As a member of the club, I went for several hikes and camps. Well, I didn't enjoy the hikes, for I found them gruelling. But the camps were fun, especially the teasing we did and the ditties we sang as we gambolled around campfires.
One tease a club member made on a leader stands out in my memory. He teased him this way in Sheng: "You see the grandma of [Commando X] - she grew thin and thinner and thinner and thinner till she disappeared!"
So much did I enjoy Survival camps that I wanted to become a club leader. But I gave up on that ambition, a wise decision as I wouldn't have withstood the school firefighting squad endurance tests that Survival leaders were expected to go through.
But all was not lost because when I looked back on my Survival days, I distilled the following leadership habits I will apply in my future family, God willing:
- Rising early
- Being physically fit
- Creating time for family fun
- Ensuring everybody in the family has a meal
- Keeping children from noticing what my wife and I do in the bedroom
Perhaps inspired by those memories, I wanted to memorize the Survival mission statement. I went to Starehe, only to find the Survival clubroom had been relocated from the cottage we used in my time to a small room partitioned within an old classroom.
When I informed Ken Ogutu, one of the 2002 Survival leaders, about the change, he told me they used to call the Survival clubroom the Bush Embassy, a name that amused me since it implies one had to get a visa from the clubroom before going to the bush.
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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed this story, you might also enjoy "Thuita's 1st Law of Human Nature".
