Morning light trickles through the trees and spills over the meadow, and birdsong greets you as you emerge from your tent and brave the frigid morning to head to breakfast through the tall grass. Such was our campsite (and week) in Rand, challenging and at times miserable, but worth braving the difficulties because of the beauty and understanding that resulted from our trials. We opened some wounds and let ourselves be vulnerable; by the week's end, we came together and drew up a contract that would help us live and work with one another with greater compassion, empathy, and understanding. One cannot appreciate the good or enjoy life without some hardship and suffering. It is a hard lesson to learn, but an invaluable one that has helped our crew to grow.
While camp life was a little harder than we were used to, the project we worked on was surprisingly relaxed. This was our first week away from crosscutting though, so we learned new skills and used new tools for the first time. The large-scale objective was constructing a turnpike, which involved digging trenches along the sides of the trail into which we fit logs, then laying down a fabric over the dirt and pouring and packing in gravel to create an elevated section of trail protected from the surrounding flood-prone area. Secondarily, we dug out and tidied up water bars - drainage canals running off the side of the trail "armored" by a log or rocks to aid water flow - and completed other trail maintenance tasks.
Jon, our project sponsor, did some thought-provoking seeds with us: there was gauging our environmental impact by breaking branches of different sizes off a large stick that was passed around and explaining our small-or-large impacts, and ethics cards, where we rated one of three negative actions as the worst based on our personal experiences or knowledge and shared our perspective with the group.
One night toward the end of the week, as part of our venting, we engaged in our first ever sock wrestling match - essentially it's identical to regular wrestling, but to objective is to grab the sock tucked into your opponent's shoe and prevent them from taking your sock. We definitely exposed our wild side that night, but it's all a part of the experience of getting to know one another as we embark on this journey together.
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