|
Jasmine
Jayprakash Metha (XI Sc B) |
| The
heading sure does sound corny but corny it was not!
On 2 March 2003, the students of the grade 11 (current
grade 12) of the Indian High School went on an overnight
camp to Dreamland Aqua Park, Umm-al-quain. The students
were accompanied by Mrs. Usha who is in charge of
the Duke Of Edinburough Program in the Indian High
School, and a number of other teachers who were
keen to visit this famed theme and water park. |
| The
day started innocently enough, with us gathering
at the school grounds at 12:30 A.M. The teachers
were busy keeping account of the students from every
class. There was a tremendous amount of excitement
in the air and a lot of screams going around! Very
soon, we boarded the buses and we were off for the
two hour long journey to Umm-al-quain. On the way,
we sang and played Antakshari. |
| We
finally reached the park at 3:30 P.M. and were assigned
the first task of setting up our tents (the ones
we were "supposed to" sleep in). Groups of 12 were
made and every group was to do a team effort in
putting up the tents. This was a task, which not
many of us had taken up before. At 4:30 P.M., every
tent was up, high and strong (with a LOT of help
from the Dreamland staff and WAY TOO MUCH laughing
and giggling). All of us quickly changed into our
swimwear and there were a number of creams and lotions
going around to keep us protected in the sun. There
were millions of things to do, loads of places to
go to and very little time… |
| We
really freaked out when we saw some of the rides
as they were very daring, but I managed to convince
my friends Aishwarya, Swati and Marisha to accompany
me. We didn't realize it at that time, but the clock
was ticking fast! It soon became dark and at 7 P.M.
we decided to quit the pool area (with a little
push from the teachers, of course). |
| From
somewhere, streams of catchy music could be heard,
urging us towards it. The music was coming from
a large Hi-Fi-system, which had Surround Sound and
was provided to us by the park staff (mighty nice
of them!). This was placed in a small area, surrounded
by tents on all sides and was temporarily converted
into a dance-floor. The music was thumping and the
crowd was going wild…it was almost like an all-girls
discothèque. Not only that, we made our dear principal
Mr. Ashok Kumar and the Headmaster Mr. K.P. Joseph
too groove to the music. |
| Soon
it was dinnertime and the grub was spread out. There
was so much variety that even Jughead would have
popping eyes! There were 4 different types of salads,
coleslaw and breadsticks for starters. The main
course was straight from the grill: veg./chicken
burgers, corn on the cob, chicken tawa etc. This
was followed by a series of delicious desserts including
caramel custard, cake etc. Obviously we were all
over-stuffed and extremely drowsy after this sumptuous
meal. |
| A
campfire was started soon after which brought warmth
to the "cool" night. There were many things to look
forward to, including an extremely entertaining
play (from my class of course!) This wonderful play
(enacted in Hindi) was so hilarious that it literally
woke everyone up! This was followed by a couple
of dances from various classes. The big surprise
for the evening was however, totally unexpected.
The Manager from Dreamland and our Principal announced
that 15 prizes and gift vouchers were to be raffled
off to the students including a night's stay at
a hotel, lunch and dinner at a 5-star, an LG mobile
phone and various others. A wave of anticipation
moved through the crowd as everyone was eagerly
hoping for their own name to be announced. There
were many winners and many a smiling face. |
| Soon
everyone settled down and Ms. Sarah (a member of
the park staff) performed a belly dance. She taught
us how to shake and groove and we taught her some
Traditional Indian steps too. Later, The popular
Ketchup song was played and all of us got up and
the whole crowd danced to it tune. I was very surprised
to see some girls actually going towards the tents
to sleep…after all the night was still young!(This
was at 2 A.M.) |
| After
much begging and pleading, our sports Sirs, Mr.
T. Das and Mr. Ajit decided to enlighten us with
their experiences of the supernatural. This spooked
most of my friends but I'm not the type to get scared
easily. We finally decided to call it a night and
after many games of Dumb charades and Antakshari,
at around 5:30 A.M., we went to sleep. |
| We
were woken up at around 7:30 by the sound of a shrill
whistle, which Mr. Das was blowing and were ordered
to wake up and freshen up. We were taken for a short
walk around the park and were then made to sweat-out
with warm-ups under the careful supervision of Mrs.
Rizvi. During that time the restaurant staff was
preparing our healthy breakfast of an apple, a sandwich
and tea/coffee. |
| The
glorious event came to an end as we were informed
that the buses would soon be leaving and that we
must hurry in packing our bags. We thanked the park-staff
for their warm hospitality and promised them that
we would be back on another bright, sunny day, to
enjoy whatever the best Theme and Water park in
the World had to offer! |
