For the out bound training we decided to visit the Naval and Maritime academy in Trincomalee. It was quite a long journey and we got the chance to spend two days there.
Day 1
We reached the camp there around 10 a.m. and after welcoming us we were offered a delicious lunch. The camp was truly beautiful and it was a nice experience to work with our junior batch as well. After the lunch, we were divided into groups, "Alpha", "Bravo", "Delta" and "Charlie" which I got the team Charlie, and they have planned a set of leadership developing activities for us at the beach.
First one was to go through a small rectangle made with ropes. But the catch is if we touch the rope then we die and any one holding you at that time also dies. There were so many we learnt from that activity. In such activities we have to make someone a leader and listening to the leader is very important. We had to have a good strategic plan as to how to go through the rectangle and everyone had different ideas. It is important that we listen to others and finally picking up the best ideas and make a plan.
The next activity was to roll a small ball through set of pipes without dropping it to the ground. We also could not touch the next person's pipe before he got the ball. It was not as easy as it sounds. You need to have a bit of patience and a very good focus to do such an activity. Listening to your leader is very important. Finally our team was able to win that game, because all our team members worked together cooperatively and we were not in a rush to win the game, but to end the game successively, and I believe that itself helped us to win the game since other teams were so focused on winning.
As the next activity, we had to fill water to a cylinder having holes everywhere and the catch was that we could only use our body parts to cover the cylinder. Even filling it with water had to be done using our hands and mouth. So we chose one person and asked him to lay on the beach and hold the cylinder on his tummy. Other people went running to bring water filled to their hands and mouths. As the water level increased, it started to came out through the holes, so we used our fingers to prevent water from coming out. Anyway we could not win this game due to lack of proper coordination.
The next activity was to carry out some wooden logs which were given to us not using our hands but using our tummies! So we made a line and pressed to each other so that a log was in between two members. We were also asked to keep our hands on the head and through out the journey, for any reason we were not allowed to take our hands off, if we did so we had to start the game again from the very beginning. This activity, my team was able to win. We had a very good leader and all the members listened to him. There were so many distractions from other team members. They were shouting and trying to make us laugh. So you really need to have a good focus without letting it get distracted by outer disturbances.
Our next task was to throw a volleyball over the net so that one person was there on the other side to catch it and four people had to throw the ball to him using a rug. Initially we thought the game was quite easy, but once we started to do it only we realized how difficult it was to throw the ball using the rug. At first we did not have a proper strategy, but then we held the rug so that two people at the back held it little higher than to the two people at the front. The strategy seemed to work but anyway we could not win that game.
The last activity was a tug of war. Everyone had so much fun during this activity. Encouraging your team members, listening to your leader and working together became very important at this game
After all the activities and freshening up in our hostels, we had a talent show and a campfire at the night. It was truly a beautiful night and we sang, danced and enjoyed a lot!
Day 2
On the next day morning after having a delicious breakfast, we were taken to the forest for a compass march. We were taught on how to use a compass to find your way if you get lost in the forest. It was an exciting as well as quite exhaustive journey! After walking some distance, we met a person who had got injured himself by falling down from a tree. There our navy officers explained to us on what we should do on such a situation, how to give basic first aid and also emphasized that how much strategic thinking is important in such a situation. After quite a long walk in the forest, we finally managed to come to the beach.
Next we went to see the Maritime and Naval Museum where we saw some ruins and leftovers from the war and we were given the chance to see some of the technologies that the navy has.
After lunch we set to leave the camp and go back to the university with a bunch of new memories to last our lifetime. The navy officers were there has put a lot of effort to make that journey memorable and thanks to them and the staff we had lots of fun, learnt many things and enjoyed those two to the fullest.
It has been almost two years since I have started learning PPD. At the very first, since this is a non GPA subject, I honestly did not pay much attention, but after doing few activities, I started to like this, maybe a little bit better than some of the boring theory lectures. It did not take me much time to realize that having a good academic knowledge is not the only important thing that matters in your life or career. Your skills and most importantly your attitudes do matter too. PPD was the place for me where I improved myself a lot.
The above mentioned ones are just a few things among many others that I have learnt in PPD. Overall, PPD taught me to be a better person attitude-wise as well as skill-wise. It helped me a lot to improve my personality. Another one of the many important things it has taught me is to be a dreamer, and to work hard to achieve those dreams. This subject also helped me a lot to identify people, interact with people and be socialize among them. It taught me to look at something with different angles of views and to understand a situation better.
