3. Drifting, Rafting and Kayaking

November is chilling, even for a country located on the equator and experiences summer all the time. Maybe this trace of chill is too slight to be felt indoors, but it would be another story if camping outside. That was what happened on the second day of the Student Leadership Camp.

Usually during the holidays, my “next day” starts at 9 o’clock. But this time I woke up 3 hours earlier. Or more. I was waken by the freezing rain at around four o’clock. But due to the weariness, I wrapped my windbreaker tightly around myself and went back to my sleep again, until six o’clock, when my noise handphone played the noisiest songs of the century. I purposefully picked them so I could be aroused.

I got up reluctantly, trying to fight off the fatigue. I saw Mr Heng went back to the shelter with his jacket and an umbrella in his hand. Maybe he just finished his morning jog? Very likely. At any rate, as agreed, we station masters met Mr Loh and Sherman at the summerhouse near the beach. I zipped my windbreaker from the bottom to the collar, but the icy cold wind found its way in anyway. We were briefed shortly, after which we were dismissed for washing.

I had no appetite in the morning. A result of waking up too early. But I knew that I’ve got to have some food in my stomach anyway, so I stuffed in one piece of bread, without peanut butter or jam. Salty, sugary or greasy food in the early morning made me feel sick.

When everybody finished their breakfast, there was a general briefing at the beach for the participants. They then proceeded to a hall near the boathouse of Changi Beach Park, where they were instructed by life guards or instructors or someone in between or someone doubled the two roles, about basic techniques of making a raft. It was mainly about how to tie a strong knot. The station maters were sian-ing (Shall I put a double “n”?) at the side. I was just eager to be in the sea and kayak. Enjoy the moment when the kayak was carried up and down by the tides. It had been a year since the last time I kayaked during OBM. But this time I was going to try out the single kayak. Shih Ying, who was in charge of the same station with me, had asked me about which type of kayak I was comfortable with, but I have no idea because I guess it was no difference for me. So he went to discuss with the chief life guard, who dismissed the idea of each of us three having a single kayak. The final decision was that I was going to kayak solo, whereas Shih Ying and Nadia took the double seat kayak. It was a good idea as I was no veteran of kayaking, so using single kayak with no necessity of two people’s co-operation would be easier.

Thus, Chong Keng a.k.a. CK, Wei Hao, Shih Ying, Mat, Paul started putting on the life jacket, followed by fetching paddles and kayaks. We had trolleys here for transporting the kayaks. During OBS and OBM we had got to carry the kayaks all the way from the beach to the boathouse. On the way to the beach, Wei Hao and I was trying to figure out what creative things we could say after saying “wa ka lah kong”, because the sentence was supposed to continue after saying that. It was first used by Theen Yew for fun during Student Leadership Congress, and now it seemed to have evolved into some sort of weird greeting for me and the ex-potential Delta House Captain.

It took another hour for the participants to carry their rafts to the beach. In the mean time I was staring at a wild cat at the beach. The cat was bored and was really tired of my stare. It walked away with a turnaround. But even so, it was still meandering at the beach area. It kept either licking its furs in front of its breast, or scratching its tummy with one of its legs. And I was bored of it. Shih Ying went forward and stroked the cat, which rather enjoyed it. I wonder where her kitty was.

All right, so now it began. When the signal was given, all the station masters went into the sea. In the kayak. =D. I got a lot of sand on my kayak and my legs. Shih Ying remarked that it was sandy. Sendy was not here right? Okay, okay, it is lame. The rafts were coming, and we gave instructions to them: roadblock: leave one person or one oar? Actually I reckoned that leaving one person was the same as leaving one oar right? It just that the raft would be lighter. Anyway, we had got to keep kayaking back to the original position because we were drifting as the effect of the current. Zai You had warned us about it, but I did not realise that it could be so powerful! Especially when we had to kayak against the current. Shih Ying gave me suggestions of using the technique of stern rudder so I could quickly resume paddling forward without being slowed down too much. If I used back paddling it would be another story. But at that time I did not quite get the hang of it, so I could only use back paddling tentatively. While we were heading back, the participants called us back, as they thought we were running away. LOL. Actually it was quite a struggle for them, as the rafts were slower than kayaks, and they had got to fight against the current as well. But sometimes the current could be used as well. For example, we I was talking with Guo Rong’s team, the raft was carried slowly to the shore, which was exactly what our station required them to do. Although they had to start again as they left neither a person nor an oar to me.

While we had to take care of staying inside the boundary, we had got to be careful of single-minded fishermen as well. There was one man, whose race was not to be mentioned as we must uphold the spirit of racial harmony, insisted to fish with one of our raft in front of him. You can guess the result right? When he hooked one of our participants, instead of saying “Are you okay”, he yelled, “This is my father’s fishhook!” Oh, so this kind of people was actually the heirs of their fathers’ legacy. But as the Jack Neo movie I Not Stupid Too had said, “I do not give fish to students, I want to teach them how to fish.” Sadly, this fisherman’s father forgot to teach him this important lesson, and I guess the title of the movie was wrong for this particular man’s case. It should be the direct opposite.

When our station was not patronized, I learnt stern rudder from Wei Hao, who demonstrated it. The sea trip was so fun!

We cleaned the kayaks went the activity was over. It was a burning noon. The sun was high. So we wetted each other using tap water while cleaning the boats. Mat and I went to the taps next to the kayak cleaning spot and showered by the icy water while we were fully dressed. Shiok!

To be continued: 4. Titanic Five – Tug of War

The second event was Student Leadership Camp.

The story started in the evening, when a few of our Alpha HC people, Mat, Theen Yew, Crystal, Teresa, Tiong Wei and me were sitting around a table in the hawker centre opposite the College. Most of us ordered shrimp noodles. Everyone was exhilarated about the upcoming Camp.

Back to school, in the Sports Complex, Mr Loh asked all of us to collect booklets and T-shirts. The design was done by Clarence, in the library to be specific. But that would be another story. Later, we organizers, which mainly consists of SC, HC, SportsXcel and OAC people were grouped together and shared our five strengths, while over hundred participants were having their ice breakers. After the sharing session, we were free, and it was now the participants’ turn to be explained about their strengths. Ms Kwan, Ms Norsheha, Mr Heng, Mr Loh, Mr Lim, Mrs Ang and Ms Chong were there. In the meantime, many of the HC people went to CR 106 to store their belongings that were not needed for night orienteering and the next day’s rafting and team bonding session.

I did not leave anything in CR 106, since I deemed that after team bonding tomorrow the Camp would be more or less done. However, I went there with Mat and Krystal anyway, just for the fun of it. When we headed back to the Sports Complex, I was still with my two bags. One was an exceptionally large travelling backpack which was bought for OBS in 2006, and one was my old school bag. And I still had two additional shoe bags (Orientation 2008) hanging from both sides of my backpack, which made Mr Loh joked: “Ni zai gan shen mo? Yao hui zhong guo ah?” (What are you doing? Are you preparing to go back China?)

Mr Loh was one of the busiest persons during the Camp. He had to transport a lot of equipments, materials as well as, humans between the Campsite at Changi Beach and the College with a rented lorry. A handful of the organizers such as Theen Yew, Mat, Eunice, Dinesh and I were not in the first batch that were to be loaned onto Mr Loh’s lorry, since our Stations were not the immediate ones. After Mat, Dinesh and I bought canned drinks from the vending machine, the rest of us organizers were transported by two other teachers who drove.

After getting lost at the Air Base area, Mrs Ang managed to drive us to the Campsite, where a big shelter had been set up and groundsheets had been spread out. It was around ten at night then.

We lay under the shelter for a while, and chitchatted a bit. I realised that I was surrounded my many SC people, not my usual acquaintances. But that could be the start of HC blending with SC. Cheryl was glad about that when the Camp ended. Oh, sidetracked – many of them then went to wash.

Dinesh had been off for 7-11 for a while when Mr Loh appeared and asked about him. Now Mr Loh left his packed dinner on the ground and gathered all the organizers at the Campsides (the rest had been left at respective Stations). Okay, the adventure had started at this point.

A lorry was driving on the slightly deserted main road. The wind produced by the fast travelling lorry was cooling, and it was so strong that our hair was blew backwards. And then we went abreast with another lorry which was full of dark foreign workers. We looked more or less the same. Shall we wave at them?

No more jokes, because here came one of the most haunted place in Singapore. The lorry left the main road and dashed into a dark uphill path. The path was not lit by any streetlamps. Only dark woods. Dark bushes. (Oh, no, dark bushes does not mean Obama and Bush!) Anyway, it was really tranquil in that area. And a bit bone-chilling and blood-curdling. The buildings were white. And it could be seen clearly in this particular night without moon. Yes, white buildings. Dark windows. Like hopeless eyes of nothingness. Of unknowns. A haunted place. Old Changi Hospital. It was not known why the Hospital has moved. But we were here anyway.

The lorry came to a halt at the dead end. The outline of a gate was visible in the darkness, as well as the silhouette of the morgue. Another car was already there. We jumped off the lorry and met Ms Ang, Mr Heng and other teachers. It was drizzling. Not that cold, but the icy silky tiny raindrops irritated me. We were all equipped with umbrellas and Mr Heng made sure we had teacher in-charges’ contact numbers. We reassured them not to worry. And the next minute they were gone. The car and the lorry disappeared from our sights. The red lights mixed with the darkness.

We were alone.

Mat, Dinesh, Theen Yew and me.

Just four of us.

The morgue.

I suggested to sit back to back so we could watch for each other’s backs. Having backs to unknowns gave us a sense of insecurity. We did not lean our backs to another wall of wire-net either simply because the thin wires could not be trusted.

So we sat in the open, a bit further away from the wired wall, and much further away from the morgue. We did not go anywhere near it at all. Beneath us was the tar road. Well, it was so not challenging. But that was what we did then. We sit under four umbrellas. Dinesh switched on his torchlight and shared his chocolate with us. So we crouched underneath the umbrellas and ate in a pool of orange light. Such a cozy night huh?

Now I will skip the details of the game and focus on the progress of the night instead.

Before the first group came, we heard people talking from the direction of the morgue.

At first, I thought there was another path there. But it seemed to be impossible. They were waving torchlights and laughing loudly. As they went out of the morgue and met us, I sensed very strong cigarette smell. This was a group of teenagers who were naughty enough to play games in the morgue in the middle of the night. Maybe they were more than teenagers. Some of them seemed to be drunk. One boy came forward and sat with Theen Yew. He looked rather sheepish, and was obviously asking for Theen Yew’s name. Theen Yew identified himself as “Michael”. Another guy approached Dinesh and claimed that we were daredevils. Wow, he was apparently drunk. But they soon took their leave and disappeared.

This is only the first wave. Second wave soon came. A black car rolled in. Its front light lit the bushes before we had a view of the car. It went passed us for a few metres and halted. The driver winded down the window.

“What (are) you guys doing here uh?” He enquired.

Theen Yew explained to him. He did not reply. “Are you patrolling?” Asked Theen Yew.

“No, I’m just driving pass.” Said the driver. Bah, you drove into the dead end of an old hospital premises? I think not. But the driver started the engine again and reversed. The second wave ended.

The third wave was before we started another round of game. One car and two motorcycles were parked in front of us. Three people went into the morgue. Well, people had had so much fun in that place. A belated Hallowe’en party? Anyway, when they came back, we were forced to call a stop for our game in order to make way for the vehicles.

We went back with the last group of participants. Washed, I lay in one corner of the groundsheet and drifted into sleep on the hard ground.

To be continued: Drifting, Rafting and Kayaking