Glen Lyon, Scotland

On the Second night of my teaching adventure I try to write and ignore the fact that my eyes are tired, my hands callused and a thin stream of mucus hangs from my nose and fights constantly with some grubby tissues. The dusky valley reaching up around the farmhouse where I sit is wet and uninviting. Closer to us, puddles form in the muddy road that reaches across the rivers icy grip to crawl up grassy mounds and arrive gracefully at the fluttering union jack keeping watch over this house. Now though I’m inside, protected from the thin sheets of drizzle and letting the staccato beat of Immortal Techniques “Peruvian Cocaine” fill my ears as I try to sum up this day with some accuracy.

I was awoken early by the noise of camp. For those who have never slept in a tent camp noises ungulate hour to hour, from the “zzzziiiip” of someone sneaking dubiously from their bed late at night to the “oh god” of a camper discovering a lack of poles/sleeping bag/ socks in their backpack. This time though, it was the raucous and happy shouts of what sounded like the entire camp, people who I gathered must enjoy waking up early. Groggily I climbed from my disgustingly orange hued tent and stumbled gratefully into breakfast where a mug of thick tea and a sea of brown toast awaited. After eating, Alex (the deputy head) drove myself and a small pack of rowdy kids along the beautiful valley to a wooded park, gentle oaks and stocky pines all reaching towards a sky that was for once devoid of cloud.

It was in that park I was introduced to “Biscuit” a rock climbing guide who would attempt the daunting task of teaching outdoor activities to children for whom the business of everyday living is a scary and daunting experience. I spoke a lot to this Biscuit, a man who had the fortune of having both a grin and a perpetual look of merry amazement on his impish face. We talked of climbing, he taught me to fix thick nylon rope to trees, clip carabineers into harnesses and help the kids learn to belay. ‘Why are you called Biscuit’ one of the students asked him, the question we were all wondering but too tactful to ask (not that I minded him having a interesting name of course, in my time I’ve met a child called Hope, a computer geek by the name of Max Powers and the smoked ham curer Chip Conquest.)

“Well” he cleared his throat and we were dealt a flood of ridiculous stories, my favorite being “Well, you see I was in Africa as a child, and my parents left me and my sister with a tribe when I was only three.” We stand looking skeptical “So, one day I was running through the camp” he empathized this with a mad scientist-esq waving of arms “and I fell flat on my face and got a massive bruise, here on my forehead. Then the chief walked up, and he stands looking at me like this” he stood on one leg and crooked the other strangely, one arm outright as if holding a spear “and he says ‘biscotti’ which is of course Swahili for ‘egg head’ so from then on I was known simply as biscuit.” Everyone stared, eyes narrowing as the kids tried to sum him up. before they could come to a successful conclusion we were off, running down steep paths and jumping from rocks in our own interpretations of free style walking.
It was with biscuit that I really got to see how determined the kids I was minding were. Sure, some of them refused to climb the rock walls and caused trouble on a deathtrap of a rope swing and one even disappeared, but several of the girls really pushed through their fear of heights and made a go of the activities. I found myself hooked into the rope at the foot of a crag, shouting upwards with all my breath to encourage whoever was pulling themselves up the cracks and weathered ledges.
So, apart from an embarrassing show of my appalling archery skills, the nagging specter of jetlag, forgetting to take a shower and being mauled by midges it was a great day of adventure.