Outdoor leadership exploration is a learning project based on how to survive and lead yourself and others in the outdoor such as finding food, live without shower, uses natural bathroom and how can you rescue people in the emergency . When we started this exploration, we’ve discussed about Nature, What is Nature? And what does nature mean to us personally? After I have discussed about this I understood that there’s no right or wrong answer of what nature really mean and nature doesn’t have only one meaning, there are many different meanings of nature from the different people perspective. Also, I haven’t noticed or observe much about nature or even don’t know its real definition but I knew more and understand deeper than it really meaningful to me and now I can give my own meaning for it.
In addition, we learned about Risk Management and risk management and assessment. In order to manage the risks, we have to do 4 steps such as identify the risk, assess the risk, control the risk and review or reflect the risk. Also, rescuing people in emergency such as way to keep them alive, checking for heartbeat, blowing air into the patient mouth and especially doing the chess compression. After learning all of these basic lessons, We took two trips, one is small trip and one more is big trip. For the small trip, we had an overnight trip to Kirirom national park in Kampong Speu. Along the way, at the national park, I noticed that there are many pine trees, which are so straight and they grow in a pattern which look beautiful. We also met a woman riding her motorbike with a lot of stuff such as rice, fish, ices and she couldn’t handle it because it’s too much, so some of us get off the bus to help her and she seem very happy. When we arrived, we walk to the waterfall for 6km and I was tired and carried a heavy backpack which hurt my shoulder but I tried so hard and made it to the waterfall because of the nice view along the way which motivated to continue walking. We camp at the Srah Srang lake where there are nice scenery and weather with all nature surrounded. There are some gazebos along the lake and it’s a relaxing place. When it’s time to cook, we had a problem with the stove which is not working, however we find an alternative way which is creating fire, some of us was trying to find more sticks and some was making fire, so we collaborate with each other so well and luckily we found an old stove under the gazebo near our camp place so we used it as our stove and this is also a good lesson for me and others too because if we don’t have something, we can always use things surround us and especially nature.
For the big trip, we went to Mondulkiri for four days and 3 nights . We did a lot of activities such as trying to create fire without using the lighter, cook food by ourselves, did many hiking to different places like waterfall, practice rescue people when there is emergency and making campfire at night.
Trekking Route: One of the trekking route to the waterfall is about 4 km and it’s on the mountain, so we had to walk up and down in the forest and that’s was very slippery. If you don’t be careful , you will be like our friends that has injuries and slide down. It was very hard for me , however i tried all my best not to get any injuries. Also, along the way there are many cool plants that had caught my attention.
Got to see an Elephant: I was very excited to see an elephant at the waterfall and it’s the only elephant that is left because others were died. I’ve seen elephants many times already, but this was my first time touching it and took photo with it and I was very happy while staying with it.