A Chicken A Day Keeps Us Full Away
By Christopher Tan
“Oh right….there’s a survival camp today,” I muttered to myself as I shut off the fourth alarm clock for the morning. I changed into my camping clothes, ate breakfast, and checked my survival kit. Fire starter, checked. Waterproof matches, checked. Fishing lines from last survival camp, checked. Yup, I’ve prepared everything, and off to Survival Camp I go…
15 Adventure Rangers—eight boys and seven girls—and a few commanders congregated at church. The girls just sat quietly on the steps while the boys paraded around the compound comparing survival kits. However, pretty soon everyone settled down and the camp began with a moment of prayer. Then all the boys departed first and had roti canai on the way. All the boys, that is, except some poor chap named Christopher who sat in the girl’s van due to lack of space in Cmdr Peter’s Toyota Unser. After the arrival of the final AR girl, totaling 8 girls, the van departed later straight to Ulu Yam.
Meanwhile…a few kilometers away…Cmdr Nat and Cmdr Brian were choosing some chickens and fish for dinner. I overheard Commander Terence say something about frogs, but I tried to not think about it.
An hour’s journey later, we reached Ulu Yam, the Woods. It appears to stir nostalgic memories of those who have been to AR boy’s Bukit Nuang hike. We lingered around the parking lot when the familiar sight of a green van arrived. Behold our dinner! Unfortunately it turned out that four of the five fish had died on the journey, and now they decided to release the last one. As we looked at our prospective dinner swim away in liberty, our attention turned back to the encaged poultry. The chickens had to be provided with enough water, and must be put in shady areas. After all they are our food…and we should treat them well at their last moments.
After an item inspection, in which many people had to leave their bags (and boxes) behind, we divided the bamboo and water bottles among ourselves. Colin and Kedric had the opportunity of transporting the chicken crate. At the start of the hike our guide gave us a little speech about real-life survival (I won’t go into details), and told us that our bamboo was too thick for cooking. So we discarded them and waited for a short while the guide and a few commanders went to get some better bamboo. When they returned the guide had already made a bamboo water container from bamboo and vines! Along the way to the campsite the guide showed us a plant whose flowers contain water which we can drink from, as well as how to drink river water safely too.
Once we arrived at the campsite, the first thing to do was to make shelter. We were divided into groups of four, and began making our own shelters. Branches were broken, creepers were collected, and foliages were foraged. In an effort to obtain banana leaves, Kedric, Jonathan, Acker, and I ended up pulling down the entire tree! Following that a few more trees were chopped down, thanks to Commander Peter. Too bad we didn’t find any bananas. By mid-day four shelters stood out from the ground. Collin’s group had the best shelter, partly because their site had two trees where they can straightaway start with for a lean-to shelter. My group’s shelter was also a lean-to shelter patched with banana leaves here and there. The girls’ shelters were nice to look at, though I’m not sure how waterproof they were.
The next item on the priority list is dinner, so while some rangers went to look for firewood, the others began shaving spears. This was a time when I can say was a time of bonding. The shaving rangers chatted among one another sitting on a fallen tree trunk, while spears started to form under the constant rhythm of the penknives. Meanwhile some managed to stir up a few conversations with the resting commanders. We were introduced by the guide to a stream not far from the camp, where we would refill our water and clean our chickens later, and also dug two holes where we would be burying the chickens
As enough firewood was gathered, the time…THE time came…chicken killing time! We gathered around the unsuspecting victims as they sat comfortably in the haven of their enclosure, oblivious to the calamity that was about to befall them.
“It was a good chicken…”
“It lived to die…”
“It died so we can live…”
Yeah right, and so Cmdr Brian and Cmdr Wei Sern demonstrated how to kill and clean out a chicken. We learned to hold the legs tight, as there would be the infamous “final kick”, and also learned not to burst the gall bladder which stores bile, a very bitter fluid we wouldn’t want on our chicken. There were thrills and spills as the drama ensued, as this was, for most of the rangers, the first time they had ever witnessed such a murder.
Following the incident, each group killed and cleaned their own chicken, though we had to help clean the commander’s one too. After removing all the internal organs, part of the rangers brought the chicken down to baptize at the river, while the rest were charged with making the fire. Once cleaned the chickens were brought back up, wrapped in aluminum foil, and sent to the fire to roast. That, was our dinner. The aroma from the commanders’ maggi mee and brahims didn’t help much either.
After dinner came my favorite part of the whole Survival Camp…the campfire gathering. Rangers satisfied from the night’s dinner sat in a semicircle around the fire, both for warmth and company. As the crowd near the fire began to grow, conversations from the cicadas and the rangers blended in the still night air. The rangers were louder, of course. We began with campfire fun, such as “Aunt Mary”, “Black Magic”, “Mind Transfer”, and the like. Ask any ranger who went to the camp for more details of these weird-sounding utterances! Then, the rangers had a whopping half an hour of laughter as they listened to a few (nah a lot of) jokes by Kedric and I, as well as a special appearance by Cmdr Terence himself. Cmdr Brian shared a devotion and we all went to sleep…. AFTER the devotion.
The activities don’t end here. We had to take shifts watching the fire, a member from each group every hour. However not many people trusted their shelters, and many of us slept by the fire that night. Halfway through the night at around 3am, I watched the fire…and we ran out of sticks to burn. Fortunately there was some more wood left over from the previous campers, and with combined efforts from Collin, Shaun, Kedric and I, we managed to get the fire rekindling. Still remember the spears we made earlier? We never used them for the chickens, and so in they go. I wasn’t sure if the spears were actually used, for there were still some more spears lying about when I woke up, and that I was told that I slept before getting them. Did I mention that the right arm of my glasses became so hardened that I snapped it while trying to put it on? Remember to bring cheap glasses for survival camps…
Daybreak came, and everyone started to wake up. Some of us for the second time. After a devotion shared by Cmdr Terence about the Armor of God, we went back to our respective shelters. We sat there like sitting ducks as we watched the commanders pour water on each of the shelters with nervous rangers underneath! Running away wasn’t allowed. We then dismantled our shelters and put them aside. I think I rested my right shoe on some cinders last night, cause I realized that the sole was a little burned. Finally we had a group photo, packed our stuff, and began trekking down. This time however we took a different route, and although the guide said that it was shorter, I somehow found it a little longer. Nevertheless we still arrived at the welcoming panorama of parking area, where we changed our clothes and left the same way we came.
We had lunch at “Asian Rice Pot”, a restaurant which Colin’s mother opens. I gotta admit that the food there is second only to my Mom’s! Perhaps I was just hungry. Anyway, we had a wonderful lunch, and got all boosted up for our journey back to church. As I sat in the front seat of the Kia Pregio, events during the past day rolled past my mind like a slideshow. Survival Camp 2007 was indeed one of the most enjoyable camps I have been to, and this was 50% due to the commanders for organizing such a great camp, 50% to all the rangers for working together, and 100% to our almighty God who prepares and plans our ways. I thank Him for the good weather, that it didn’t rain while we tried to keep the fire alive, and also for His protection, that none of us got eaten by tigers on this trip.
To view memories of this camp in pictures, please click here
