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Outward Bound - my nightmare experience 

11/20/2016

1 Comment

 
Long ramble ahead. I had a nightmare last night and woke up a little angry. What about? ... Outward Bound. Outward Bound is a out door survival program started by a German Fellow many years ago. It teaches hard learned life lessons and survival skills to youth. Unfortunately my experience with them was a nightmare. 

I looked up "Outward Bound cruelty” on Google curious to see if I could find anyone with a similar experience to my own - interestingly quite a bit came up... 

THIS POST SHARES MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES WITH OUTWARD BOUND.

My experience with Outward Bound was 17 years ago. At that time, I was a pretty normal teenage girl with regular hormonal mood swings, and an enormous appetite for chocolate. Other than that I was one of those artsy kids - never really partied, played soccer, danced, crafted, painted, and read a lot. 
  • It was my summer holiday just before high school was starting - and my parents put me in a 21 day survival camp. It came out sounding like a mix of camp and fun camp. I loved camping as a child, and I was excited to go, stay in a cabin, make friends, make crafts, learn some survival skills…. ohhhhh how wrong I was… :( 
  • We were taken to a clearing, given each a small 3 litre bag and told - “please change into pants and a top” after changing “please put only one pair of shorts, one more top, three pairs of socks, two underwear, your tooth brush and tooth paste into this bag”. I did - but also snuck my period pads, and a bar of chocolate :I
  • Then they searched our bags :( - they took away my pads and chocolate - I started to cry.... but it I should've saved the crying until things got worse... much worse... nightmare like... horror story like... 

The General Day Plan for 21 Days

The general day - Northern Ontario Forest - the summer of hot humidity and little black flies - the kind that dig into flesh 
  • Get up super early - brush teeth - eat food - pack up tent / do chores - get equipment ready and carry it to canoes - alternate between canoeing and portaging (taking canoes and all equipment and walking with it to the next area for canoeing) - break for quick lunch - continue as before until dinner - chores / camp set up - cook - eat -wash up - sleep - Long hard albeit kind of fun day until other things happen.... 

The Nightmare Begins... 
  • 3 underwear for 21 one days - no soap to wash, and lakes full of leaches - so 3 dirty underwear for 21 days - ewwwwwwww 
  • Constant wet feet for 21 days - came back with a fungal foot infection :( 
  • Little black fly (not a normal house fly) - eats into my flesh and begins digging a tunnel through my flesh - have to take a pocket knife and cut into myself to remove it. First time cutting :(  
  • Have no food to eat the majority of the trip - the majority of food and snacks are lentil, bean and nut based - high protein - makes sense - I am deadly allergic to lentils, peas, nuts, and beans and seeds. No substitutes  are made for myself. Thus surviving of oats, rice, and Rice Krispies :O 
  • Solo - when they put you on a small rock island for 3 days - I believe in prison this is called solitary confinement - except at least you have a shelter and they bring you food - I remember distinctly being given a rope, a tarp, a sleeping bag, a small bag of rice and a small bag of Rice Krispies (everyone else was given bags of trail mix - with nuts, rice, and lentils and peanut butter), 3 matches, and a small pencil a 3 small sheets of paper. I was put on my small 150 square foot island and told to “Survive the next 3 days” - It pissed rain all of those days. So I tied the rope around the trees and placed a tarp over the rope and put my sleeping bag under - and I slept :) yay for sleep!! I was then told by my camp leader that I did a poop job of surviving  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ guess what bitch I'm alive!! 
  • My group - 6 guys and 6 girls - one of the girls had sex with 3 of the guys and we could hear her having sex at night each night - the camp leaders slept away from us - I voiced my concerns... and was rebuffed by the leaders ¯\_('.')_/¯
  • The girls were very strong, and very rugged... they too were wondering how in the hell I was on this camp ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • Having to use moss as a pad when I got my period - and using the wrong kind :(
  • When I woke up at 2 am to take a pee and stepped on a fallen beehive and heard the swarming- I ran for my life - getting stung twice eventually - and passing out in the woods - turns out I’m allergic to bee stings - waking up from passing out - screaming for help... Seeing the search and rescue helicopter looking for me and knowing that they wouldn’t be able to spot me - the trees here were not only dense but flimsy - not good for climbing. Finally coming to a small stream a day later - thinking water usually leads to community - people - 2 options - go upstream or downstream - going downstream - coming to an area where I see a creepy large looking hunter type man... thankfully he's a nice person - very quiet doesn’t say a word - motioned to his truck - I get in... I was rejoined with my group who were at the base camp and learned that they were planning to call my parents in 2 days to pronounce me missing and presumably dead.
  • Going to do a community service day at a nice old lady’s farm - she made us cake!! Yay for cake!!!!! Oh no... It has nuts :( - takes meds - comes back to camp - spends the day vomiting and having diarrhea in an outhouse :(  

THE BEST 
  • Surviving and knowing that I can probably survive anything and that I don't absolutely need others to survive - but this is melancholy because its taken me a while to get to a place where I go no I don't need others but that doesn't mean that I don't want others around - and further,  to more truly understand the meaning and need of community.  

NOW ASK YOURSELF IS THE ABOVE WORTH $4000.00? Ummmmmm - If you are the outdoors type, super fit and strong, and with no allergies - sure this might be for you. If you want to sign someone else up, make sure they know all the details and if they say no way - that’s not for me - listen to them. Unless you hate them of course :) 

If you want to sign a kid up for this - talk to your kid - and make sure they are physically fit enough, because when these guys (Outward Bound) says survival camp, they mean it - if your kid has food allergies especially to nuts and lentils make sure not to send them here.

I personally feel that going WOOFing or Travelling, in a country where the culture and language are totally foreign to you, by yourself or even with a friend or a child or a group of persons is a much cheaper and friendlier option that teaches survival and team building skills. 
1 Comment
jtk
1/11/2023 12:12:41 pm

Would you be open to talking about your experience? I also attended and have been revisiting it lately, considering writing about it or otherwise trying to bring attention to the fact that Outward Bound has an unfortunate amount in common with the troubled teen industry and even though its managed to keep its reputation separate and cleaner, they have some things to answer for. No pressure and could be anonymous if desired. Thank you in advance

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    Author

    Hello! My name is Tahira Karim. I was born and raised on the Canadian prairies  have been leaving and returning ever since. I absolutely love to travel. I am an observer of life and culture, and I have a passion for history and food. I am a visual artist who specializes in painting and drawing. And this blog is a jumble of my writing and thoughts on travel, culture, and food, with a bunch of personal stories thrown into the mix. Enjoy! 

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