Week of The Year

Introduction

woah. The past week i had had been a crazy one. A seven-day straight journey. with who? the d2ys of course. for those who didn't know, last week I've joined d2y as a committee to help in organizing a dharma youth camp. there were meetings and pre camps before the actual camp, and the camp itself lasted for 5 days.

Camp. again?

camps. i've been to almost countless of camps ever since, primary school? buddhist camps, leadership camps, society camps, learning camps. i had a number of experiences organizing camps as well. starting from form four and five, and even during A levels. After that, its almost a two year break since i've been active in anything aside studies. so, what makes it so different for this camp? 

What I Thought.

anyways, at the beginning, I didn't expect much from the camp. given so that I was only assigned as a facilitator. and PIC for an event or two. to me, making camps are like, standard procedure. u'll just need to do a list of things, enjoy a little bit. and tadahhh, your job is done. so, in this camp, i didn't have anything big in hand. even though i had been on hiatus doing camp stuff for two years, i thought it would just be an easy one.

sorry but to speak the truth, out of all the roles, I don't really like to be a facilitator. where its job is to take care, and guide, and help, and facilitate a group of participants through out the camp. I actually prefer to be at the back scenes planning and organizing things. nevertheless, I took up the role. I was quite new to D2Y, naturally I didn't expect to play a bigger role.
 

Game On.

Since this is a six day event for the committees (we arrived one day beforehand of the actual camp date to do last minute preparations), I can't help but comparing this event with the community service event I did two years ago at Johor. That was a six day event as well. Yes, SIX full days. And before the event actually began, we had three whole months of meetings and preparations and trainings. nearing the event, we stayed back almost everyday to prepare props and materials for all the games and events. there was A LOT of work involved. So, in comparison with my previous event, at the beginning of the camp, I can't help noticing how unprepared we were.

Chaos. Desperation.

On the day before camp itself, there were still proposals not finalized, details not looked into nor discussed, and incomplete briefings among the committees. On the first two days, quite a number of problems have presented themselves. Time delay was the main one. Unpreparedness of the committees to handle the participants cause them to not participate in activities wholeheartedly and fully. Hence the activities became dragging, and boring. The unexpected problem that occurred were water supply running low due to leakage in the water tank. On the very first night, we totally ran out of drinking water. 

Things  have been thrown into chaos and disorganization. Things are starting to fall apart, and we became desperate. On the third day, we tried fixing things. it was a step too late, but that was all we could do. We had war games, to motivate the participants, to get them into the mood to participate the remaining activities with sportsmanship and eagerness. It worked. The participants are more eager and motivated than before. At that night, it was talent time, and we managed to put on a good show for the parents that came to watch.

Sleepless.

Things seemed to be back on track. However, something had to give to make up for the unfinished proposals. the committees stayed up late every single night to hold meetings and to discuss and prepare for the following day's activities. Every night, we stayed up until 2-3 am in the morning. On the night before talent time, which was my event, i stayed up until 4.30am. Given that we have to wake up at 545 every morning, there was very little rest for each of us.
 
most of the committees were worn out and constantly sleepy half way through the camp. It affected badly on our activities. Facilitators became less attentive. Committee  became lazy to put extra effort to make the activities fun. We took turns to take off some time to grab ourselves some power nap but it was still not enough to compensate for the lost sleeping hours.
 
At the last day, many people were at their limits. Some fell sick, even. I heard some of the committees had less than 10 hours of sleep in 6 days combined. I was at my limit too. I had so little sleep i can fall asleep just anywhere the second i am stationary for some time. I can't wait for the whole thing to be over. All I thought was, it's the last day, what worse could happen?
 

Group Ajiva

Before I go into the climax of this post ( yes, we're just reaching the climax, so please bear with me), let me introduce the group of participants whom I'm facilitating. My group of members, are a group of very discrete members ranged from 13 year old to 17, where the younger ones are the majority. Besides the big age gap, there's this very noticeable difference in each and every of their character. Despite so, there weren't any shy characters in my group, and they each put effort to bond within the group. If there was any lacking in the group, I would say it lacked of strong characters. they lack of ohms. they were all quite the soft types and hence didn't have much desire in winning. They would just play along, in their own pace, in their own peace. and hence, they were almost and always at the bottom two places in games.

Nevertheless, they were a bunch of very kind and eager kids to learn from the camp. I could see that they each really did have something they want to achieve in this camp, to be a better person, to find the voice in their inner selves.
 

The Final Game

So, back to the last day of camp. We were having tele-match on that day. Maybe it was the sharing session we had the night before? maybe they had bonded better. maybe its because its the last day and the last event. Rare as it was, my group did have a little spark of desire to win during the tele-match. I was excited to see how things would turn out.
 
Just when I thought I could end this thing quickly and head off home, an expected turn of events happened. someone did a mistake, and the tele-match we were having fell into chaos. all 9 teams happened to be at the same station playing the same game all at once. People are yelling for orders across corridors and between floors. So many things happened at once none of the people could really keep track of the rules of the game anymore. I was there, keeping my head straight, facilitating my group. Shouting instructions at them but most of them are too heated up and hyped up in the game to really listen.
 
The rules changed again, I got them to gather at the hall. I went to confirm the changes of rules. Things are still chaotic I didn't really know who to turn to. I got back, and heard an unexpected news. my group was given a penalty, for lack of participation. I went to ask questions. the group members flood me with questions. From the hyped up expressions they had just a second ago, I clearly saw a fell in their faces right after they found out about the penalty. Some of them looked so shocked they looked like they were about to cry. I tried to calm them, and then left them to get more questions answered. despite the fact that the game was too messy for me to keep track with any of it any more, at that moment, I THOUGHT I was still fine .
 

A Turn of Events

I went to approach the person that implied the penalty onto my group, I tried to ask if there was any misunderstanding. When I got the answer, I thought it was unreasonable, as I've been with my group for almost the whole time and could almost testify to their eagerness in participation. I thought it was an utter waste to the effort that my team has finally put up to win the race. I thought a penalty shouldn't be implied on the group just like that in a mid of a race they're participating. I began to argue with that committee. then, all of a sudden, an overwhelming feeling of unfairness and tiredness and bad mood overcomes whatever reasons I have in my mind. I started to cry.
 

Downfall (lol.)

lol. right? maybe you would think what poor EQ I had. it's okay. I thought so too. I retreated back to the committee room after that, to calm myself down. So, on the last day of camp, the shittiest shit had happened. A faci cried in front of her members and then left them midway of the games. such failure.

Things DO happen for a reason

so, there I was. for a while, i was busy crying with myself in the room. then, I recalled, when i first decided to join this camp, I didn't had something to expect out of it, knowing it wasn't the best camp of all time. i came here almost empty heartedly, not really seeking for anything.
 
so, this could be it, huh? that things do happen for a reason. The reason for me to join this camp of a mess, is to let myself know that I would FAIL handling a messy, stressed up, situation. it's like a wake up call. to see myself failing at such petty terms of bad conditions. ouch. I broke down when I was stressed at studies. that was okay, i have no reasons to hold back. but this time, it was different. I broke down again in another stressed up condition, even though I had a defined role as a facilitator to play at that moment. I failed to put up with my emotions.
 
I didn't know what I should do for a while, knowing I've messed up my part as a faci. I knew I had to dry my tears and return to the game. I knew I have to face the rest of the people. I knew there's no point crying over split milk. even if the split milk refers also to crying -.- I knew that whatever comes next is the most important.

Meeting The Little Buddhas

A few friends helped me through it. Although I didn't really like the help, I knew I need it. courage and support and kindness they gave me. it gave me strength, to face the worst of it. when I returned to my members, it seemed like the efforts I put into stopping my tears are needless. My sweet members gave me a big group hug. I immediately cried again the moment I see them.  maybe it's of shame? or of guilt? or of pity? or of touched feelings. a mix, I guess. but, it was okay. everything was okay after that as we know in our hearts what's the most important. it's not the game, its not the rules, its not the faults, it's just the bond.
 
with that committee whom i argued with, we made amends.  none of us were at our best conditions when the worst of things happened. I even danced with her during the closing ceremony =) awkward. but, it fixes things, i think. lol.
 
so, ya. a mess of a camp right? who says a mess would always be a bad thing? sometimes you might just need it to learn another important lesson in life =)
 
also, I found, and confirm with myself again, that d2y is filled with kind and warm people. maybe they didn't do a very great job in organizing the camp this time. but even so, deep down, each and every of the member is a little Buddha, so prepared to help, to share and to care. I'm touched and amazed by almost every single one of them during the camp. their big hearts. their reaching hands. and their listening ears. It makes me feel that meeting someone good and kind in this corrupted world, might just not be so hard anymore. i'm thankful that our paths crossed. =)

with that, I think I MIGHT just be a step closer in discovering what I want in life. somehow.
 
owh, what about the last day of the seven-day-straight event? I'll get to that in next post. i assure you it would be in a happier tone. stay tuned =p
 
til then.
 
chaoz~