Camping in a Foreign Land

In my mind camps are really important. They are the times when students and teachers get to know one another better and break down some of the prejudices and preconceived notions that they have of one another. It's a lot of work running a camp and the paperwork is crazy, but I always believe that it is worth it.

I have just returned from 3 days in Anji in tents with 131 students. This is the first time I have done a grade level camp, taken this crazy number and taken students from a variety of nationalities. It's alsp the first time that I have had an outsource provider for the entire trip so I had no control over the menu, timings or anything really.

I learnt a lot from this trip and I will not be using an outsource provider like this again. I would much rather go to a high ropes course and use a provider there and run everything else myself. You only have yourself to blame if you are responsible. I prefer this to apologising for someone else and being continually frustrated because your requests have not been listened to or promises you were made were lies.

Despite an extreme lack of sleep and atrocious weather the students had a good time. It would appear that everyone's highlight was the rafting with 0.5 grade rapids and water guns. No one cared about getting soaked as we were already so wet and the water fights took the students' minds off the paddling they had to do. I ended up in a boat with 2 scientists and a librarian, all without boating experience and 2 who got rather caught up with the water fights that I ended up doing an extreme amount of paddling. It was an entertaining ride though.

Advise for anyone doing a camp overseas:

• Even if they say there is a wet weather plan don't believe them
• Plenty of good food = happy students and staff
• Don't expect to sleep
• Find out where the nearest hospital is and how to get there
• Take as many translators as you can to accomodate the demographics of students
• Think of all of the positives that will come out of camp rather than the amount of work you have to do. It really is worth it.