Our first task as a Project Trust correspondent is titled 'Breakfast is breakfast' and it's about the differences between meals at our project and back home, with a focus on breakfast and our morning routine.
Now although I've only been at Outward Bound for three weeks I've already experienced three completely different morning routines so I'm going to give you a insight into what it's like being an OB instructor in the morning.
Let's start off with the 'normal' morning routine. Breakfast for everyone is at 7.30am in the main dining hall and consists of cornflakes. Not all staff have breakfast here, some prefer to eat in their rooms - Monday is my cheat day where I'll sleep a little longer and have a bowl of Cheerios (you would not believe how happy I was to find them in the local shop) in my room. It can be quite cold in the dining room in the morning so it's not an unusual scene to find instructors hunched over a warm bowl of cornflakes with a wooly hat on. Now compared to breakfast back home, nothing is massively different, although my walk from my room to the kitchen back home doesn't require me to get outdoor shoes on or a jacket if it's raining.
Another morning routine I'm getting use to is the one the DP (duty person) has. From 8.30am to 8.30am the next day a member of staff is the duty person. They need to get up earlier than all other staff members so I set my alarm for 6.30am when I'm DP. As I walk down from my room I head via the toilets and showers as I need to turn off the lights at the stairs/path. When I get to the main building I unlock the door to the kitchen and walk through to the dining room to unlock the two sliding wooden doors. I then swing by the DP room where I collect the flag and keys to the boat shed. As I walk to the water I open the gate to the centre and tie and raise the South African flag on the flagpole. I then head over to the boat shed where I unlock it's gates before returning the keys. Normally all of this won't take longer than 20 minutes, although that can depend on the weather. Once I've finished I head back to my room where I'll continue reading my book. But when it gets to 7.25am I need to be back at the main building to ring the bell. It's the DP's job to ring the bell five minutes before each meal. While eating breakfast as a DP I use the time to write up the morning meeting sheet. The morning meeting happens everyday at 8.30am so the DP needs to ring the bell again at 8.25am. The DP runs through the morning meeting briefing everyone what is happening that day, any training that will happen, who the DP will be that day, the weather, the food we'll be eating and also giving a positive quote. Here's an OB favourite for you - "Don't work hard. Work smart". Sometimes it can seem a lot of work, especially as it's all before half eight!
The last morning routine instructors have here is if there is a course running. I've only seen a course run at Willow Point so I don't know if mornings at other bases are the same on course as they are here. However the morning starts at around 5am (yep you read that right). At that time just now it's dark and cold so I opt for my Canterburys and a fleece. The reason we have to get up that early is because at 5.45 the group on course has a PT (personal training), run and dip. However before that it's a organised chaos trying to get them all organised and in a circle around the flagpole. Instructors join in with the 15 minutes of exercise where between the lunges and starjumps the sun rises above the horizon, before leading their group on a run followed by a 'dip' in the water to cool down. It's only after that that breakfast is served. When there's a course Nicky is in the kitchen early so that we all can have something warm to eat - usually oats or sausage. It's a welcomed change from cereal.
Lunch at 12.30pm and dinner at 6.30pm are big meals. Working and training non stop Monday to Friday makes for big appetites and Nicky's food is so good that there's always nearly nothing left after everyone piles up their plates. Lunch and dinner usually consists of some sort of meat, either chicken, lamb, fish or pork along with mash potatoes, rice, salad or pap which is fast becoming one of my favourite foods. During the weekend when Nicky isn't here we have to cook for ourselves, which means sandwiches for lunch and then whatever we decided to cook up that night. It really is a case of looking in the fridge and working around what ingredients have been left for you. Not that different to back home. During our next trip to Pick n Pay (basically the SA tesco or asda) I'm going to stock up on dry foods such as pasta and soup so I can vary my lunches throughout the weekend.
At OB we also get tea break at 10am and 3pm each day, however, if there's loads of stuff that still needs done or a course running this is non existent. For someone who doesn't drink tea or coffee this isn't the highlight of my morning or afternoon unlike some other instructors. After trying to eat a rusk (a very hard biscuit type food you dunk in tea or coffee to make it soft) with water I'm fully certain that I'm either going to have to buy hot chocolate in mass or convert to coffee or tea. But for just now, water will do me just fine...perhaps without bits of rusk floating in it.
Rachel
No comments:
Post a Comment