I'm back!

So I'm back. After five days and four nights of sleeping in tents, hiking around the place, kayaking around, and generally going back to basics. Whew. It's definitely been tiring, but its been very fruitful as well. Made many new friends, and forged strong bonds together with the people in 3C. Certainly very memorable.

Out of all the many things that I learnt, I somehow managed to feel God's presence with me at some points of time during the camp. Like I'm humming/singing forevermore, and I feel His touch! =) Very nice! God gave me the strength and presence to complete all the activities. =) Thank God. Also prevented any sinus inflammation from happening, and my eczema isn't that bad. And during the kayaking and hiking, singing worship songs, either in my head, or with Chia, and praying helped me overcome my pain and stuff. Oh well. Thank God for safely bringing me through. Not to forget my watch mates and other people who helped me. And of course the instructors. Invaluable guidance and support. Sounds cliched but its the truth.

Okay. I must start at the beginning. Actually the first few days weren't quite exciting or meaningful. Started on the third day. Where we hiked for another campsite in the wilderness. No shelter, no electricity, no fresh water. We had to bring jerricans. Heavy! But during such circumstances, we get to bond with each other. And of course, push our limits. So we got to the campsite, pitched our tents in the dark, cooked in the dark, did our business in the dark, got briefed by our instructors in the dark and settled in. Now, the tents were wet, sandy, and muddy. So we covered up the tent with ponchos, which were LESS sandy and wet. But still quite. So it was kinda uncomfortable. But as we were tired, most of us managed to rest.

Then, next up, sentry duty! Eeks. Me and my tent-mates were slated for the 1am to 1:30am slot. So, we were woken up by the previous people on duty and we started walking around, shining our torches here and there, so on and so forth. Then, at the borders of the camp, we started to hear a strange howling. We cocked our ears and listened. Still, we couldn't quite figure out what it was. Then, someone from the other tents couldn't sleep and decided to join us. He told us that it sounded similar to some howling that he'd heard dogs do. And so of course, as it was kinda far away, we were relieved. Suddenly, the sound became a little louder. And now, we could hear faintly but distinctively the sound of metal against metal. Drums. Now we were scared. Was there some native tribe that was waiting to attack us? Probably not. But unknown is always dangerous. And it kept us on our nerves. Soon, the sounds got louder. By now, we knew it was music. It was very eerie and it had flutes, drums and sounded rather tribal. Now we were getting worried. However, there was something else more immediate to attend to, and I'll tell you about it in the next blog post. Getting a bit too long, this blog post is!

Haha. =)