IB Orientation

IB orientation is a trip that the DP1 eleventh grade students are taken on every year as an introduction to the Diploma program. The purpose of the trip is to interact and collaborate with your classmates whilst in a different environment in order to come together to problem solve, take risks, and learn. For more than 7 years OSC has partnered with Borderlands for the orientation trip. Borderlands has both programs in Sri Lanka as well as Nepal. Borderlands is an outdoor action program that offers many activities such as white water rafting, kayaking, abseiling, hiking, canyoning, and much more. It is located in Kithugala, about 3 hours away from OSC. The camp consists of tents for the visitors to stay in, bathrooms with shower and toilet facilities, and a long house where meals are eaten and where reflections and relaxation times are completed. 

DAY 1

The first day after arriving at the camp we immediately went rafting. It was a very interesting change of atmosphere to be on a river instead of a classroom, and it gave us a chance to be able to show some of our leadership as well as other personal skills to work together to be able to meet all requirements. 

Once we were through all the rapids, we stopped at a spot to have a little fun. Some of the boats were flipped upside down and we all took turns doing flips and jumps, and even slipping and falling off into the river. Great pictures were taken and many memories came out of this experience. After multiple laughs and pictures we set off again to go have lunch. It was an amazing feeling sitting on the rocks looking over the river having lunch with the class. After lunch we hiked up to the canyoning location. After a brief discussion about safety and rules and regulations we were able to enjoy this once in a life time opportunity of various jumps and slides off the naturally formed canyons. Some friends and classmates had fears and were nervous with this specific activity. This gave me a chance to help them and reassure them that they'd regret it if they didn't try it. I then also held their hands as we jumped together making sure they felt comfortable and were able to get over their fears. They thanked me after which was a really great feeling. I feel like we were all able to get through the jumps and slides with so little complications and time wasting that we were even able to run the extended canyon which on the week without walls trip we were not able to complete. This allowed me to get out of my comfort zone as well seeing as I was finally trying new things that I had not done before. With many cuts and bruises and aching butts we hiked back down to the rafts. We calmly made our way back to the camp all jumping out of the boats in the end to float back. This gave me another opportunity to help a classmate that was not particularly comfortable in the river. 
After showering and settling in we made our way to the longhouse to socialize and have dinner. There we got a briefing on The theory of knowledge and Creativity, Action, Service aspects of the IB orientation trip. Socializing gave us a chance to get to know each other more than we already did. We looked at pictures of the day and all hurried to our tents exhausted from the long day and preparing for the adventures to come. 

DAY 2

On the second day we were all dreading the morning run up the mountain, which ended up being cancelled. We left the camp at 7am to make our way to the historic Belilena Cave for our TOK workshop. The 1.5 km hike was nothing but enjoyable. There was singing, games, sprinting, running, and a whole lot of laughs the entire way up. Of course accompanied by the occasional "are we there yet" and "My legs hurt." None the less I certainly enjoyed the hike and got many fun memories out of it. When we reached our destination we spend a little time exploring the cave and reviewing its history. That was followed by a two and a half hour TOK workshop to prepare us for the next two years of trying to understand the basic aspects of knowledge. The workshop was filled with fun collaboration based activities for the class to complete. 
After the TOK session we began another, longer hike to the "water house" where we stopped for lunch and began to prepare for our abseiling adventure. The hike up the rock was very steep and tiring filled with screams due to leeches and many bruises due to falling. Once we reached the top, a storm started brewing which was both terrifying as well as freezing. The students that had gone abseiling before all did really well helping and reassuring those who hadn't and were nervous. No one cried and we were all able to get down the waterfall. This was the last experience of the day and we took the buses back to the camp where we again discussed the day, viewed pictures, prepared for the following day and got a good nights rest. 

DAY 3

On the final day we were awakened by the sound of teachers telling us to prepare for the morning run. After the tiring run we all went into the freezing strong current river and splashed around. This was followed by breakfast. After breakfast we were ready to go into our service aspect of the trip and set off in our assigned groups to interview various local people of different jobs, backgrounds, and positions. We interviewed them on both the community as well as their jobs. The locals were all very welcoming and friendly and the interviews were completed successfully. 

After the interviews we all went back to the camp to discuss what the locals had just shared with us. We had many interesting stories to tell resulting in many inspiring ideas about the community and the way it develops. After the discussion we had a big lunch and went to pack up our things to travel back to Colombo. Over all I would say that this was an amazing trip. I think the entire class of 2015 left with many new learned skills, many memories, and definitely with a lot of satisfaction. 

Photos provided by borderlandssrilanka.blogspot.com