PERKHEMAHAN INTERNASIONAL 2017 (PRINT’17)

10-14 DEC 2017

KEM BINA SEMANGAT, AMPANG PECHAH, 

KUALA KUBU BHARU, SELANGOR

Yes, it’s that time of the year again where I’d gotten myself terrible sunburns on my face and the back of my hands. Yup, it’s the camping trip I’d joined last week, Perkhemahan Internasional (PRINT’17) or you could call it International Camp 2017; a 4 nights and 5 days camping at Kem Bina Semangat, Ampang Pechah, Kuala Kubu Bharu, Selangor. 

This time, it’s a joined camping program between 3 countries; Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to strengthen our brotherhood and to build self-esteem amongst ourselves. This time, the amount of participants this year were three times bigger than the previous camping program with over 4000 participants participated from three countries! 

The Indonesia Pramuka SIT contingents had sent approximately 350 participants while the Thailand contingents had sent almost reaching 90 participants from each country. The remainder of that is the total of Malaysians participants. Isn’t that amazing?! Now, this is what you called a real international camping program.

My team from Kelantan was one of the earliest contingents whom had arrived upon the campsite Kem Bina Semangat. We’d arrived there around 2 o’clock in the morning by bus and started building up our tents around 3 o’clock. Because of that, my school was kind of famous around the campsite as we’d built up our tents in the early morning where the chickens haven’t make the morning call with its ‘cuckoo’. So, it was like if anyone would ask for my school’s name then it would turn to, “Ohh, so it was your school that had built up the tents at 3 o’clock in the morning”. 

Back to the topic, after all the ruckus we’d made in the morning, the sun rose and other contingents from other schools had just arrived at the campsite. We were preparing our breakfast, munching every bite with much care to fill our empty stomachs. Right after that, the kawad(marching) team which I was taking part in were busy as bees preparing ourselves for our competition that will be held in the afternoon session.

 Wearing the number 4 full uniforms were troublesome enough for us to wear yet the heavy shining marching boots were waiting for its turn to mess around with the kawad team. Nevertheless of the hassles to wear that, after much time taken to wear our perfectly ironed uniforms, we headed to the marching platform located at the Asia camp. Just as the first team had just begun their well-organized march pattern, the sky started pouring. We were devastated as we’d ironed our uniforms, not letting an insects to sit on it and then the sky gave away its raindrops on our uniforms. Who wouldn’t be upset when our uniforms had gotten ruined but we couldn’t blame the weather nor nobody else for it. 

It was destiny to rain on that day and I was glad it rained as I do not like to march while the scorching sun is out there blazing its sun rays on my face which literally leads to sunburns, and I do not like sunburns. My team had butterflies in our stomachs as we waited for our turn to be called up. Recalling all the steps in our heads while supervising other teams were the only things that were in our heads at that moment.

The time went fast like lightning and it was finally our turn. We breathed in slowly and said some courageous words to liven up the team’s mood and we’re all set for the competition. Marching in the rain was like the best thing to do in front of the crowds. It looks super awesome as we were marching through the puddles, the boots made a great splosh-splashed and I was kind of proud to be on the team. 

Not caring over the mistakes we’d done during the competition, at the last moments where I’ve told you about all of us marching together in the puddles was like the coolest thing we’d done in front of so many spectators. We made our ways out of the platform and hugged each other for the great teamwork we had built for the past few weeks just for this day.

Couldn’t care less about other stuff, we headed back to our campsite to rest our legs that had been suffering for the past few days as a result of training nonstop. The sun had set and the moon began to shine its radiant light through the dark sky. The stars hanging high above in the sky accompanied us and all of us went to deep sleep real fast  till not even a single soul made a sound through the night as we were swept off our feet after the marching competition. Only the sound of crickets and other insects were there as lullabies to worn out participants.

The cold of the misty air crept slowly on the spine of my back and the shivers of my body woke me up from my deep sleep. It felt like I was in Alaska or somewhere snowing that I felt I could be frozen like a snowman if I’d not woken up myself in the middle of the night escaping the from the shivering atmosphere. 

Went back to the tent and took my jacket out of my bag pack, put it on and continued my deep sleep. The sound of vague uninterpreted talks from people outside of the tent was the alarm clock and it was time to wake up. Some participants were already prepping themselves up for Qiam n Subuh prayer together while others began to cook for breakfast. Before you knew it, the sun rose and it was already the second day.

The second day was the official opening ceremony program as we had to wait for our guests’ arrival from Indonesia and Thailand at the campsite. When I am talking about ceremony, it definitely has a link with the sun. Yes, the scorching sun that stood tall and mighty high in the azure sky was the cause of my great sunburns on my face. Never had I been burned this badly since back in the year of 2014 where I was an active student participated in various kinds of camping activities. Needless to say, it was definitely hot during the ceremony and we had to stand still under the sun. Thank goodness, the secretariats had mercy upon us and let us sit down in the middle of the ceremony. 

Performances from the Indonesian contingent was marvellous and splendid! We were all in awe and gave a massive around of claps over and over towards their efforts. Out of the performances the Pramuka SIT did, the one with the flags was lit! They swung it like in circus with turns and twirls like they are used to doing it every day. It was magnificent! The opening ceremony ended with the director’s speech announcing the official opening of the program.

As soon as the opening ceremony ended, me and friends looked for shelters to avoid the merciless sun emitting rays of burning lights and headed to the food vendors to replenish the thirst in our throats with ice fresh mango drinks. We filled ourselves up with variety of foods that were sold there. Headed back to the campsite and prepared to cook lunch for the hungry kids. The day past by quickly, the sun slips into the horizon and moon was there to take over the place.  

At night, we had a talk from PM Dr Hafizi, a MyCARE spokesperson who gave us a little bit of knowledge on the caused of the collapsed of the great empire at Constantinople. The charisma and sincerity of PM Dr Hafizi could be felt through his talk and it definitely gave us a big impact on how important it is to protect the holy land on earth. He told us the real stories behind the made up histories written in the history books and how the USA tried to fool us with its foolish strategies. The talk ended with a big applause from the audience and we bided farewell to him. We all went back to our tents and ended the day with a good night sleep.

The same thing happened on the third day, vague uninterpreted voices being the alarm clock throughout the program and the normal activities went on like always in the morning except this time, we had an aerobic exercise to woken ourselves up from dreamy land. The aerobic exercise was leaded by the Ikram team and it was super fun! Jumping around, doing weird poses like kids, hearing moans and complains of cramp had me and my friends laughing. 

The next event throughout the day was ziarah mahabbah; the time where we get to visit the Indonesian and Thai’s campsite and say greetings and get to know each other. Meeting them was awesome! We got to know each other’s culture as well as to ask them how it was being in Malaysia. The response was no more other than HOT! Yup, they said they had gotten burned in just a few days here in Malaysia and we couldn’t agree more. We laughed, sang and took pictures as a memento for them when they head back to their countries. 

Oh, not to forget, we even exchanged contact information, gifts and souvenirs with each other as a symbol of gratitude for coming here all the way. Sadly, I had forgotten myself to bring souvenirs with me and could not exchange gifts with them but how nice of them giving out their gifts to us even though they are the guests who should be the one receiving instead.

Night falls and everybody was excited. It was the cultural night where we get to see various traditions around the whole nation plus with the most anticipated performances from Indonesia and Thailand. Everyone was prepared with their unique respective traditional clothes and performances. Not to mention, everyone had their torchlights and self-made lights with the help of plastic bottles prepared to use it in the dark just like you would see in any concerts. We cheered and applauded each other for the great performances despite being exhausted throughout the day and sang along with them.

 It was super fun as we could go all out on the stage as it the spectators were only girls only. Name it, be it dancing, singing, acting and dikir barat, you can tell that we did everything there in one night. No one missed out a single performances and used their torchlights to support each other during the performances. All the cheering and dancing ended before we knew it and we closed the day with a big laugh on our faces.

The sun went up majestically and a new day began.  The cheering from last night still lingered in my mind. Nevertheless, it was finally the second last day camping here. Nothing much really happened on that. It was just the ziarah mahabbah session, went back and forth to the food vendors and I tell its merely useless to count how frequently we went there despite it being located far from the campsite but the urge to eat was stronger than my will to stayed inside the hot oven-like tents.

 So we roamed around the food vendors, met new friends and do other stuffs the whole day. Nothing that had gotten us excited more than we could ever been was tonight, the much anticipated moments and the highlights of this program, the Jom Dakwah concert!

The concert was epic! Stage lights, microphones, instruments, you name it, they were all there. Everyone was as eager as the master of ceremony started emceeing with high spirits and cheerful attitude. The response was full of cheering and screaming with the unity of 4000 participants voices on that night. The Indonesian contingent had sent a dance team and had them performed their respective traditional dance. It was incredible to see them being one with each other as a team was in sync and stayed in rhythm. A round of big applause from the audiences told me that it was a good performance to be appreciated. 

As a matter of a fact, Faizal Tahir’s performance was the main highlight of the concert but unfortunately due to some complicacy he couldn’t make it to the concert. Luckily, they had Daqmie, a Hijrah icon was there to replace his stead. He sang several songs about Islamic matter and it had touch my heart with its powerful messages that were sent through the songs. The duos and the emcee got us cracking up with their silly jokes and liven up the atmosphere. 

There were so much performances that I couldn’t caught up the order of performances. Torchlights was replaced as light sticks made it more like a real concert atmosphere. It looked like sparkly shining stars in the sky and to be among them was awesome. The concert ended with us having good times spent for the day and we went back to our campsites to end our day.

Just after a few moments we laid our heads under the sky, the rain started to fall. This time, it wasn’t a light shower, but pretty heavy shower. Me and my friends were soaking wet as we had to rescued our tents from collapsing due to stagnant water on the tent’s roof. Fixing the tents with raincoats on in the middle of the night was hilarious. When will you get another chance to do this kind of stuff? After the rain had stopped and calmed down, I and my friends treated ourselves after much hard work rescuing the tents with an instant noodle cup. 

Laughing over the situation that occurred just then got me cracking up with noodles in my mouth. I swear it was totally hilarious situation with us being clueless what was happening at that time, rushing over the tents before it collapsed, made a ruckus about it and so on. We joked and laughed all night till all of us fell asleep with raincoats on and it looked like starfishes strayed at the side of the beach.

Time flew by without giving any caution and alas it came, the last day of camping. Of course, feeling of being happy as we get to go back home was definitely there in my heart but the feeling of leaving these precious memories that I had made with my friends was priceless can be felt and I was sad that it ended pretty quickly. We had packed our stuffs and made ourselves out of the campsite and headed to the place where the opening ceremony had executed. 

It was finally the closing ceremony. Yup, same thing happened just like on the opening ceremony. Stood under the scorching sun and what not. We ended the program with group photos and sang the KRSM theme song for one last time. We took photos as much as we could so that we could remember it when we miss it.

While I was on the bus, sitting on the much comfortable seat by the window heading back to my sweet home, I reminisced over the days that were spent there had got me realized that this camping program will be the last time I will be joining as a high schooler and the last time to have such good times with my friends suffering and enjoying every moments of it.

 To be honest, I was reluctant and in dilemma whether I should join this camping program but I was glad that I joined it. If I didn’t take part of this, I would probably regret it for the rest of my life for letting go such good times and memorable events that you won’t get anywhere else in the world. One thing for sure, camping sure is fun when you enjoy good times with your friends going through various kinds of situations together.