Base Camp 3! Of Work and War ships.
Our kids were in uniform today. NASA uniforms. I had a moment of private rejoicing when I was told by a sartorially disappointed teenager that `our school shirts fit better’. When your uniforms are considered a better option you without any restraint go `Yeah, so there.’ And I did. To get back to the uniforms… …the ones that didn’t fit well. They were colour coded to suit the groups and the category the kids belong to. Some wore grey with `Advanced Academy’ at the back and some wore blue with `Space camp’ on them. My mosquitoes were in red and looked ready to draw some red out of others. They were swallowed in the giant shirts but predictably thought that was `cool’. I suspect the glee came from not being able to see the other person’s skirts or shorts since the T Shirts were so big they sometimes hit the kids below the knee. The little tyrants also fervently promised to take care of each other and would we not `really keep checking on them please’. My antenna went up on that one but even I know a sincere plea when I hear it.
The older ones started on the nervously awaited `leadership training’. They began with adventure sports that tested trust, team building, and the ability to not give up. Picture this… you don’t really have to try very hard since you’ll be able to see the pix…a 32 ft tall metal pole with metal `staples’ that serve as rungs to climb up on about 3″ wide each, on it’s side. The top of the pole has a circumference of about 10″. You are harnessed while your team mates `belay’ the rope you are attached to. One team belays it to help you up and the other to get you down. Your job’s to let them do theirs while you climb the little itty bitty staples to reach the top, stand on the 10″ top, turn 180 degrees, even if you weigh 85 kilos and your feet are hanging on either side of the small disc you are standing on, let yourself fly to touch a bit of rope hanging there for just that very purpose and then stay suspended in air in your harness while your team safely belays you down. ALL MY KIDS DID IT!! I felt like I would burst with pride. Especially when Chiranthan yelled `Mera Bharath Mahan’ after I’d screamed it in nationalistic fervour a few seconds ago, though I suspect his shout was inspired more by the need to shout something , anything, while flinging himself through space!!.
The evening has `Multi Axis Training’ for the mosquitoes and the Missions that we can record are also on at around the same time. We get tp sit in the viewing and recording room where we have TV monitors to view the various activities the kids are involved in which incorporate gadgets and devices that simulate the Astronauts Mission activities. We are allowed to watch and record the activities of the kids and these DVDs are then handed over to us after we finalise the edits and its entire contents.
I hear most of my kid speaking with a definite American drawl these days. The simulations I notice hence are not confined to the machines alone!!
My mosquitoes are now on the Multi Axis Trainer which‘s basically your torture chair strapped between two metal circles, each of which rotates on a different axis while…wait for it… you are in it. Characteristically Aditya was the first to get on with Mohit and Karthik close behind. Aashish at his point suddenly developed a deep interest in a book he said he has left behind which he hopes will allow him to slip away with his deeply questionable spirit of courage, in tact. Allison a 10 year old who’s done the MAT twice already, tells me to `youtube’ this embarrassing episode of a boy not wanting to go on the MAT.`It will be #2 in half a week’, she says. Ashish is now determinedly strapping himself up on the chair. No`Gurrrl’ of whatever nationality’s going to hold his pride up to question. Moral of the story `Girls everywhere know how boys will be boys”.
What, however, has always impressed me about the Westerner is that despite the idiosyncrasies that make a foreigner one in our eyes, there is this generic conscientiousness that they have toward the work that is allotted to them irrespective of their own personal situation, status, learning or belief. It is all pervasive and is palpable in all their activities whether it is driving the bus, security guard duties, cleaning the cafeteria or watching over 60 kids who think they each are in charge of Space Camp. I had evidence of this when I spoke to one of the ladies at the Cafeteria which seems to have hungry people in it through the day. `You must be tired of seeing people eat all the time,’ I said. `Not really’, she replied, `I have a big family at home.’
I rest my case.
The mighty ships of the skies hover over us while their deadlier life forms hover around us. NASA, after all the security and technology my friends, is home to the friendly, very familiar neighbourhood..mosquitoes!! The real ones this time, not my Indian beauties.
Signing off for now
hemaa narayan
