This weekend was Schoolies weekend for all of the year 12s who just graduated and were ready to party! To them, that meant short skirts, drugs and alcohol, no sleep and big hangovers. To us, the 500+ Christian volunteers in bright green, it meant late nights, loud kids, funny encounters and glow sticks!
A trio of us roadtriped up on friday morning, leaving at 8am with the aim to get there by 9.30, in time for the group meeting... unfortunately, however, we got slightly misdirected (aka lost). We missed the turn off, because i was making conversation to fill silence and the driver was part asleep. Then, when we finally made it into Victor, it took us an hour to find the Lutheran Church - and we rocked up just as the meeting was ending. Oops.
We made it to the house that we were staying in, and settled in. The rest of the day was spent fighting over the remote (the two girls wanted to watch anything other than the cricket; the one guy refused to share the remote), playing games of Scrabble (did you know that 'Qi' is a word allowable by the Scrabble-dictionary?) and attempting to snooze. Admittedly, we were a tad bored. Which, inevitably, resulted in hysterical laughter about practically nothing...
Around 6 we made some dinner: people from church had sent us with containers full of meals - stew, soup, chicken, curry, pasta... We just heated stuff up at mealtimes and ate junk food in between... After tea, we headed down to the buses. For the next seven or so hours, we rode the buses. The SouthAfrican and i were one team. Equiped with glowsticks galore and boundless energy, we were good to go. Thankfully, we only needed to do one run to Goolwa and back (which takes over an hour). The girls on that bus were hilarious - we had sing-alongs all the way back into Victor. For the rest of the time, we were on the Encounter Bay run (half the time, woo!). We talked to a bunch of interesting kids, who thought the Green Team were pretty awesome - and the fact that we gave out glowsticks just made us even cooler. Lots of them asked how much we got paid, and the looks on their faces when we told them we were volunteers, that we actually paid to be there, were classics. It was pretty fun, just chilling with the kids, getting to know them. Some were on the bus more than once, so they always recognised us and were super friendly. LittleM hung out with us for awhile, and rode a few laps on our bus to chat. We didn't get much of a break, and by half two, i was falling asleep on my feet/seat. Finally, the woman in charge said the Malvern team (the three of us who were left, our of five) could go home. The night was so unbelievably cold that we could hardly breathe. Despite my warm, green hoodie (the most comfortable jumper in the world!!), i was numb. The air burnt out lungs as we raced back to the car. We were in bed by half three - absolutely exhausted.
We slept until lunch the next day, then a few of us watched the movie Gabriel. It was really good - about the Arc Angels and Satan's minions come to earth in human form to do battle against each other to take over. What we see is Gabriel's battle. He is the last of the fallen and the darkness is almost overpowering the world. His battle was typically epic, drama-filled and the ending had a twist (that i foresaw, but only because i'm awesome) that had me on the edge of my seat. Very cool movie.
Afterwards, we had a service of sorts at the church (we got lost again on the way, but this time it most definately was NOT my fault). The usual singing from the cute band leader, some stories from the night before and a sermon from a guy who's started a new church somewhere in Adelaide. He started out dressed as a 'homey', but once he removed that ridiculous garb and started talking about how we should work with the kids while being 'clothed in christ', i was happy to listen. He wasn't half bad! We filmed a promotional Green-Team ad, before racing home to gulp down some tea... even though we'd just eaten lunch!
That night started with a bus-team meeting. After the meeting, as we bounced out of the building, one of the girls from my team accidentally tripped me and i went flying. The rest of our team stood around in fits of hysterics, while members of the other teams worriedly asked if i was ok (seeing as i was abandoned on the ground...). When i stood up and brushed it aside, saying that 'it happens all the time', it was apparently the funniest thing ever because our team didn't stop laughing about it for the rest of the night.
We split into teams again - this time i was with Mr.Music and we spent another 8hrs riding the bus up and back. It wasn't quite as interesting as the night before, as kids talked rowdily among themselves rather than to us. I had a few good convos though. And a couple of kids decided that they knew me from somewhere, and it took awhile to get the message across. I hung out with LittleM, caught up with Ray (who was volunteering with another church) and escorted a locked-out girl into her hotel. We also took pity on the hundreds of girls who were frozen in their short shorts and tank tops - half of whom ended up wrapped in first aid space blankets. Poor, stupid kids. I survived with a little more energy until the end of the night - though the last fifteen minutes standing out in the cold were pretty tough. I was frozen through before we got the word that we could leave and jumped for joy all the way to the car! Oh - and i scored an awesome pirate's sword from one of the kids, woot! When we got home, we were too tired to sleep, so spent an hour in absolute hysterics for no real reason.
We all slept until lunch again, had a yummy brunch and i studied (damned last exam) until it was time to make the return trip. Which we did, without much incident... except for a small argument or two. Oops. Damned emotional nature getting me in trouble everywhere. We made it through church without falling asleep (possibly more on the sermon later) and got Happy Meals for tea... beause while the schoolies-portion of the weekend had been good, other parts had been very difficult. Unfortunately, Maccas failed to help too much! So now it was back to the study horse.
It was a tiring, but interesting weekend. And i scored an awesome hoodie, woot!! I want to do it again next year. I think the kids really appreciate us being there! Five star reccomendation.
A trio of us roadtriped up on friday morning, leaving at 8am with the aim to get there by 9.30, in time for the group meeting... unfortunately, however, we got slightly misdirected (aka lost). We missed the turn off, because i was making conversation to fill silence and the driver was part asleep. Then, when we finally made it into Victor, it took us an hour to find the Lutheran Church - and we rocked up just as the meeting was ending. Oops.
We made it to the house that we were staying in, and settled in. The rest of the day was spent fighting over the remote (the two girls wanted to watch anything other than the cricket; the one guy refused to share the remote), playing games of Scrabble (did you know that 'Qi' is a word allowable by the Scrabble-dictionary?) and attempting to snooze. Admittedly, we were a tad bored. Which, inevitably, resulted in hysterical laughter about practically nothing...
Around 6 we made some dinner: people from church had sent us with containers full of meals - stew, soup, chicken, curry, pasta... We just heated stuff up at mealtimes and ate junk food in between... After tea, we headed down to the buses. For the next seven or so hours, we rode the buses. The SouthAfrican and i were one team. Equiped with glowsticks galore and boundless energy, we were good to go. Thankfully, we only needed to do one run to Goolwa and back (which takes over an hour). The girls on that bus were hilarious - we had sing-alongs all the way back into Victor. For the rest of the time, we were on the Encounter Bay run (half the time, woo!). We talked to a bunch of interesting kids, who thought the Green Team were pretty awesome - and the fact that we gave out glowsticks just made us even cooler. Lots of them asked how much we got paid, and the looks on their faces when we told them we were volunteers, that we actually paid to be there, were classics. It was pretty fun, just chilling with the kids, getting to know them. Some were on the bus more than once, so they always recognised us and were super friendly. LittleM hung out with us for awhile, and rode a few laps on our bus to chat. We didn't get much of a break, and by half two, i was falling asleep on my feet/seat. Finally, the woman in charge said the Malvern team (the three of us who were left, our of five) could go home. The night was so unbelievably cold that we could hardly breathe. Despite my warm, green hoodie (the most comfortable jumper in the world!!), i was numb. The air burnt out lungs as we raced back to the car. We were in bed by half three - absolutely exhausted.
We slept until lunch the next day, then a few of us watched the movie Gabriel. It was really good - about the Arc Angels and Satan's minions come to earth in human form to do battle against each other to take over. What we see is Gabriel's battle. He is the last of the fallen and the darkness is almost overpowering the world. His battle was typically epic, drama-filled and the ending had a twist (that i foresaw, but only because i'm awesome) that had me on the edge of my seat. Very cool movie.
Afterwards, we had a service of sorts at the church (we got lost again on the way, but this time it most definately was NOT my fault). The usual singing from the cute band leader, some stories from the night before and a sermon from a guy who's started a new church somewhere in Adelaide. He started out dressed as a 'homey', but once he removed that ridiculous garb and started talking about how we should work with the kids while being 'clothed in christ', i was happy to listen. He wasn't half bad! We filmed a promotional Green-Team ad, before racing home to gulp down some tea... even though we'd just eaten lunch!
That night started with a bus-team meeting. After the meeting, as we bounced out of the building, one of the girls from my team accidentally tripped me and i went flying. The rest of our team stood around in fits of hysterics, while members of the other teams worriedly asked if i was ok (seeing as i was abandoned on the ground...). When i stood up and brushed it aside, saying that 'it happens all the time', it was apparently the funniest thing ever because our team didn't stop laughing about it for the rest of the night.
We split into teams again - this time i was with Mr.Music and we spent another 8hrs riding the bus up and back. It wasn't quite as interesting as the night before, as kids talked rowdily among themselves rather than to us. I had a few good convos though. And a couple of kids decided that they knew me from somewhere, and it took awhile to get the message across. I hung out with LittleM, caught up with Ray (who was volunteering with another church) and escorted a locked-out girl into her hotel. We also took pity on the hundreds of girls who were frozen in their short shorts and tank tops - half of whom ended up wrapped in first aid space blankets. Poor, stupid kids. I survived with a little more energy until the end of the night - though the last fifteen minutes standing out in the cold were pretty tough. I was frozen through before we got the word that we could leave and jumped for joy all the way to the car! Oh - and i scored an awesome pirate's sword from one of the kids, woot! When we got home, we were too tired to sleep, so spent an hour in absolute hysterics for no real reason.
We all slept until lunch again, had a yummy brunch and i studied (damned last exam) until it was time to make the return trip. Which we did, without much incident... except for a small argument or two. Oops. Damned emotional nature getting me in trouble everywhere. We made it through church without falling asleep (possibly more on the sermon later) and got Happy Meals for tea... beause while the schoolies-portion of the weekend had been good, other parts had been very difficult. Unfortunately, Maccas failed to help too much! So now it was back to the study horse.
It was a tiring, but interesting weekend. And i scored an awesome hoodie, woot!! I want to do it again next year. I think the kids really appreciate us being there! Five star reccomendation.
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