TEFL Adventures: Hiking through the wilderness of Russia

My last blog post talked about how the school year was all but over. The only thing that kept the year from ending was a final camping trip for sixth grade and an international camp + camping trip for ninth grade. I didn’t participate in the international camp, which included students from Israel, Estonia and Georgia, as I was on the sixth grade camping trip that took place at the same time.

The trip itself wasn’t that bad. It last from roughly 10:30 am Monday to 3:00 pm Friday, including travel time to-and-from the general hiking locations. In order to participate in the trip, I needed a couple essential items, namely a tent, sleeping bag and sleeping pad. I succeeded in acquiring these few crucial necessities, mainly through Paulina having a friend who owned all three items which I was allowed to borrow in exchange for two pomegranates.

Since my family had gone camping before, I was relatively experienced enough to limit myself to packing only what I needed, which included: one set of extra clothes, a pair of socks for every day of camping, toothbrush, toothpaste, notepad, pencil and first aid kit. Flashlights weren’t required because we are currently experiencing ‘white nights’ in St. Petersburg, which simply means the sun doesn’t fully set and you can see fairly well at night.

I splurged a little by including a small jar of JIF Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter and a bag of marshmallows in the hopes that I could make a fluffernutter. I didn’t need to worry about packing food for the trip because my school provided it all (however, they didn’t mention the students would be cooking the food themselves… I barely survived this week-long experience).

But enough of the intro here. Here’s how my five days went:

Monday - Arrival

Woke up fairly late at 9:30. Got to the school with my packed backpack at 10:00 where I discovered I packed the smallest bag of everyone in the group. They had legitimate hiking backpacks which would do well on the Appalachian Trail whereas I had my simple but trusty Camelbak that my dad gave me as a christmas gift about seven years ago. The bus ride to the first campsite was easy enough but once we arrived, the students prepared the first meal. It was here that I learned I hadn’t packed three items that I needed… a spoon/fork, a cup and a bowl. I happened to get lucky though. I grabbed a very small plastic spoon for peanut butter at the very last moment when I was at school and some extra small plastic cups had been packed as well. I proceeded to use that spoon for the rest of the week whereas I would trade the plastic cup I had for a new one once every two days. It felt like the epitome of camping to me as I used that cup for salad, cereal, coffee, tea and more. It sounds easy but the cup was REALLY small. Still, other students got to work chopping wood, which included cutting down three dead trees to use for the cooking fire. Then when the teachers and students went on an excursion for three hours, I was left to watch the camp.

Tuesday - The Long Wait

I’ve titled this day ‘The Long Wait’ because I really did have a long wait. The students and teachers went on a ten-hour excursion and left me to watch the camp so that nothing could have been stolen. The problem with this plan was that since I was alone, if someone, or something, attacked, no one, and I mean no one, would have heard my screams. Moreover, as I’m strongly connected to my Chromebook and my phone, not having access to them for long periods can be slightly challenging if I don’t have something else engaging my mind (imagine the Doctor Who episode called ‘The Power of Three’ and how much the Doctor had a problem keeping himself from being bored too quickly. He couldn’t last 30 minutes. I had 10 hours…). I was slightly lucky though since I had a pencil and notepad. I spent most of my wait drinking through a large pail of hot/warm coffee and writing different notes and reflections and plans in this notepad. It was a pleasant way of putting thoughts to paper, but the one challenge to this was that strong winds were hitting me all day. And when I got tired of writing and drinking coffee, I would chop more wood. I chopped more wood that day than I have in my entire life. And when the students finally arrived, heavy rain arrived. Such is life…not to mention, my notepad and I still smell like wood smoke and it’s been almost a week since that day.

Wednesday - The First Hike

It came time to pack up camp on Wednesday and make our first relocation. I thought the walk was generally good but many of the students found it very difficult, in part because their bags were very heavy (one student had two or three extra pairs of shoes packed). I’m not sure if it was the choice of the students in terms of what they packed, or the choice of very concerned parents. It’s probably more likely the latter but the former is also funny. We hiked about nine kilometers in the end, but the hardest part was probably the fact it rained half the time, which made it harder to climb up and down hills that then had soft ground.

At one point, we walked through a highway construction area that didn’t have any construction workers, which really made me think this would have been an excellent setting for a scene from a zombie apocalypse movie.

Once we arrived at our new camp, we got set up and split off into separate directions. Some students went on either an excursion to a beach with red sand or they went fishing. Once again though, I found myself watching camp again, chopping some more wood and drinking tea or coffee. And when the kids returned, I played a short round of volleyball with them. I say short because it wasn’t really volleyball (they have no skills in volleyball).

Thursday - On the Road Again

It was time to wake up and pack up. We hiked another nine kilometers, but it was easier due to the lack of large hills. There was still more rain but it was much less. The only major highlight here was the need for me to hide the snickers and sugar cubes because the students kept eating them. One student ate about 25 sugar cubes in an hour (and when he grabbed one when he thought I wasn’t looking, he yelled, ‘Ah-ha! I am God!”). The children probably tried to eat so many sugar cubes because they were inactive at camp. They had three hours of free time but they just played ‘mafia’ the entire time (for the record, I really hate that game).

Friday - Going Home

It was a fairly short day. All that stood between us and the bus home were three kilometers and the need to pack up camp. This was harder than it seems because instead of packing up, the students just played more mafia… боже мой.

Now I’ve got about two weeks left before I go back to America for a 2.5 week vacation. I’m mostly looking forward to it. The only painful part will be the incredibly long flights there and back again.

As a final note, this camping trip reminded me of a short story about my science teacher from junior high school. When he was young, he was a boy scout and during one summer camping trip, he decided to cook eggs using a brand-new metal pan that his mother had bought him prior to the trip. One day, while the other scouts were waiting for the scout leader to finish making the eggs for everyone, he felt really cool as he was cooking his own eggs. However, it was this very morning that he learned about how well metal conducts heat, for his new metal frying pan also had a metal handle and he wasn’t wearing an oven mitt or glove. So just as his eggs finished, the handle suddenly got too hot for his hand and he dropped the pan, with his eggs, into the fire.