HOMONID HOUSE AT MAROPENG

At first, I was a bit sceptical of going to stay at a popular World Heritage Site (The Cradle of Humankind) instead of a proper camp like we had been going to for the past two years, but my thoughts were put at the very darkest recess of my brain once I got to the hall and saw my friends again after such a long time. We started chatting right away and stayed in the hall for about an hour. One of my best friends, Agathe, gave me this sparkly hairband all the way from sunny Chile, where she had spent her summer. Finally, after a long, tedious, yet fun wait, we finally left on the bus with our teachers and friends. My class’ girls went with two other classes and my class’ boys went with the other two classes. On the way to camp, I sat with my friends Agathe and Leora and a new girl in my class, Maria. She’s from Greece and now a good friend of mine! The bus ride was super-long but not boring since we were getting to know Maria and learning a bit about Greece at the same time.

 We got to Maropeng and were disheartened by the sight of three large buildings, but when we got the dining hall, a medium-sized room that opened onto a large green, grassy lawn and two larger buildings we were thankful because it wasn’t as small as it had seemed. We then got sent to the dorms. Finding out that the big building on the right enclosed two large cabins and one big bathroom for the girls and the building on the left the same for the boys was a relief because we all were wondering what the buildings were for.

 I grabbed a bunk bed for me and Agathe with me on the top bed and Agathe on the bottom one. Straight across from me was Maria. After we unpacked our pillows and popped them on our beds, we ran back to the dining room and sat down at our table, eager to hear what was in store for us next. After a scrumptious lunch, we walked down to the Maropeng Visitors Centre for the grand tour. The highlights of the tour were the ‘Elemental Boat Ride’ in which all the five elements: fire, water, earth, ice and air are incorporated into one long boat ride with special effects such as: fake snow in the ‘ice’ themed portion, the sound of wind in the ‘air’ themed portion and warm air in the ‘fire’ themed portion. The other highlight was the swirling ‘Vortex’ tunnel where it has amazing star-like lights on its circular walls. The walls move as well so its feels like you’re moving with them and you get dizzy.

After the tour, we went back to camp and enjoyed some ice-breaking activities with our new counsellors, Shrek, Donkey, Andy, K and KG. After dinner, we went out at night to do this night activity where we were put in teams of about 20 children, then we chose a leader within the group (Alande was our leader). Everyone except the leader was blindfolded and Alande had to lead us around an obstacle course through the trees successfully. It was easy and we completed it quickly.

After the obstacle course, we were sent to our dorms to shower, brush our teeth then sleep.

Tired as I was from getting next to no sleep the previous night, I was cruelly woken up by the sounds of girls in my cabin loudly ‘whispering’.

Having had a satisfying breakfast, we got into our groups again and dressed according to our group’s assigned morning activity. For us, it was Problem-Solving so we had to wear ‘comfortable clothes, sunscreen and a hat’. Our first problem-solving activity included a tube, a lot of string, and a ball with a transportation problem. Our mission: to get the ball safely from point A to B. Our Method: pulling on the strings until the tube was straight up on the ground and placing the ball on top. It was mainly teamwork that got us through it but it was fun.   

Our next activity included: eight hoola hoops and the numbers 1-8 printed out on paper.

Our Mission:

To place all the eight numbers in hoops, without 1 touching 2 and 3 touching 2 or 4 and so on.

Our next activity included: a long tube with holes inside it, a ping pong ball with large holes in it, one large bucket, and a smaller bucket with tiny holes through which the water could escape.

Our mission: to get the golf ball at the bottom of the tube to the top by having the tallest person in the group (AKA: meJ) pour the water from the small bucket into the tube at the top and, accidentally, all over myself and my group! We then changed into our swimming costumes because we were getting too wet. After getting quite wet, I finally poured enough water into the tube that I could feel the ping pong ball at the top.

Our next activity included: a lot of bricks, and our imagination.

Our mission: To cross the treacherous Amazon River (the small stretch of grass outside our cabins) and avoid falling into the ‘water’ and being eaten up the ‘alligators’ and ‘piranhas’ (some of my group mates who were fooling around and wriggling on the grass).

Our method: hopping on the wooden bricks to the other side. Eventually, I was the ‘leader’ who started putting down the bricks and we won and completed the crossing of the ‘treacherous’ ‘Amazon River’ when I was the leader.

Luckily, the counselors had just blown up the water slide and I was in my swimming costume already! Me and my friends ran to the slide and had lots of fun.

After we had eaten a delicious lunch, our groups again got together for the last two activities of the day. For our group, they were: the bush hike and the scavenger hunt.

Our next activity was the bush hike. Long story short: compasses, hot sun, thorns, navigating and funny moments. We never completed it because only me, Agathe and four other boys actually did any of the work and the other 16 people? Nope, nothing, no action!!!

Our next (and last) activity was the scavenger hunt around the Maropeng Visitor Centre was fun and we ran around a lot.

At night, once we got back from the activities and after dinner, Drum Café came to us!!!! J Drum Café is a group of people that teach us how to drum. We all got our own drums and we spent about an hour playing the drums and making a lot of noise. That was one of the best activities at Maropeng. After Drum Café, we got some free time to play before it was time to sleep. While we were playing, somebody said that someone had broken a window! Me and my friends went straight to the boys’ cabins because we knew none of the girls’ cabins’ windows were broken. Once we got there, a small crowd had gathered and everybody was saying Matthew or Omar, the two biggest trouble-makers in our grade had punched a hole in the window! I saw the window and there were cracks all over and there were large pieces of cracked glass on the floor. We went to sleep thinking about how whoever did it had major anger management problems.

At breakfast the next (and last) day of camp, Matthew told us what had happened: he had been pranking Omar from outside the window, then Omar had come running to the window, then he had tripped over somebody’s bag and fallen into the window. We also saw Omar’s bandage.

It was the last day and everyone packed their bags and got ready to go to the Sterkfontien Caves, then after a quick tour of the caves, going home.

At the Caves, we slowly went to the entrance and got into the caves. We had to walk down 60 meters down by stairs to the caves. It was 16degrees Celsius down there so it was freezing. We went to the Imaginary Chamber where if you have a good imagination, you can see rock formations in the shapes of three men, a mother holding her baby, carrots, seaweed, and the best of all, a gigantic elephant right in the middle of the chamber. 

We also visited the underground lake that goes on for 100km. Apparently, three university divers had tried to explore the lake, but only two came back. The other diver’s body had been found six months later. At the end of the cave, there was a statue of Dr. Robert Broom who had found the famous female fossil of Mrs. Ples and we could either touch his hand for wisdom, or his hand for luck, but if we touched both, we would be greedy. I touched his hand, since if you are clever, you can create your own luck, but if you are only lucky, you can’t make your own wisdom.

On the way home, we stopped at this place called the Tin Can Alley for lunch and ice cream, and we then went back to school, where our parents would be waiting to take us back home.

And that was my Grade 6 Tour! Can’t wait for next year.

www.maropeng.co.za