Yesyes, here it is, the Ardennes report. In case I haven’t been clear: I went on an internship with a communications trainer, to be an instructor on this trainer, which would take place in the French Ardennes for second-year bachelor’s students in Management, Economy & Law. The idea is that they’d learn more about working together & cooperation and communication (amongst each other, but also question techniques). They certainly did, as did I, I think.
It was quite the experience and I’m glad I’ve done it, but I don’t think I’ll do it again.
And here’s why… under the link
Pictures will follow once I got my phone back!

Ardennes – 5-11 April, 2008

Saturday
We woke up early, at 7 am or something. I ran around for a bit to get my stuff ready and then noticed I had about an hour to spare, so we sat down to watch the season finale of Torchwood (how depressing!!) and then it was time for Ol to bring me to Outdoor Valley because that was the assembly point from where all the trainers & instructors would go to the Ardennes. I had to be there at 9am and we were plenty early. It was raining, and there was no one there to greet me. I was told to wait for S. While I waited I met one of the other instructors (FL), also a first-timer like me, and Olli kept me company. S arrived at 9.30, said hi, and had to arrange stuff so he kept me waiting some more. At 10.30 I went to check on them and then it was time to go. I said goodbye to Olli (*sniffle*) and climbed in the minivan+trailer with instructor T (a ski teacher, very hot guy and one of the nicer guys, too!), who was going to be my travel buddy. We loaded stuff into the trucks & vans, I met some more people who were too busy to take much notice of me, and I tried to help as much as possible.
At noon we left for the Ardennes. T and I hit it off great. It stopped raining for a while & we had a pleasant trip until the border with Belgium, where the van got a flat tire (!). There was a spare tire though so T was able to replace it and we were back on our way in the next twenty minutes or so. It rained off and on the whole trip so we arrived at 5.30pm-ish at a very wet Haulmé camping, just over the border with France. We had enough time to set up camp before the rains continued so that was nice. After a late dinner we wall went to our tents and I went to sleep at 10.30pm or something. I was physically exhausted from all the hauling and tugging and dragging stuff, but mentally I wasn’t all that tired. My airmattress didn’t lie too comfortably, so I didn’t sleep very well the first night. I started a trend that would continue the whole week: waking up at semi-hourly intervals before I could sleep on.

Sunday
I woke up groggy at 9am to a rainy world. I’d packed against the rain and cold and this is where I started to become grateful for my thermo underwear. Sunday was mostly spent feeling a bit useless from not really knowing what to do in a team that’s been doing this for years. I did help though & got to know people. P and R were very nice, as was L. There were bouts of rain during which we took shelter under the tents… even bits where it was snowing wetly. Fucking cold!!
The students arrived by bus at 7pm when the sun was thankfully shining for a bit. Two of the teachers from the HHS had come along as well, and I’d already hit it off earlier with teacher M, who is my age. I was glad she was there, too! We gave them dinner & welcome and by then it was pretty much bedtime already. Another ritual from there on was to go to the bath house before bedtime to warm up, because the heater was working enthusiastically there. Once you’d get inside to pee or brush your teeth you immediately started to glow with warmth. The trick was to get changed into your nightwear in the bath house, generate body heat, and then run to your tent (200m away) and try to fall asleep before you got too cold. I generally wore my thermo underwear (leggings & shirt), ski socks, my pyjama pants, and either a hoodie or a sweater – and I had my warm winter coat and my fleece hoody draped over my sleeping bag. That was just about enough. I fell asleep quickly, and slept better than the night before (which might have had something to do with the gluhwein we made, haha!). The sound of rain on a tent has always been soothing to me.

Monday
My alarm beeped at 6.15 and the first thing I noticed was that it was fucking cold outside of my sleeping bag. While getting dressed (still in my sleeping bag) I noticed that my tent was soaking through at some spots. The inner tent and outer tent were sticking together, and that usually meant leaks. “Crap,” I thought, and flicked against the tentsheet to try and let it go of the outer tent. But that’s when I heard something fall with a ‘blob’ and that’s when I realized it wasn’t water, it was SNOW!
I immediately opened my tent and fell in a fit of laughter. There was half an inch of snow in the grass. It was gorgeous, but hilarious at the same time. I think the first time I shouted was “You have GOT to be kidding me!”. I took pictures and laughed about it. The students were less amused. They had been cold last night, very cold in places where their sleeping bags weren’t warm enough. Some had only sneakers to walk in the mud and had no raincoats. How stupid can you be? One guy whined how he was supposed to know the weather would be this bad, he wasn’t a hardcore camper like me. I told him I wasn’t a hardcore camper either, but that I’d checked the fucking weather forecasts. We did help the students, though – there were spare sleeping bags for exactly this reason.
Then the training began. I was one of the instructors at the ‘Walking A’ exercise together with R (who I didn’t really like that much); we had to ensure the safety of the students while they performed the exercises/games: raft building (which was fun in this icy cold :S), the flying triangle, the spider web, tightrope walking, etc. Now that the students (+ M.) were here I had a lot more fun, despite the rain/snow storms in the morning. Late afternoon it got better, and the evening was cloudless & freezing. More thank GOD for thermo underwear and gluhwein before bed!

Tuesday
Was perhaps the best day of the bunch. There was frost in the morning though and my toes were completely frozen in my army boots. I opted to go hiking together with the student team that I liked best, which consisted of a pretty steep climb up a hill. We had lots of fun during the hike, even though it was pretty heavy. The sun broke through though, and it even got pretty damn warm (enough to walk around in my sweater instead of the gazillion layers I was wearing). We climbed to Roc La Tour which had a gorgeous view that was worth the murdering climb (pictures will follow once I have my phone back).
After lunch I got planted in the forest to play guard post to make sure wandering/hiking students wouldn’t get lost. It got cloudy by that point but not cold & I had my mp3 player with me, so I listened to loud In Flames most of the time. I was pretty comfy. From there on I went to the second camping place with the campfire (and not much else – no sanitary place, no showers or toilets, just tents). Had dinner, sat at the campfire, joked around with the students, and went back to the camping by car. Had the BEST SHOWER EVER (since I was aching pretty much everywhere and my feet were declaring war on me) & went to bed pretty content.

Wednesday
I sat guard at camp at 7 in the morning, while the rest of the instructors went up the mountain to have breakfast with the students. I decided to take it easy, since I was still pretty much fucked up from that damn hike. The students hiked back to camp, packed up their stuff, and waited for the bus to arrive so they could be taken back home at 2 pm. It was announced that ‘my’ team F turned in 2nd in the competition, losing out by one point. Meh. It was strange to let go of this group once the bus arrived. They (+M & I of the HHS) were all to happy to go home, and I had to stay behind.
But then the new batch of students arrived. The group was nice enough, but the program we did felt as routine now, and I didn’t feel as connected. Still we had a fun day, and I hung out with team E during the exercises mostly. By now I was a fullblown instructor, taking care of the Walking A exercise by myself. There was one team totally unmotivated so they didn’t get to eat dinner until 10pm, when they’d finished their exercises. They had to build a raft in the twilight, and later pretty much in the dark – they thought they could get away with slacking, but they couldn’t Dinner was pretty late because of it, 9pm or something. So not long after the students turned up & had their dinner and we cleaned up, it was time for bed.

Thursday
The morning was hard on me. I’d slept badly (VERY weird dreams of instructor S being drunk and coming into my tent & wanting to make out with me) and I woke up shivering. It was bloody cold. The group had to do the Roc la Tour hike now, but instead of hiking I went up by car with the instructors. I was majorly homesick for a while there, but once I was with the students again at Roc la Tour (I was waiting to greet them with Trainer FR) and the sun broke through I felt a *lot* better.
I got to sit as guard post again in the forest. In contrary to last time, this time the sun was shining and the map had been detailed out, so the students found their way without me a lot better. I promptly fell asleep sitting against a tree, blissfully snoozing for an hour. Oops… sleeping on guard duty. Bad Lannie! There was no problem though. The hiking programme went without a hitch and soon enough I got the message to come to camp. I hiked the first bit on my own (I knew the way now) and had a lovely half hour walking on my own through the gorgeous forest and the hill views with In Flames on my mp3 player. Beautiful moment. I felt so happy!
The campfire was a lot of fun, too. I connected a bit more with the students and had a good time.

Friday
I sat guard again at camp while the rain was PISSING down. Most of the student tents and the communal tent had been torn down the day before already, so I sat in the cooking tent mostly dozing off. I waited for the others to return and watched the rain fall. When the instructors returned by car, they asked me to sit guardpost in the village of Thilay to sit as a signpost and scribble down their arrival times (which was important for the competition). I hiked back to camp with the last group to reach me, which was also a lot of fun. From there on the weather turned surprisingly gorgeous. The hike was fun, and the rest of the exercises that afternoon went well. I broke down my own tent, and supervised some activities, and then it was time to break down the rest of the camp, help a bit with dinner, and then it was time to go. Finishing off was a bit of mixed feelings. I had a great time with all the students, but the supervisers/trainers not so much, to be honest. They were polite enough, but I felt as if I was back at the Rotterdam project again; the ‘you’re not one of us’ feeling. It really sucks. Thankfully the HHS tutors and the students were awesome, so I managed to enjoy myself a lot. I came to love this group of students as well, and it was strange once again to say goodbye… but this time, I knew I was leaving too. And GOD was I ready to go home by that point!!
I hitched a ride with A, one of the HHS tutors who’d come with the students, and luxuriously was dropped off home. I was just stupid enough to drop my phone in his car, but he’s found my phone so I can pick it up tomorrow.

And you won’t believe how much I appreciated the warm apartment, my bed, Olli and the toilet by that point. (not in that order btw!)

Filed under: Journal, Work