food poisoning

Although I only work with secondary students, somehow I got roped into helping run a primary student day camp. I was under the impression that i was going to just be there to lend a hand, i soon realized at 9AM as the camp got underway that this was not the case. 12 Hours later we were just wrapping up our day, my throat hurt, my legs hurt and I never wanted to see a hyperactive primary student again in my life.

The camp itself was on Hong Kong island. I took this picture from one of the classroom windows. Its easy to associate Hong Kong island with the classic urban skyline that you see on all the pictures. On the other side though not more than 2o minutes away there are some stunning beaches and forests. If it was not pouring with rain the whole day I would have been tempted to go for a swim during lunch break.

The students themselves I can only describe as being like hyperactive lemmings. This is a snap of some of them releasing some energy (thank god) during a 15 minute break outside. It was such a difference in comparison to the usual sleepy and overworked secondary students I often meet.

As this picture demonstrates they were also all totally barmy... :)

Now, there is a story to this picture. I sent a text message to a friend during the "end of camp BBQ" with the students saying the following.

You can tell you are in Hong Kong when

1. Teachers give students fire starting tools and have a race to see who can light their BBQ first
2. Students cook chicken for ten seconds each side and go to start eating it.

-End of text message-

I honestly spent most of my time trying to stop students from catching a raw food related illness. They looked at me like I was insane when I explained that the pork chop they were about to consume needed to be placed back over the fire for at least another 10 minutes before it is ready to be eaten. "Why"? they would ask with confusion... "Because its so raw it's almost still oinking!" I replied. At first I banned all meat except for beef to be cooked, because they could eat that a bit raw with not as much fear of being horribly sick. As you can see, in the picture above i wimped out. Rather than cooking the meat (from probably questionable background,) I stuck with a toasted cheese and ham sandwich.

Bx