Borneo Expedition 2005

Day 2. Yet more seemingly pointless build-up, including trying to put up hammox in the Hounslow thickets... it didn't go too well. We were going to have to sleep in these large sheets of fabric, so they had to be practised! Meh.
There was also the lovely story Lyndz told us... the two Knights, one red, one black... It had NO point or ending or anything! I think we were all safely team-builded now, after sitting on each other (as a "game"), playing odd, knackering football/handball sports at dusk and the tangeled arms game. This was the task where we had to unravel each other as we held various people's hands!
There was another really good game too - the "energetic word game" I'll call it! We were each secretly given two words by Adam. After we all had our two words, we stood up and linked arms in a circle, then Adam told a random story containing our words - when our words were mentioned, we lifted ourselves up using the people next to us... Basically everyone had one of their words the same... so we ended up all sitting down at the same time in a big pile when that word was said (Zebra i think!)
We ate lots of nice army food- Chips! Grease! And heard planes overhead every few seconds, which meant lotsa noise, but good views of them taking off from Heathrow. It'll be us flying off tomorrow...

Sleeping in one corner of an old pub is fun...!

Day 1. It was London, and I had arrived at the World Challenge Expedition HQ far too early. Better than late i suppose! It didn't look particularly appealing, and walking around North Acton for half an hour just looking for the place had dampened any remaining spirits. Well anyway, after sitting around in the office for a while, I was led away downstairs to meet the "others"! (They had been slowly arriving whilst I was sitting around). I had already met some of them on the 20th March, when we'd all come to London for a WCE organised information etc session on the trip... but not much deep conversation happened then as we were all terrified of each other!
So there were 9 girls and 3 boys (including me!) Get in! Mu ha ha!
So, here are the names of the future-Borneoers 2005:

Despite all applying as individuals, some people were already friends, see below. Me, Calvey, Kyle, Soos, Annie and Lucy all came as loners!

- Me (Alex White, duh)
- Alex Calvey
- Kyle Yau
- Emma Wood - Knows & lives near Lyndz
- Lyndsey Griffiths - Knows & lives near Emma
- Soosan Lolavar
- Annie Morris
- Samira Abu-Helil - Knows & lives near Hannah
- Hannah Wyatt - Knows & lives near Samira
- Zoe Martin - Knows & lives near Sara
- Sara Griffiths - Knows & lives near Zoe
- Lucy Colwil

Note: Two Griffiths not related, merely luck!

There were also the two leaders, Adam & Su... Adam was to join us later at the army barracks, but we'd nearly all already met Su at the previous march 20th meet-up.
Su is of Borneo origin, now married to a British man, who had trained us a bit in March... he also designed the hammox we'd we sleeping in!
Adam is of "up-North" origin...

Everyone was nervous, but soon settled in... ish. It felt odd that i would be spending a month with people of my age that i didn't know at all at this stage. We all went through kit etc, and most people's parents were there... except mine! But not to worry! A few laughs and talks later we were on the London Underground heading towards Hounslow. My bag was heavy, but had I remembered everything?! The Underground was hot and crowded, with the trains stopping every so often with no given reasons. It was merely days after the bombings, and everyone looked suspiciously at everyone else.
We walked to the Hounslow Barracks from the station. It was a hot day, and I was already sweat-ful. Imagine how it would be in the tropix! We were going to be staying with some army "dudes" for two days before flying into Borneo for the adventure of a lifetime!
This first day of us as a group blurred by - we were soon resting in an old pub and doing teambuilding exercises... everyone seems so friendly...