1) Write an account of an event or events from your activity week. Consider how you choose to portray involved parties, and try to find an objective truth, rather than your subjective opinions.
Activity week was somewhat less than inspiring for me. Liek a few other grade 11's, I was signed up to go on the advanced trek of 7 days to Braadsar lake. As Kalkidan and I had a fantastic experience of trekking over quarter break, we were awaiting activity week rather over-eagerly. By mid october, I was making statistics in my head about snow probability, student/teacher ratios, boy/girl ratios, number of porters per hiker... I was rather preoccupied, to say the least.
We left at 6:45 am on the 21st of october, loaded with our packs and positive energy. The bus ride to our first camp took us 8 hours through the hills and valleys of the mountains, resulting in more than one person getting carsick. I started feeling a little unwell myself after hour 6, but thought little of it.
Arriving at our beautiful first campsite, I was still feeling unwell, and my health deteriorated though the evening. By evening I was unable to holld down even a bit of chapatti and rice. I spent a night of fitful sleep with my stomach roiling in pain and discomfort.
The next day wasn't much of an improvement. I felt too weak to stand, let alone walk with a 15 kg pack up the side of a mountain. I forced down a little bit of breakfast and our porters came and took my bag over to the mules. It was more than a little embarassing to be the slowest member of the group and not even carrying anything!
By lunchtime, I was crawling on all fours up the hill about 1/2 hour behind my compatriots. Staying by my side were Ms Fiddler and tentmate Asma, encouraging me to press on and keep climbing. However, as I continued to feel bad and much worse by tunrs, it became apparent that continuing upwards wasn't soemthing to consider for much longer.
At about noon, one day after setting out from Woodstock, Mr Latimer and Mr Hepworth approached me and gently reccomended that I return to Woodstock, to rest and recover rather than risk complications in my illness due to altitude. Reluctantly, I agreed to go back down with our guide Titu, the only member of staff that spoke hindi.
Had I known what else this would entail, I doubt I would have agreed to it so easily. As one of the female persuasion, I required a fellow female to come with me back down the mountain and to Mussoorie. The selfless and praiseworthy Kalkidan volunteered for this position, despite her eagerness to go on the trek and her prisitine health.
Titu, Kalkidan and I returned down the mountain, ever slowly and painfully. We had to return to our campsite of the night before, where we were picked up by a hitch-hiking jeep already full of people. You can imagine that in my nauseated state, I was somewhat less than wild about the idea of cramming into the back of a rickety jeep with our packs and four other indian men. Nothing overly horrendous happened, and I discovered that even on the bumpy road that made up most of our route, sitting was infinately prefferable to walking.
8 hours and 1 jeep transfer later, we pulled in outside the health center, where Kalkidan and I promptly entered and fell fast asleep, on soft beds with fluffy pillows and warm comforters.
There, I spent my activity week, unable to get anything from dorms and feeling perfectly healthy 24 hours after going on antibiotics.
Many thanks to Mrs. Wunker for bringing me a kindle e-reader to while away the hours, and thanks to Mr Pesavento for letting me pitch in for stage set-up in Parker Hall thursday and friday.
One more person to thank, and that's Mrs Kaplan for taking in Kalkidan and helping her have a fun acitivity week, not having to stay in health center and going on all the junior school's expeditions.
Although I did not have a "good" activity week in the normal sense of the word, I am glad that this happened to me. I realized how lucky I am to even be here in Mussoorie, let alone trekking in the mountains. I realized what devoted friends I have, learned how to hang curtains on rods whilst being 20 ft in the air, and read some really good literature. I was able to get to know some people better, and I realized that even though someone may have a seemingly unpenetrable shell of non-understanding and general nastiness, everyone has something about them worth knowing.
Thank you for reading,
Emily
Activity week was somewhat less than inspiring for me. Liek a few other grade 11's, I was signed up to go on the advanced trek of 7 days to Braadsar lake. As Kalkidan and I had a fantastic experience of trekking over quarter break, we were awaiting activity week rather over-eagerly. By mid october, I was making statistics in my head about snow probability, student/teacher ratios, boy/girl ratios, number of porters per hiker... I was rather preoccupied, to say the least.
We left at 6:45 am on the 21st of october, loaded with our packs and positive energy. The bus ride to our first camp took us 8 hours through the hills and valleys of the mountains, resulting in more than one person getting carsick. I started feeling a little unwell myself after hour 6, but thought little of it.
Arriving at our beautiful first campsite, I was still feeling unwell, and my health deteriorated though the evening. By evening I was unable to holld down even a bit of chapatti and rice. I spent a night of fitful sleep with my stomach roiling in pain and discomfort.
The next day wasn't much of an improvement. I felt too weak to stand, let alone walk with a 15 kg pack up the side of a mountain. I forced down a little bit of breakfast and our porters came and took my bag over to the mules. It was more than a little embarassing to be the slowest member of the group and not even carrying anything!
By lunchtime, I was crawling on all fours up the hill about 1/2 hour behind my compatriots. Staying by my side were Ms Fiddler and tentmate Asma, encouraging me to press on and keep climbing. However, as I continued to feel bad and much worse by tunrs, it became apparent that continuing upwards wasn't soemthing to consider for much longer.
At about noon, one day after setting out from Woodstock, Mr Latimer and Mr Hepworth approached me and gently reccomended that I return to Woodstock, to rest and recover rather than risk complications in my illness due to altitude. Reluctantly, I agreed to go back down with our guide Titu, the only member of staff that spoke hindi.
Had I known what else this would entail, I doubt I would have agreed to it so easily. As one of the female persuasion, I required a fellow female to come with me back down the mountain and to Mussoorie. The selfless and praiseworthy Kalkidan volunteered for this position, despite her eagerness to go on the trek and her prisitine health.
Titu, Kalkidan and I returned down the mountain, ever slowly and painfully. We had to return to our campsite of the night before, where we were picked up by a hitch-hiking jeep already full of people. You can imagine that in my nauseated state, I was somewhat less than wild about the idea of cramming into the back of a rickety jeep with our packs and four other indian men. Nothing overly horrendous happened, and I discovered that even on the bumpy road that made up most of our route, sitting was infinately prefferable to walking.
8 hours and 1 jeep transfer later, we pulled in outside the health center, where Kalkidan and I promptly entered and fell fast asleep, on soft beds with fluffy pillows and warm comforters.
There, I spent my activity week, unable to get anything from dorms and feeling perfectly healthy 24 hours after going on antibiotics.
Many thanks to Mrs. Wunker for bringing me a kindle e-reader to while away the hours, and thanks to Mr Pesavento for letting me pitch in for stage set-up in Parker Hall thursday and friday.
One more person to thank, and that's Mrs Kaplan for taking in Kalkidan and helping her have a fun acitivity week, not having to stay in health center and going on all the junior school's expeditions.
Although I did not have a "good" activity week in the normal sense of the word, I am glad that this happened to me. I realized how lucky I am to even be here in Mussoorie, let alone trekking in the mountains. I realized what devoted friends I have, learned how to hang curtains on rods whilst being 20 ft in the air, and read some really good literature. I was able to get to know some people better, and I realized that even though someone may have a seemingly unpenetrable shell of non-understanding and general nastiness, everyone has something about them worth knowing.
Thank you for reading,
Emily
Emily, this is a very well written post which has been divided into very self-sufficient paragraphs. Truthfully I do not know where to add critical comments because this blog is so well written. When I read this I felt as if I were experiencing this myself, the use of adjectives and verbs is very helpful and I could actually picture and feel what you felt.
ReplyDeleteThe point of this blog was to write the subjective truth rather than you opinions, however this entire thing was based on you and how you felt. However that is not your fault because you becoming sick is only to do with you. Basically what I am trying to say is the last bit of the question does not really suit your blog.
One aspect that I wish you would have elaborated on is the way you were feeling, like for example you said you were climbing on all fours. That is an excellent use of language and I encourage you to use more of the sort.