Hrvatska škola Outward Bound

Read the article by Tvrtko, OBC instructor, from his training at OB Singapore:

What I did last summer…

..although it was actually the middle of autumn. But from my point of view, it was summer. Cause in Singapore it’s summer all year long.
But first things first. During October 2011, Outward Bound Croatia proposed to send me to Singapore and Indonesia to undergo a ”21 day Classic Challenge Course” organized by Outward Bound Singapore (OBS). After hearing ”Singapore and Indonesia” I accepted immediately (actually, I tried playing it cool : ”… I mean, yeah, why not. I just have to make sure my Uni approves, but why not?…”). After battleing administration and pleading to be excused from my lectures at Uni, getting a visa and experiencing all other perils that are out there, to get one worldly-man-to-be, on 13th of October I finally boarded my flight to the unknown.

15-ish hours of flight and 10-ish hours of window shopping in duty free zones, I arrived to Changi Airport, Singapore. Goodbye winter jackets and + 3 degrees Celsius, hello + 33 C and thongs!

If you didn’t know, Singapore is situated 137 km north of the ecuator, inside a tropical belt. Temperature is +22C when it’s the coldest time of the year, and usually around +30C. Humidity is dreadful, one wants to glue himself to a dehumidifier. Never, I repeat NEVER, will you feel dry. If you plan on using that iPhone or a notepad of yours for more than couple of months, you’re gonna get some sort of dry or ziplock bag for it, and if you are planning on sleeping anyplace that isn’t airconned, you’re going to use a special ”Prickly powder” with menthole extract to cool you down and allow you a good night’s sleep. Also, you will not smoke nor chew gum while walking in the streets, unless you plan on donating 1000USD to the state. Spitting will get you a 500$ fine, and possesion of drugs with the intent to sell, a death sentence. Singaporeans are nice, always smiling and polite. They don’t curse nor fight and they don’t get sarcasm. They live, work and don’t whine about taxes or the price of petrol. It’s a different world out there.

But, let’s get back to OBS. So, OBS’s playground consists of a whole island. Yes, I said an island. They have a camp with 20-ish large dorms and accompanying storages, a gym, big mess hall with a kitchen, couple of smaller pantries, 10-ish large study halls. There is an old camp nearby, not as fancy, but still really looked after and usable. If need be, at any given time they can accomodate 400 participants ditributed among both camps, not including OBS staff. They have a fleet of 80-ish kayaks, 4 sailing boats (cutters), 4 smaller cruise boats (cap. around 40 people), 8 motorboats and an expedition, or popularly called ”motherboat”, capable of rescuing capsized cutters. Their staff consist of 70ish full-time instructors and at least that many various other personel. OBS, like Singapore, is one little city-state for itself.
After a couple of days of wandering through the city and the island, finally my course had started. 27 of us where divided into 2 watches – ”Elizabeth” (my watch) and ”Nehru”. Besides 10 OBS staff, there were OB instructors from Sabbah, India, Taiwan and Romania, plus 11 people from Indonesian Ministry of Transportation. Course consists of ”hard skills” and ‘’soft skills”. Hard skills consist of morning and/or evening PE, learning various things like how to build a raft or a shelter, how to kayak and rockclimb, wilderness 1st aid, etc… Soft skills can be divided on personal and group. Their aim is to strenthen the individual personally, teach him how to rely on his strong features, accept the weak ones, and if possible to overcome them. Group part is based on a leadership/followership idea and the goal is to understand group dynamics and one’s role in it.

Every watch has it’s own dorm and it’s own instructor. The whole idea and content of the course are the same for all the watches, but instructors have the right to ”tweak” it as they see fit, meaning that every watch doesen’t have to undergo same challenges or complete the same tasks. For 21 days you will literally be living with your watch. You do everything together – you eat together, sleep together, you trek together in the rain, you laugh together and you sweat together. You feel the same hardships and enjoy the same moments of respite after a whole day of kayaking. At the beginning, when you hand over your cellphone, mp3 player and your books, they tell you that your new friends are to be your books, radios and games. It’s a sort of a primal, almost tribe-like feeling of belonging.

After first 10 days of basic hard skills (PE and various skills, mini land and sea expedition 1-3 days long), you undergo a ‘’solo”. Solo lasts for 3 days and 2 nights, and as the name says, you are alone (unless a local boar decides to pay you a visit. Note to self : tie the rubbish bag tighter next time,stupid). You are given 2 plastic tarps to build a shelter, some ropes and enough provisions for the duration of the solo. One should use the precious alone time, something that is so easily overlooked these days, to recuperate the mind and the body, and prepare it for the finall challenge that is a highlight of the course – a 9 day expedition. Also, away from all the stimuli, excluding the wind and the rain, an occasional boar and the morning sun, one can let his mind go free. Allow it to dwell on all the things we keep hidden or deem not convinient. It’s amazing what can be seen if only we close our eyes and let our thoughts take us away.

Final expedition consisted of sailing to (and back) the island of Batam in Indonesia and kayaking around island of Bintan. During 5 days we kayaked for more than 200km against the current and the waves, we capsized and we were sea-sick, we even ran into hundreds of gallons of crude oil that came from the South China sea. We slept on beaches and hard grounds surrounded by 15cm centipedes and scorpions. We were washed by rain and burned by sun. We had blisters on our hands and abrasions from paddling. We would paddle for approx. 9 hours daily ; in intervals of 45 min of paddling and then a 5 minute break. We would wake up at 4AM and go to bed after 11PM. But it was amazing. Amazing beaches, jade green sea, white sand and daybreaks on the Indonesian sea. Best noodles and canned tuna ever. Warmest songs and best lousy jokes. Most sincere smiles and tears. Something I’ll never forget.

My oppinion is that this group component that Outward Bound implements is the most valuable thing in its courses. It makes you more socially rugged and willing to take on everyday challenges, whatever they are. It teaches you how to live with people, not just co-exist with them. It teaches you how to fight for yourself and your beliefs, but without discounting others. Like the saying goes, teaches you how to give of yourself, and not just of your possesions. How to offer help when it’s needed, but how to ask for it as well.

In today’s world, being confined in our appartments with our flat-rate internets and facebooks, it’s hard to actually live our lives, truly experience them. How to enjoy the warmth and comfort our beds give us if we don’t feel the coldness of rain and blowing of the wind on our own skin? How to look forward to a tidy house and a cooked meal if we never had to prepare our shelter and dinner after a whole day of trekking? How to appreciate the luxuries we own and use if we don’t experience being without them?

I would like to end this with a thought I wrote down on the last day of the course. After all the big words I wrote and quotes i used, I think that it describes this 21 day experience in the purest form.

”…it’s nice here. I don’t need my cell, my laptop, i don’t need to cut my hair or worry about my attire. I am relaxed. At peace, somehow. That is what I’d like to take back. That is what I’m lacking. Peace…”