AISD - First Day at Borderlands

Today's blog post is written by: Irmana Monem and Maxwell Mangus.

No clocks to wake us up at 6:30 in the morning and yet we wake up at exactly that time. How? The birds and the ever flowing noise of the river act as our alarm clock. The first activity we did after quickly brushing our teeth and washing our face was a stressful bonding activity called “Magic stick”. All 28 of us were to put down a stick using only our index fingers. Sound simple? Well, it’s not. Unless you have all the 6 essentials of team work that we obviously didn’t. We took half an hour just to put a stick down. It was frustrating and depressing at the same time. Frustrating because it’s only a stick we are to put down and depressing because none of us could do it. It’s later we realized that it wasn’t only one of us who could do it. All the 28 people had to do it together. It was that first activity that the crew at Borderlands introduced us to that helped us realize the importance of teamwork and its essentials. All we need is trust, leadership, communication, coordination, focus and planning. We didn’t realize then that these things would be tested in various forms throughout the day. 

After our team building activities, we had a hearty lunch and went for a so-called 45 minute hike which seemed to take up all of our energy. The occasional cool dips in the river on a hot and humid day along the way were relaxing and rejuvenating.  We completed the hike as a team, using coordination, trust in each other, exceptional leadership skills and focus. But our adventure didn’t end there. We met up with all the other teams in a canyon that the hike lead to. We were to apply all those skills we acquired at the beginning of the day for a fun adventure of canyoning. Most of us had never done canyoning before but we trusted the exceptional team of Borderlands to help us through it. There were few minor casualties (editor’s note: the biggest injury is a bruised knee) but the most of us had a blast. The casualties were well looked after by the skilled team of Borderlands. 

Apart from the adventure side of our day, we experienced some memories that we will all cherish for a very long time. We’ve seen the scenic beauty and humbleness of Kithulgala and its inhabitants and made a perfect beginning to a trip to remember.