them directly and was no longer as far as most people think. I attended the 2nd Intervention and was amazed at the rate of the HIV/AIDS infections. It brought to mind the words of some of the people I know, "Where got so suay one?" and "Don't be so paranoid la." I think they don't really understand the severity of this problem. The virus has no eyes, it doesn't decide who to attack. The fact is, we are all susceptible and by having sex with someone whom they do not know the sex history of, increases their risk of contracting the deadly virus. We seem to think the problem is out there, far away. What we don't realise is that it's growing at an incredible and alarming rate, and if we don't do something about it soon, we will become like those countries out there where the situation is more apparent. Actually, we bring the problem in ourselves when we go overseas and have sex with minors, which is pretty common, and then return to our families thinking that nothing went wrong. The statistic is scary and what's worse is that when you contract HIV/AIDS, you become a liability to your family and the burden is no longer yours alone. I just hope those who think of this so lightly will have more to consider when they are faced with compromising situations.
This went on until about 7pm where the campers went to the sports hall for their "dinner" consisting of mainly sugared drinks to fuel their body. I got my station masters to pack up and did a quick debrief before I released them. Those who were staying on to help left with me for the sports hall and the rest left. At 8pm was the sharing session with a real HIV/AIDS victim. The girl, aged 20, is from Cambodia and she took a brave step to share her personal ordeal, recounting the painful events, and then moving forward to advocate the reality and severity of the situation. Thereafter followed a Q&A session where anybody could ask her any question. I have to admit, our youth today are no longer sensitive to others and merely wanna satisfy their curiousity with stupid questions that have no link at all to the key issue at hand. As the girl spoke, she started to tremble and cry. I was fuming, why is she having to live the tragic ordeal whilst we sit in this comfortable, air-conditioned auditorium asking her such gut wrenching questions without so much as a simple word of comfort, sympathy, encouragement, or affirmation? They floor was left with 1 question and as it was over, the World Vision staff wrapped her arm around the girl and gave her a hug. By now, I could no longer contain it and I ran down asking for the mic as I gave my own words of encouragement and gave a piece of my mind to the students. As I looked into her teary eyes and spoke to her in a language she did not even understand, I was overwhelmed by a surge of sadness as I couldn't understand how humans could be capable of such atrocities, and I heard my voice shake over the speaker. It was a great load of my mind as I finally said my piece and marched back to my seat. She truly deserved much more than such a painful lashing from us.
After that, we went outside for a light memorial as each camper collected a tea light and had it lit under the open dark sky. A heart shape was formed with the flames and we observed a moment's silence for the victims of HIV/AIDS and another minute's silence for the victims of the recent twin disasters. I had a personal moment to render my encouragement for the Cambodian girl with the translator giving her my message, followed by a warm hug, and appreciation. By then, the day was wrapped up and we trooped back to the sports hall. We drove out to shower and came back to sleep on the hard floor.
That night was another painful one for me as I could feel my bones grinding on the hard ground, bruising with my own weight on it. Moving was also painful and I could find no comfortable position. It didn't help that I was shivering in my sleeping bag even though I had on my jacket. My sleep was uneventful until the mat was released and I caught 30 minutes of total snooze. Day 2 thus began in a rush to wash up and with a hot series of exercises as we laughed and jumped to a rhythm.
When the campers left for the newspaper collection, many of us who were rehearsing for the closing ceremony took some time off to catch some sleep. Some boys were raising funds thru selling an interesting shirt with the words, "I survived the 30 hour famine!" splashed across the front. Many of us supported their cause and contributed to their sales. It was now time for the rehearsal of the closing ceremony. Due to the ruckus raised by the failure of the globe spin, we went through that with more precision to everyone's satisfaction.
As I sat there watching the performers arriving, I shivered yet again under my jacket and soon the words came out. "It's too cold inside, but it's too hot outside." That was so true! I shivered in the auditorium and perspired outside so I kept walking in and out to regulate my temperature without suffering. It was a treat to be able to watch the performers rehearse. Incredible hip hop with, I highly suspect, a pair of twins, Jack & Ray from EIC and By Definition. Minutes ticked by and the campers were back from the newspaper collection and had finished packing and their area cleaning. We had to keep chasing campers away from the concert hall as they kept streaming in to the air-con.
The concert was about to begin and we changed into the survival shirt as we stood backstage. Yea, more general slave work. Hah. It was now the countdown of the last hour of the 30 hour famine. The other lady backstage with me was very funny. She kept saying must be very glam when we walk out on stage. Haha, so we strutted out in style across the stage to place the mic stands. At about half way through the concert, I noticed smoke coming out of a room and thought that the guys were going wild with dry ice. Without any alarm, I walked over and suddenly someone told me, (I think it's Jack), there's a fire. Springing into action, I went over to inform the World Vision staff of the fire. They were calling the school teacher in charge of the event. Thankfully, the fire had been extinguished by 2 brave heroes, Jack & Ray. All in all, it was controlled and didn't do much damage except leaving a lot of dust on their guitars. With a couple of minutes to go, we glided out across the stage yet again to remove the mic stands as the honoured guests came up on stage to mark the close of the famine camp. Counting down to the last second, they spun the globe, roulette sound, world map lights up, and confetti popping out in a bang. Woo hoo! I have survived YET ANOTHER 30 hour famine! Hehe. And yes, actually I am more tired than I am hungry.
We packed all the stuff, thanked all the performers and headed to the canteen for dinner. Most of the campers had already eaten and gone home. After that, I helped lug whatever was left back to the World Vision office and went home to sleep immediately. There you have, yet another 30 hour famine camp.
Buzz buzz, the morning wake up call received from slave driver and she said, "Don't go back to sleep ah." I gruffed out a response and fell straight back to sleep! Oops, late but wasn't that bad anyway. I was at the concert hall for the first 2.5 hours playing the GOH, principle, guest speaker, as we did a mock up of the flow of events, such as who stands where, who walks them up, blah blah blah. Hee, and I dictated the opening speech where I rambled on for 7 minutes flat, resulting with an extremely dry throat in the end.
Finally ran over to register, collect shirts, dump bag, change, ate lunch, and now, I was all ready for the famine as I posted myself at the entrance to open the doors for the entry of the guest of honour. It was quite funny, the whole globe, roulette spin, Singapore light up board, process. But then, soon, the opening hour had struck at 2pm and I moved to positioned myself at the station where I greeted my helpers and gave them a quick final brief before the simulation activities began at 2:30pm.
My station is the Marketplace: Healthcare and the objective was to gain a hospital for their tribe as they ascend the civilisation ladder. The levels were latrine, doctors, and finally, a hospital. Once the tribe gains a hospital, their members do not need to report to the hospital every 10 minutes for a health status check. Interesting right? And the activity they had to perform in order to upgrade was to first carry tribe members to safety from point A to point B using the fireman lift for men and piggyback for women. Subsequently, they would then attempt to an arm bandage and then a handwrap to equip them with the necessary skills to treat their own tribe members. Most of the tribes began without a latrine and had to do the physical task of transporting members. The briefing was given and I would demonstrate the correct position of piggyback to the ladies. Because I was the only female, most of the tribes who had an odd number of ladies would eventually have to transport me. My stomach, ribs, and sides hurt after the first round as many of them did not do it properly and had their elbows sticking into me as they made a dash and hurtled across the route. I was almost terrified to have them carry me. Gee.
Normally, I am very strict and rigid when it comes to safety precaution. However, the boys were matured and handled their station well, which was why I didn't monitor them very much. Because of that, an accident almost happened. The dangerous part about doing a fireman lift is that you can either break the arm or hurt the back and neck. For piggyback, there was this ludicrous pair of girls who wanted to hurl her partner up by the arm. If I hadn't stopped them, I might have been sending a 2-arm-detached girl to hospital. Do they think their joints are made of diecast metal?! Anyway, one of the campers made a dash across the route and almost dropped his partner. Totally mad, I stopped the tribe from proceeding and reprimanded them including the facilitator who was egging them on despite the safety flout. Frankly, I will not bat an eyelid to stop everything and downgrade the team or even scold and humiliate a person who does not heed safety rules. His friend's life was in his hand. If he had dropped him, who knows what might have happened. The boys apologised after that because they were the ones who allowed the team to go through even though they did not get the technique right. Although I was pretty upset with them, what's done was done and they knew I meant business when I told off the entire tribe. So leaving it at that, I smiled and shrugged my shoulders telling them that it's ok if a team can only walk 10 paces. What matters is that they do not endanger anyone at all. Think they got my message though it was nearing the end of the simulation activity.
A loud sound was heard as Intervention took over. Intervention is one of the key events in the simulation activity as all campers would now return to the concert hall for a formal learning event as an introduction to round 2 of the simulation activity. Each Intervention cycle also resulted in a drop in their civilisation, such as a cyclone hit and health levels have been setback by 1, or there is a HIV/AIDS pandemic and the youngest person in each tribe is now infected with the virus. This aided the visualisation of the issue as it now impacted them directly and was no longer as far as most people think. I attended the 2nd Intervention and was amazed at the rate of the HIV/AIDS infections. It brought to mind the words of some of the people I know, "Where got so suay one?" and "Don't be so paranoid la." I think they don't really understand the severity of this problem. The virus has no eyes, it doesn't decide who to attack. The fact is, we are all susceptible and by having sex with someone whom they do not know the sex history of, increases their risk of contracting the deadly virus. We seem to think the problem is out there, far away. What we don't realise is that it's growing at an incredible and alarming rate, and if we don't do something about it soon, we will become like those countries out there where the situation is more apparent. Actually, we bring the problem in ourselves when we go overseas and have sex with minors, which is pretty common, and then return to our families thinking that nothing went wrong. The statistic is scary and what's worse is that when you contract HIV/AIDS, you become a liability to your family and the burden is no longer yours alone. I just hope those who think of this so lightly will have more to consider when they are faced with compromising situations.
This went on until about 7pm where the campers went to the sports hall for their "dinner" consisting of mainly sugared drinks to fuel their body. I got my station masters to pack up and did a quick debrief before I released them. Those who were staying on to help left with me for the sports hall and the rest left. At 8pm was the sharing session with a real HIV/AIDS victim. The girl, aged 20, is from Cambodia and she took a brave step to share her personal ordeal, recounting the painful events, and then moving forward to advocate the reality and severity of the situation. Thereafter followed a Q&A session where anybody could ask her any question. I have to admit, our youth today are no longer sensitive to others and merely wanna satisfy their curiousity with stupid questions that have no link at all to the key issue at hand. As the girl spoke, she started to tremble and cry. I was fuming, why is she having to live the tragic ordeal whilst we sit in this comfortable, air-conditioned auditorium asking her such gut wrenching questions without so much as a simple word of comfort, sympathy, encouragement, or affirmation? They floor was left with 1 question and as it was over, the World Vision staff wrapped her arm around the girl and gave her a hug. By now, I could no longer contain it and I ran down asking for the mic as I gave my own words of encouragement and gave a piece of my mind to the students. As I looked into her teary eyes and spoke to her in a language she did not even understand, I was overwhelmed by a surge of sadness as I couldn't understand how humans could be capable of such atrocities, and I heard my voice shake over the speaker. It was a great load of my mind as I finally said my piece and marched back to my seat. She truly deserved much more than such a painful lashing from us.
After that, we went outside for a light memorial as each camper collected a tea light and had it lit under the open dark sky. A heart shape was formed with the flames and we observed a moment's silence for the victims of HIV/AIDS and another minute's silence for the victims of the recent twin disasters. I had a personal moment to render my encouragement for the Cambodian girl with the translator giving her my message, followed by a warm hug, and appreciation. By then, the day was wrapped up and we trooped back to the sports hall. We drove out to shower and came back to sleep on the hard floor.
That night was another painful one for me as I could feel my bones grinding on the hard ground, bruising with my own weight on it. Moving was also painful and I could find no comfortable position. It didn't help that I was shivering in my sleeping bag even though I had on my jacket. My sleep was uneventful until the mat was released and I caught 30 minutes of total snooze. Day 2 thus began in a rush to wash up and with a hot series of exercises as we laughed and jumped to a rhythm.
When the campers left for the newspaper collection, many of us who were rehearsing for the closing ceremony took some time off to catch some sleep. Some boys were raising funds thru selling an interesting shirt with the words, "I survived the 30 hour famine!" splashed across the front. Many of us supported their cause and contributed to their sales. It was now time for the rehearsal of the closing ceremony. Due to the ruckus raised by the failure of the globe spin, we went through that with more precision to everyone's satisfaction.
As I sat there watching the performers arriving, I shivered yet again under my jacket and soon the words came out. "It's too cold inside, but it's too hot outside." That was so true! I shivered in the auditorium and perspired outside so I kept walking in and out to regulate my temperature without suffering. It was a treat to be able to watch the performers rehearse. Incredible hip hop with, I highly suspect, a pair of twins, Jack & Ray from EIC and By Definition. Minutes ticked by and the campers were back from the newspaper collection and had finished packing and their area cleaning. We had to keep chasing campers away from the concert hall as they kept streaming in to the air-con.
The concert was about to begin and we changed into the survival shirt as we stood backstage. Yea, more general slave work. Hah. It was now the countdown of the last hour of the 30 hour famine. The other lady backstage with me was very funny. She kept saying must be very glam when we walk out on stage. Haha, so we strutted out in style across the stage to place the mic stands. At about half way through the concert, I noticed smoke coming out of a room and thought that the guys were going wild with dry ice. Without any alarm, I walked over and suddenly someone told me, (I think it's Jack), there's a fire. Springing into action, I went over to inform the World Vision staff of the fire. They were calling the school teacher in charge of the event. Thankfully, the fire had been extinguished by 2 brave heroes, Jack & Ray. All in all, it was controlled and didn't do much damage except leaving a lot of dust on their guitars. With a couple of minutes to go, we glided out across the stage yet again to remove the mic stands as the honoured guests came up on stage to mark the close of the famine camp. Counting down to the last second, they spun the globe, roulette sound, world map lights up, and confetti popping out in a bang. Woo hoo! I have survived YET ANOTHER 30 hour famine! Hehe. And yes, actually I am more tired than I am hungry.
We packed all the stuff, thanked all the performers and headed to the canteen for dinner. Most of the campers had already eaten and gone home. After that, I helped lug whatever was left back to the World Vision office and went home to sleep immediately. There you have, yet another 30 hour famine camp.