EFGS goes to Bogor... wait, or was it Puncak?...whatever, it was somewhere in the hills!

2015 EFGS Trip

Every year, by way of a treat from the franchise owner, Pak Agus, all of EF Swara's centres get to take an individual school outing. No, not an outing with the students, that would be logistically crazy especially when considering the diverse age range of our students. No, this is more of a bonding trip for all of the staff that work at the centre, Admin, teachers, support functions etc with the aim being to get to know new people and to hopefully ensure success through familiarity. It always involves games and activities that promote teamwork, it always involves communal dining and a barbecue and it is always a lot of fun.

"Oi mate, have you got wifi on here?"

2014 saw us board a bus for Anyer, a coastal resort to the west of Java island, but for October 2015 we chose to head for the hills to the south of Jakarta, to a place with the vaguely-humorous-to-westerners title of "Bukit Pinus".

As you'll know if you've read previous blog entries we usually wait until work has been concluded on the Saturday before boarding a coach and hitting the road. This year was different. This year coincided with....Halloween! It was because of this that it was decided, due to the need to organise events before people arrived at the venue, that I would drive the school car and along for the ride would be Nina the Centre Director, Katherine the Assistant CD, Lusi the marketing co-ordinator and Weina, one of the Gading Serpong teachers. Everyone else would be following onboard the coach.

We arrived relatively quickly considering the erratic nature of Jakarta traffic and I was immediately struck by the remarkable beauty. I was also struck by how remarkably easy-to-find the resort was as I'd had visions the night before the trip of us getting lost in the wilds of Sukabumi. These trips are great because even living in a relaxed place like Gading Serpong you can sometimes forget just how built-up the area is so it's always appreciated to get out into the fresh air.

anyone hungry?

After lunch, time was spent relaxing, if you were one of the four girls, or in my case it was spent preparing the games and activities that we'd be doing over the next 36 hours. At this point I should mention that in much the same way the weekend is about teamwork, it could never happen without teamwork too and Alex the assistant DoS is just excellent when it comes to helping to create activities and atmosphere alike.
So it was that when the coach arrived, having taken a bit longer than we did, everyone was ready to tuck into the meal that had been prepared and. once that was over, people were split into their teams for the weekend and given the first task. Find the pictures of horror movie characters that had been hidden around the resort and bring them back to Alex and I to redeem points.

As much about helping people to orientate themselves with the resort and its facilities, the people of EFGS are competitive to a fault and took swiftly to the task which, once completed, was quickly followed up with a team quiz with both Indonesian and English questions.

The evening is always about downtime and relaxing and that was the order of the day as a prelude to the evening barbecue. The resort has a swimming pool, pool table, strategically located gazebos and plenty of communal areas as well as extremely clean and comfortable rooms. Bukit Pinus also has the luxury of a fire pit around which everyone sat eating the barbecue until late into the evening. Even this had a competitive edge as points were available for which team could tell the creepiest fireside story. Well, it was Halloween!

Sunday morning arrived and with it was a solid breakfast to fortify everyone for the games ahead. These included the energetic "British Bulldog", the hillarious-to-watch  "Snake" game in which blind-folded participants have to be led around a course collecting objects, team volleyball competiton and the concluding basketball shooting.

Lunch was served prior to our departure and for the first time in the weekend it rained. Not that this mattered as we were well undercover but then again it was the beginning of the rainy season and we were in the wettest area of Indonesia. To conclude the weekend, points were tallied, prizes were handed out, congratulations and commiserations were shared and multiple, multiple photos were taken. It was an exceptional weekend highlighting the camararderie that exists amongst such an assorted group of people. We're going to have to get thinking now to stand any chance of 2016 beating this.