Saturday, 26 November, my team and I returned to Sukabumi for another round of white water rafting. Though much was the same, much was different.
After a 5:30 AM departure from the office and a three-plus hour bus ride to Sukabumi, our team building began with ice breakers. I've never liked ice breakers. I think this is probably because I don't need any ice broken. I prefer to just get down to business. Same problem I have with small talk. Ice breakers are always some form of ridiculousness that seem designed to make people feel uncomfortable so they'll be more comfortable doing difficult tasks later in the session. For us, this involved standing in a circle and various activities involving counting - counting while shaking our fists, counting while stamping our feet, counting in different languages. Whatever.
After the foolishness, we got down to the good stuff. The games. Competition - my favorite. As the top of the food chain at these events, I try to step back and let others lead. I lead every day at work, this is an opportunity for others to show their capabilities. The fact that everything was explained in Bahasa, with no English translation, made this all the easier for me. I couldn't participate because I would be a detriment to my team. I helped where I could.
The first game reinforced the wisdom of my decision. Team size didn't matter, so I participated. We stood in a single file line, hands on shoulders of the person in front of us. The announcer would yell "Kiri", and everyone in the line would jump left. He'd cycle through all the directions - right, left, forward, backward. That was just to get us accustomed to jumping in unison. Then it got tricky. He said the first two we would do as he said them, the third we would do the opposite. So if he yells out Right, Left, Forward, we were to jump Right, Left, Backward. Of course, I received a summarized version of this explanation and thought the first and second rounds, not first and second commands. As team captain, I'm in front. Announcer yells right, we jump right. Announcer yells left, we jump left. Announcer yells backward, my team jumps backward, I jump forward, everyone laughs. My team is out. I'm feeling stupid. Next round, exact same commands, the team next to us fails. Now I don't feel so bad. Next round, exact same commands, two more teams drop and the game is over!
The next three games involved passing objects down the line and back. This required teams of equal size and my team had six while most others had five. This meant we had to sit someone out. I participated in the first two, then sat out never to return to action. First we joined hands and had to pass a loop over our entire body from person to person without breaking hand contact. Not difficult, but not easy to do quickly. We came in second. The next involved passing a baton back and forth by holding it with our knees. Once again, we came in second. The third event was passing the same baton back and forth holding it between neck and shoulders. For the third time, we came in second. First place was a different team each time.
The next event was more mental, more strategic, and this allowed me to participate in the strategy. The object was to communicate a number from one end to the other using only touch; no visual or audio clues allowed. Everyone sat front to back with one arm reaching for the person in front of them, and the other the person behind them. We had a few minutes to determine our methodology. Knowing this was tactile, I decided the motions had to be noticeably distinct. While other teams did things like "squeeze soft for 10, hard for 1", my approach was a swipe across the hand means 10, a two finger tap is 5, and a single finger tap is 1. Add them up, and you have the number. We were the third ones to provide a number, but the only team to get the number correct! First place! I realized after the fact that we could have been faster if we transmitted the signal simultaneously. The only two people that really needed to know the number were the first and the last. Everyone in between just needed to convey the message, which they could have done as it was conveyed to them, had I thought of it.
After the communication game we were given a tube about the size of a canister of tennis balls. To this was attached two ropes. Four people would hold each end of the two ropes, fill the canister with water, then transport the canister to a five liter jug with a ping-pong ball. The first to fill the jug with enough water to force the ball out would win. We all had a chance to practice transporting, then the game began. I realized very quickly every team was trying to be very precise pouring their water and it was taking a lot of time. I told my team: "Aim and dump, then run back for more." My strategy was twofold. First, we were going to get most of the water in because were weren't just dumping haphazardly, and we would be saving a lot of time. In fact, we would make two trips to most teams one. Second, the available water was limited. I figured if we wasted some of it, but made twice as many trips, other teams wouldn't have any water to fill their jug. Either way, we would win. And we did. By a wide margin. At the end, the lagging teams were spending a lot of time filling their containers because they could no longer just dunk them - they had to pour the water from the starting basin.
The next event had the teams back in a line, arms length apart. The front person was number one, the back person number five. The announcer was pretending to call a soccer game "One passes to two, two passes to five". At some point, he would yell "GOAL" and that number had to run to the back of the line, crawl through everyone in front of them, pick up a bag, fill it with air, and pop it. I gave one piece of advice: "As soon as the number is called, everyone collapse into each other so the crawling distance is as small as possible. Every single time we are the first one through. If we hadn't struggled with blowing up the bag and/or popping it, this would have been over in two tries. As it was, we took second the first two times, first the third, second a fourth time, and finally won overall by taking first the fifth time. The times we had finished second all had a different winner.
The last team event involved using two ropes, and four blindfolded participants, to carry a long line of tent poles across the field and then placing it into a tube so that it stood upright. It was brutal. We had no trouble making it across the field without dropping the poles, but getting it in the tube and having it stand upright was very hard. I don't know how some of the other teams did it so quickly. We took third.
After the team events, we split into individual events, one of which helped our team. The first event was a flying fox. For those of you unfamiliar, this involves harnessing yourself to a long wire, jumping, and letting gravity take you from point A to point B. Having made this jump in Singapore, this Flying Fox was nothing.
The other event, the one that counted towards team points, was not so easy - though it should have been. What it truly did was highlight different upbringings of the members of my staff. The event involved walking across a bamboo pole 10 meters in the air. We're harnessed to a wire and a guide rope, so there was no chance of falling to injury, but the psychological impact of looking down is tough to break....unless you did it every day as a kid. Indonesia is a culturally diverse place. Some members of my staff grew up in circumstances very familiar to those of us born and raised in a Western country. Others grew up in villages of subsistence farmers having no income and eating only what they grew our caught. Some of these often crossed a river dividing two villages by traversing a pole, without guide wires or harnesses, smaller than the one we walked. Those who grew up in circumstances similar to mine either did not attempt to cross, failed trying, or took a long time to do so. Those who grew up in the small villages walked across like they were going to the bathroom after a night of binge drinking. As for myself, I made three steps and fell. My legs were shaking so badly the pole began bouncing up and down. Once my body realized I wouldn't actually hit the ground, it stopped shaking and I speedily finished the crossing - but it didn't count. Thankfully, two other members of my team made the crossing. I think we finished second in that event.
We broke for lunch, gave away a 32 inch flat-screen LED TV as a door prize, and then went rafting. The water was high. Very high. So high, what was normally a Class 2 rapids was not a Class 3. And it started to pour as we were loading into our boats. The rafting was that much more exciting and fun. There was one section the guides would not let us try, however. It was only about 20 meters of river, but they had determined it too dangerous because the high water had created a dangerous whirlpool that was difficult to exit once entered. We walked the shore for that 20 meters instead.
After rafting it was now dark. We had dinner, gave away more door prizes (another TV, an iPad, an iPhone, etc) then returned to Jakarta. I think I was the only one who remained awake for the drive home - it was not without its own interesting events.
The first event caused our buses to pull over. We travelled in two buses - I was on the A bus with half of my team, the other half on the B bus. The driver of Bus B radioed Bus A complaining one of his rear tires had no traction. Not good when you're driving on narrow, winding mountain roads in a portable home. We stopped to switch places, so Bus B could be in front. I'm not sure why that mattered, but the driver of Bus B was happier, so I guess that's fine. We later stopped at a gas station where they added more air to the tire. We did make it home safely.
The second incident caused us delays. Saturday happened to be New Year's Eve on the Muslim calendar. When we reached a certain city around 9:30, all traffic came to a standstill and one side of the street was crowded with people carrying torches. I don't know what people in other countries think when they see a large crowd of people carrying torches, but I think every American's initial thought would have been the same as mine: "Oh S--t!" They eventually marched off to wherever they were heading and we were able to move on. It wasn't until later, when I'm driving back home from the office drop off point, when my driver explained to me that was a traditional celebration for the holiday. Whew!
Once again, we all had a great time. Unfortunately, two days later I found myself in the hospital with an IV suffering from amoebic dysentery....but that's a topic for another post.
After a 5:30 AM departure from the office and a three-plus hour bus ride to Sukabumi, our team building began with ice breakers. I've never liked ice breakers. I think this is probably because I don't need any ice broken. I prefer to just get down to business. Same problem I have with small talk. Ice breakers are always some form of ridiculousness that seem designed to make people feel uncomfortable so they'll be more comfortable doing difficult tasks later in the session. For us, this involved standing in a circle and various activities involving counting - counting while shaking our fists, counting while stamping our feet, counting in different languages. Whatever.
After the foolishness, we got down to the good stuff. The games. Competition - my favorite. As the top of the food chain at these events, I try to step back and let others lead. I lead every day at work, this is an opportunity for others to show their capabilities. The fact that everything was explained in Bahasa, with no English translation, made this all the easier for me. I couldn't participate because I would be a detriment to my team. I helped where I could.
The first game reinforced the wisdom of my decision. Team size didn't matter, so I participated. We stood in a single file line, hands on shoulders of the person in front of us. The announcer would yell "Kiri", and everyone in the line would jump left. He'd cycle through all the directions - right, left, forward, backward. That was just to get us accustomed to jumping in unison. Then it got tricky. He said the first two we would do as he said them, the third we would do the opposite. So if he yells out Right, Left, Forward, we were to jump Right, Left, Backward. Of course, I received a summarized version of this explanation and thought the first and second rounds, not first and second commands. As team captain, I'm in front. Announcer yells right, we jump right. Announcer yells left, we jump left. Announcer yells backward, my team jumps backward, I jump forward, everyone laughs. My team is out. I'm feeling stupid. Next round, exact same commands, the team next to us fails. Now I don't feel so bad. Next round, exact same commands, two more teams drop and the game is over!
The next three games involved passing objects down the line and back. This required teams of equal size and my team had six while most others had five. This meant we had to sit someone out. I participated in the first two, then sat out never to return to action. First we joined hands and had to pass a loop over our entire body from person to person without breaking hand contact. Not difficult, but not easy to do quickly. We came in second. The next involved passing a baton back and forth by holding it with our knees. Once again, we came in second. The third event was passing the same baton back and forth holding it between neck and shoulders. For the third time, we came in second. First place was a different team each time.
The next event was more mental, more strategic, and this allowed me to participate in the strategy. The object was to communicate a number from one end to the other using only touch; no visual or audio clues allowed. Everyone sat front to back with one arm reaching for the person in front of them, and the other the person behind them. We had a few minutes to determine our methodology. Knowing this was tactile, I decided the motions had to be noticeably distinct. While other teams did things like "squeeze soft for 10, hard for 1", my approach was a swipe across the hand means 10, a two finger tap is 5, and a single finger tap is 1. Add them up, and you have the number. We were the third ones to provide a number, but the only team to get the number correct! First place! I realized after the fact that we could have been faster if we transmitted the signal simultaneously. The only two people that really needed to know the number were the first and the last. Everyone in between just needed to convey the message, which they could have done as it was conveyed to them, had I thought of it.
After the communication game we were given a tube about the size of a canister of tennis balls. To this was attached two ropes. Four people would hold each end of the two ropes, fill the canister with water, then transport the canister to a five liter jug with a ping-pong ball. The first to fill the jug with enough water to force the ball out would win. We all had a chance to practice transporting, then the game began. I realized very quickly every team was trying to be very precise pouring their water and it was taking a lot of time. I told my team: "Aim and dump, then run back for more." My strategy was twofold. First, we were going to get most of the water in because were weren't just dumping haphazardly, and we would be saving a lot of time. In fact, we would make two trips to most teams one. Second, the available water was limited. I figured if we wasted some of it, but made twice as many trips, other teams wouldn't have any water to fill their jug. Either way, we would win. And we did. By a wide margin. At the end, the lagging teams were spending a lot of time filling their containers because they could no longer just dunk them - they had to pour the water from the starting basin.
The next event had the teams back in a line, arms length apart. The front person was number one, the back person number five. The announcer was pretending to call a soccer game "One passes to two, two passes to five". At some point, he would yell "GOAL" and that number had to run to the back of the line, crawl through everyone in front of them, pick up a bag, fill it with air, and pop it. I gave one piece of advice: "As soon as the number is called, everyone collapse into each other so the crawling distance is as small as possible. Every single time we are the first one through. If we hadn't struggled with blowing up the bag and/or popping it, this would have been over in two tries. As it was, we took second the first two times, first the third, second a fourth time, and finally won overall by taking first the fifth time. The times we had finished second all had a different winner.
The last team event involved using two ropes, and four blindfolded participants, to carry a long line of tent poles across the field and then placing it into a tube so that it stood upright. It was brutal. We had no trouble making it across the field without dropping the poles, but getting it in the tube and having it stand upright was very hard. I don't know how some of the other teams did it so quickly. We took third.
After the team events, we split into individual events, one of which helped our team. The first event was a flying fox. For those of you unfamiliar, this involves harnessing yourself to a long wire, jumping, and letting gravity take you from point A to point B. Having made this jump in Singapore, this Flying Fox was nothing.
The other event, the one that counted towards team points, was not so easy - though it should have been. What it truly did was highlight different upbringings of the members of my staff. The event involved walking across a bamboo pole 10 meters in the air. We're harnessed to a wire and a guide rope, so there was no chance of falling to injury, but the psychological impact of looking down is tough to break....unless you did it every day as a kid. Indonesia is a culturally diverse place. Some members of my staff grew up in circumstances very familiar to those of us born and raised in a Western country. Others grew up in villages of subsistence farmers having no income and eating only what they grew our caught. Some of these often crossed a river dividing two villages by traversing a pole, without guide wires or harnesses, smaller than the one we walked. Those who grew up in circumstances similar to mine either did not attempt to cross, failed trying, or took a long time to do so. Those who grew up in the small villages walked across like they were going to the bathroom after a night of binge drinking. As for myself, I made three steps and fell. My legs were shaking so badly the pole began bouncing up and down. Once my body realized I wouldn't actually hit the ground, it stopped shaking and I speedily finished the crossing - but it didn't count. Thankfully, two other members of my team made the crossing. I think we finished second in that event.
We broke for lunch, gave away a 32 inch flat-screen LED TV as a door prize, and then went rafting. The water was high. Very high. So high, what was normally a Class 2 rapids was not a Class 3. And it started to pour as we were loading into our boats. The rafting was that much more exciting and fun. There was one section the guides would not let us try, however. It was only about 20 meters of river, but they had determined it too dangerous because the high water had created a dangerous whirlpool that was difficult to exit once entered. We walked the shore for that 20 meters instead.
After rafting it was now dark. We had dinner, gave away more door prizes (another TV, an iPad, an iPhone, etc) then returned to Jakarta. I think I was the only one who remained awake for the drive home - it was not without its own interesting events.
The first event caused our buses to pull over. We travelled in two buses - I was on the A bus with half of my team, the other half on the B bus. The driver of Bus B radioed Bus A complaining one of his rear tires had no traction. Not good when you're driving on narrow, winding mountain roads in a portable home. We stopped to switch places, so Bus B could be in front. I'm not sure why that mattered, but the driver of Bus B was happier, so I guess that's fine. We later stopped at a gas station where they added more air to the tire. We did make it home safely.
The second incident caused us delays. Saturday happened to be New Year's Eve on the Muslim calendar. When we reached a certain city around 9:30, all traffic came to a standstill and one side of the street was crowded with people carrying torches. I don't know what people in other countries think when they see a large crowd of people carrying torches, but I think every American's initial thought would have been the same as mine: "Oh S--t!" They eventually marched off to wherever they were heading and we were able to move on. It wasn't until later, when I'm driving back home from the office drop off point, when my driver explained to me that was a traditional celebration for the holiday. Whew!
Once again, we all had a great time. Unfortunately, two days later I found myself in the hospital with an IV suffering from amoebic dysentery....but that's a topic for another post.
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