8th Grade CFS

Student Reactions

Kebron Tesfaye

The eighth grade CFS took place at the base of Mt. Kenya. When we first arrived, the staff members introduced themselves and showed us around the camp so we knew where everything was. Then they let us eat our lunch in a plain grassy area. After lunch, we were told to go down a hill so we would check our tents.

One of the staff members named Hilary told us to partner up with two other people making that three of us. Then Hilary assigned us our tents. A few minutes later our teachers called us to sit in a circle and we talked about a few camp rules. Rules such as we shouldn’t run around the tents or what time we would wake up and what time we should be asleep, etc.

Then we had a few minutes of free time before the staff members called us again. They explained how each activity would work and the timing. These activities were based on Ndoro tribe activities. More specifically they were based on types of challenges that Ndoro tribes had to face (since the tribe had to move a lot). The name of one of the activities that I remember is Spider web. But all of them were fun and challenging.

Dinner depended on the groups. So groups one and two had dinner earlier than groups three and four. Then we were called for praise and worship. After some singing we heard from a few students for devotions. These devotions were by Daniel White, Janene Wooten, Carrie Mixon, and Davita Deroches.

After the devotions time, they let us stay up and the staff members introduced us to a game we could play in the dark. This is how the game went. Every light in the area would be turned off. The job of the students was to get to the place where we had our devotions without being seen by a teacher or a staff member. If we got caught by a teacher of staff member we had to start all over again. A few of us were caught so we started all over. The game was finally over and it was time for bed. The kids said goodnight to each other and to the teachers. Teachers had to tell us to be quiet a few times and then we finally went to bed.

We woke up the next morning at around six thirty. Groups one and two had to eat breakfast before their game drive. For groups three and four, their breakfast wasn’t until eight thirty. We saw many different animals like giraffes, warthogs, gazelles and all. We could have gotten to see the hippos but we didn’t make it. At some point we got to learn about monkeys and the life style of the monkeys. We also got to take a closer look at the elephants and were able to pet a rhino. The game driver told us the story of the rhino.

When we returned, the other groups were eating. We also ate our dinner. Just the same routine as the last night: devotions – games –sleep time. But before we went to bed, the staff told us that we don’t have to wake up earlier than seven thirty and that we were not to leave our tents until our stuff was packed and the tent was clean.

The next morning we packed up all our clothes, personal toiletries and sleeping bags. We took out mattresses that were in the tent and swept the tent. Before we left camp we did a few more activities like walking, getting to know nature, natural tattoos and bow and arrow hunting . We ate our lunch and were headed back to school. It was a fun CFS and I’m sure we learned a lot of new things about Kenya during the activities

Davita DesRoches and Jieun Lee

This year the 8th graders went to Batian’s view, close to Mt. Kenya. On the first day, after eating our lunch, we were given our tents and unpacked. For the remainder of the afternoon/day we did four team building activities called the Spider’s web, Bipod Bipeds, Log Walk and Traffic Jam. These were challenging but fun. After super and a small amount of free time we had devotional time.

Following this we played this incredibly fun but hard game called Keeper of the Night. The second day, one group had to wake up extremely early in order to go on an all morning game drive. The other group, which we were extremely happy to be part of, didn’t start their activities till seven. While the other group was on their game drive, we did some rock climbing and abseiling. This was hard because of the large amount of people, but we still managed to get everybody through and have a pretty good time. The abseiling was a kind of scary but everybody who tried completed it.

Thin the afternoon the groups switched off and our groups went on the game drive. On the game drive, we went to see some hippos (mostly noses and ears of hippos), chimps in a sanctuary, and a rhino which we got to pet. We got back around six or seven in the evening, had supper, took a shower, had a bit of free time , did devotions and played Keeper of the Night again ( this time with more success). The next morning we had to wake up at seven, a definite act of compassion. We ate, did two more activities, a Bush Walk and a hard balancing thing whose name I forget. After a quick lunch we packed up the buses and headed home. We arrived back without mishap and enjoyed our lovely, comfy and warm beds.

Kathryn Phang

After lunch on Wednesday we all went and got our tents, unpacked and explored the area. Then we had our team building activity. In each activity we were being graded on Leadership, humor and I can’t remember the rest. My group went to the “Spider Web” this is a web created by rope. Yu have to get your whole team across, but you can’t touch the rope and you can’t us the same hole twice. Then we went to another activity in which they give you this a shaped structure with ropes attached to it. You have to have one person on the structure and the rest pull the ropes. Our 3rd activity was called log walk. It is 2 blocks of wood with places for your fee to slide in. Then there were ropes at the front for he person in the front to help us move forward. If we fell down, we had to start over. Our last activity was called traffic jam. You have seven squares on each square but one square in the middle. You can only move on free squares and can only hop over one person. The objective is to get the 7 people from the right to the left and the 7 people from the left to the right.

On Thursday we woke up at 6;00 for a 6 hour game drive. After driving around we stopped to take a hike to see hippos. We were all freaked out because the sign said: “Warning this park is not responsible for injury or death”. We saw the Hippos and didn’t die so YAY us. Then we drove around to the chimpanzee farm. Then we drove to the place where this black rhino lives who has been tamed and we all got to touch it. That was coo. On our drive we saw gazelles, antelope, elephants and giraffes. After that we headed back to camp, rested and ate lunch. After all that stuff we went rock-climbing. We also got to go to the river and it was amazing how smooth the rocks were!

Friday was our last day. We ate breakfast and packed up our stuff. We also had our last team-building activity! We had this course of skinny poles and chains and we had to cross over it. We weren’t allowed to touch the ground or we had to start over. That was hard but we really learned to trust each other. Then we got a lesson on bush skills. They taught us how to use weapons like the spear and the bow and what kind of plants are helpful and can be dyes. I loved this CFS. Our class got closer as a class and we learned to trust each other. We got back at around 3:15 which was good timing. This CFS was a lot of fun.