Pimpin Siswa Camp at D’Risa Impiana
Our Housing, Building and Planning faculty 1st year students had a chance to attend a programme named- PROGRAM PIMPIN SISWA, which was organized by Student Welfare Department of Universiti Sains Malaysia. Our camp is held on the 1st phase, the 4th week, which we will had a chance to have the camp with School of aerospace engineering, School of Biological Sciences, School of Educational Studies, School of Civil Engineering and School of Languages, Literacies and Translation.
For my camp, it started from 7-9 August, 2009, at D’Risa Campsite. Before we were going to there, we had a short briefing about what things needed to be bring and DO and Don’t during in the camp. We also had been given a camping bag, 2 official t- shirts, a cap and a pen. All these things were sponsored by our university.
We gather at the Marching Field and prepare to go our respective destination, while waiting for the students from engineering campus to come over. Then, we spent about 4 hour’s journey to reach to the destination, at about 2pm. Then, we gather at the main hall to have the opening ceremony by the camp commandant. After that, we were divided into 12 platoons, with all the races. Then, the camp need a ‘Along’ to lead our battalion, with the help of ‘Angah’, ‘Uda’ , ‘Atik” from each company and ‘Alang” from each platoon. I had a chance to be chose as the ‘along’ but unfortunately unsuccessful. Then, I am honored to be chosen as ‘Alang’, platoon’s leader.
On the 1st day, we were been given a flag, platoon flag, plate and cup to be protected. If we lost 1 of these things, we will be punished. We were also being motivated about the concept of 1 Malaysia, Sustainability and many things. We also had a chance to give our opinion about what we had learned. Along this camp we were been taught how to cooperate to others, focus, volunteering ourselves teamwork and etc. we gained many knowledge from this camp, not knowledge from the books, but from the experiences that we had.
The most fun activity is the survival cooking. At that time, we were not given any food to eat and we had to cook the food own self. We were just been given the materials, such as rice, chicken, cabbage, seasoning powder, and the cooking equipments. At that time, we were being asked to have the barter system, which we need to change something to other groups to get what you want. Now, we learned how to communicate with others, discuss and make an agreement which both side will satisfy. But the given matches were very few. So, all the facilitators offer the candle to exchange with the flag and name tags that we have. Many people were being tricked by them.
Although we might successfully cooked the food with the help of the candle, but we lost our important properties and leads to the punishment. Some of the platoons’ flag being confiscated by the facilitators. For my platoon, our flag also being stolen by the deputy camp commandant, but he returned to me lately and warned me not to do so again, because I’m the only guy who dare to fight over him. He was impressed. With the help of all of the team members, finally we were able to eat our food. Although the food looks not consumable, but we felt happy because we can eat the food that we cooked. We also invited all the facilitators to ea together with us, which had touched their heart.
We also had time for a group discussion. We need to present something that is unseen in the given picture. All of the platoons were doing marvelous jobs for giving many unusual and unique ideas. And we also go to the village to help the villagers cleaning their house compound. As a reward, they asked us to have a tea with them, sharing the experiences and many things.
At last day, we were going to jungle trekking. We don’t even have a rest and just go trekking in the midnight. That was a unforgettable memory. We can feel the beautiful world that the GOD had created and gave us for free. But, us, as human doing many things unsustainable, leading this world to destroy. All of us dirty because of the mud. The road was slippery and many of us felt. Then, we sing in the jungle and lied on the floor and feel the beauty of the nature. Some of our friends lied in the bull’s shit. I wonder how they going to wash their clothes.
At last, the last day came. All of us were excited because we going to finish this camp. As usual, we had the exercise and had competition among the company. Then, we returned all the things that we were asked to protect. The camp commandant has a speech to us. She was impressed of this badge student because when we doing the presentation, we were not repeating the points that were given in past 3 camps. She saw the uniqueness inside our body and our mind. No wonder USM chosen us as the USM students. We were praised by them and felt very glad. All of our work did not waste. Then, we had the photo section with the facilitators and going back to our university.
In this camp, I had learnt many things. For instance, leadership. I need to lead my platoon wisely and tried to communicate with them so that I will know what strength we had in our team. This is the most important. I also made many new friends from different races, courses, backgrounds and languages. Luckily we were in Malaysia.
