Yijie's reflection

Yesterday, though not many attended the overseas outreach meeting, we really had a lot of fun. All of us were divided into 2 groups.

Before the first official activity, we had to write a letter to ourselves stating the things that we hope to achieve at the end of the trip. I really hope that after the trip, as we look back something that we had written 5 months ago, we can really feel a sense of satisfaction.

The first activity was to construct a bridge which was supposed to meet the minimum requirement of the length and height of a study bench. Next, it would have to withstand the weight of a filled 500ml bottle for 10 seconds. It seemed quite an impossible task at first as we were only provided with newspaper and a roll of scotch tape. However, as we proceed on, things got easier when we pictured the end product in our head and started working on it. As materials that we had were diminishing, we did small changes here and there and even added some creative juices into our bridge.

The next bonding activity was to cook up a lunch for our team mates as well as the teachers. The budget for each group was $7. In the end, the 2 groups decided to merge and we proceeded on to buy our required stuffs at the market opposite the school. We had so much fun bargaining, frying and cooking up the lunch all by ourselves.

Other than having fun, what I think the teachers wanted us to learn is to make full use of the resources that we had and try to think out of the box. The conditions in Yunnan will be similar-with limited resources. Thus, we need to learn how to make use of the circumstances and get what we want.

The sharing session at the very last put me into thinking. Yes, it may seem that the 10 of us seem united and bonded but there are still 17 members who are not able to attend. We really need to bring them in, get them to join in as well so that the 27 of us can really benefit what the teachers had planned for us.

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