A week with the kids

View from close to camp

I've spent the last week out of Delhi in the foothills of the Himalayas with 19 students (and thankfully two other teachers) on our annual Minicourse trip. This year I headed to a region called Sattal or 7 lakes (although I think we only saw 3 maybe 4 of the seven lakes). It is a pretty spot, and our camp up on the side of a hill had a spectacular view down on the lakes. One that might have been more appreciated if we hadn't had to climb back up that hill almost every day....

Rock climbing was just one of the activities

So what does a week out with students entail? Thankfully not a lot of thought on my process. Our trips are all run by local companies. This one was a combination of outdoor activity - rock climbing, kayaking, river crossing, flying fox, hiking, camping out, bird watching and jumaring (a process of hauling oneself up a rope with the help of a special device) - and service - we dug some holes for a fence and painted a wall at a local school, interacted with some of the village families and hosted the children for an evening of entertainment.

We are very proud of the hole we dug...you would be too if
you saw the tools we had to use.

I spent a lot of time braiding hair (I think the last day I did approximately 20 braids on 11 of the 13 girls who were on the trip), took at least one nap every day, and all in all relaxed....well as much as you can with 19 high school students around the entire time. I feel lucky this year that I ended up with a group that were pretty chill, caused no problems and had very little for me to deal with beyond a couple cuts and scrapes.

No wonder it took me an hour and a half.