Cranford Review 2014

looking for Mr Myers and Suban, when eventually we
gave up and found out that they were sitting on top
of the toilet rooftops. I’m positive I wasn’t the only
one who felt nostalgic about playing such games; it
brought out the childish instincts within us. However,
our real challenge started from then onwards, because
now… our trekking phase would begin. We all drove
up to a little village in the Atlas Mountains where
we met our incredible guide Hassan who joined our
family with such ease. The following days were so
great and memorable with him, we couldn’t have
asked for a better guide.We did have to walk up for
an hour to reach our gite – a guesthouse, which was
situated at 1000m above sea level. The next day we
ventured out to see a waterfall, from which the view
was pretty amazing. However, we all
knew that the following day, we would
begin our Toubkal trek to the Summit
– the highest peak in Northern Africa
at around 4200m. So putting aside
our nervousness, we slowly – and by
slowly I mean SLOWLY, walked up to
the base camp in-between two Refugee
camps – Bourbon and French. That itself
was 3204m which is probably 3 times
the height of any peak in the United Kingdom
(whoop whoop), so I’m sure everyone must have been
incredibly proud and I know Ms Hibbs and Mr Myers
were as they continued supplying us with their immense
support throughout the entire 5 days. I owe a lot to Mr
Myers who pretty much set a record by playing cards
for about 5 hours with
me. We returned back
to the gite and enjoyed
a phenomenal time
sleeping out underneath
the stars, so peaceful
and calm. Witnessing
a shooting star, it was
simply indescribable.
The following day
we returned back to
Marrakech to spend the day at the Soukes. I have to
say – Muhammed was the king of bargaining. He pretty
much bargained every item I bought with ease. The
atmosphere was so different; it truly was something
worth experiencing. The same night, we all went out for
dinner with Hassan who came out
to the city to meet us. Oh, I forgot
to mention that Mr Myers, Alison
(our leader), Arun and myself being
the only vegetarians pretty much
survived on couscous and tajines,
so I’m sure you can guess what I
ordered on the night. The awesome
day ended with everyone being treated
to ice-cream and enjoyable time out
on the roof of the hotel, witnessing the
crowd of the people in the town square
with bright lights and music, I pretty much just sat
there and soaked in the
excitement. Finally,
it was time for us to
bid farewell to what
had been our home
for 2 weeks and
jump back into
the welcoming hands of our
anxious parents at the airport. However,
I cannot describe the time I had there. The hilarious
moments such as ALL the card games and games of
catch or when Saif touched the toilet brush or when a
mule chased Sylvia or when we all posed with oranges
in our mouth or the fact that throughout the entire
trekking phase, Hassan would chant
“Bad boys bad boys” and the rest of
us would sing “Whatchya gonna do
when they come for you!” or when
any of us wanted to pause for a
break, Ms Hibbs would shout “NO
MERCY!” and push us along to
keep going. Of course there were
moments such as when Suban’s
bag went missing, when we all
worked as a team and truly proved our
capabilities to work together and that not only did we
have great fun, but faced the “challenges” that came
in our way – what else did we expect, we were doing
World Challenge.
For some of us, a
challenge was reaching
the summit or to paint
a mural or simply to
work better as a team
but at the end of the
trip, we all managed
to overcome our
individual challenges
and that is the biggest
accomplishment of
all. Overall; these past 2 weeks have been simply
spectacular and have been so memorable for everyone
and I honestly couldn’t imagine going on this trip
with any other people. I sincerely thank Ms Hibbins
– who stood as a mother for all of us throughout the
trip and showed such sincerity and care towards us
all, Mr Myers – who livened up the
whole trip and made it so much more
worthwhile with his card games and
Alison who lavished her expertise
on us all. They are solely the reason
why we all had this once in a lifetime
opportunity and have returned back
home safely with tons of memories
and friendships that we will all
hopefully cherish and reminisce on
for a very long time.
Sahithya Natarajan (year 10)
17