Hello, I’m Ranya and I’m going to tell you a story of my participation in an annual event held by my school which lasts for a short four days and had officially claimed a spot in my life journey’s highlight list.
First of all, I would like to tell you about the history of this event. The even is called Trip Observasi or Observation Trip in English. The event had been successfully held since 1970 every year, when my school, SMAN 81 was still under the name of Labschool. So to conclude, this year’s Trip Observasi or TO in short, is the 43rd one.
TO is a mandatory event for all the freshmen of SMAN 81. The event was held aiming the students to hold their own responsibilities, to have social care, to be an independent person, to have strong leadership, and with the intention to produce a person with an exemplary personality in the future. This year’s TO was held in a village called Purwosari, located in Cianten district, Bogor. The place was burning hot in the middle of the day and got extremely chilly in the night.
We were divided into 26 groups with more or less, ten students in each. We stayed in the village resident’s houses. We were treated like their own family in four days time and we were so grateful. We went through so much activities and since the events are a little bit too much to write, I decided to only write some of them. The one event I’m dying to tell you is when I was participating the village exploration event in the third day of TO. My seniors told me that last year’s exploration was an unforgettable event for them and you would miss a big opportunity if you’re not joining. At first, I thought everyone would join the event but it turns out that only maximum of seven students from each group can join and the male students had to be in a bigger amount of people than the female ones. Our group had a long discussion on deciding who’s coming and who’s not because we all wanted to go. The decision was set in the D-Day of the event and I’m thankfully one of the ones joining the exploration.
We gathered in a large field, bringing the utensils and clothes needed for the day. We sang a few songs while releasing two teams in every four minute span. A few minutes later, it was finally my group’s turn. We were told to follow the path wherever there were arrow signs made of cardboards. There were four posts and each post had its own obstacle we have to get through from. We have to climb and climb down the hills to reach the posts. The first post was the religious post where we were asked about our knowledge of our religion and what lessons have we got in the past three days.
In the second post, we were asked about what wrong-doings have we done to our parents and our own resolution to them. It was emotional. The third post, was the highlight of the exploration. I have been wanting to experience mental training since I was told there was going to be this kind of event. After climbing up and down the hills (including my slipping accident caused by my stubborn feet and the slippery soil when i climbed down one of the hills. It was pretty much embarrassing), we finally arrived at the third and the final post. We were told to remove our shoes and put our gears down because we were going to enter the mud. It was actually a rice field with no paddies, so I’m just going to call it a mud field. The mud was sticky and slimy so we had a quite hard time walking through it when the student’s council were telling us to hurry.
For the first task, we were told to line up according to our own groups and not to make a single move or we have to do push-ups on the mud. Next, we were told to line up again, but this time, facing other group. It was group number 13. For the second task, we were told to catch eels which was thrown by one of the student’s council members around the mud field. In the end, our group won. But unfortunately, both groups have to experience doing push-ups on the mud. So we did. It was exciting, although a bit of the mud got into my mouth when I was doing it.
For the third task, we were told to start an argument with another member of the student’s council. It went not so badly but not smoothly either so it was just fine. For the last task, we were told to do more push-ups in the river and to wash ourselves from the mud covering our bodies. After that, we were told to walk again until we found other groups who had finished their tasks. Then, we were told to go home and rest. Well, I guess that’s it.
There are so much events I haven’t told you but I can assure you that it was worth four days of being away from my beloved family (and my precious handphone).
By: Ranya Faiza Amira | X MIA 5 | Centurion