Gloria- Challenges of an Outdoor Person

My actual experience on Malaysia Week turned out to be... awesome! I got to experience things that I had never done before in my life. One of the biggest challenges I had during the week was going to plant the saplings in mangroves. This was because we had to plant them in crab infested mud. This mud went up to my knees! When I stepped off of the safety of the boat, and tried to step into the mud, my feet felt gross. When I saw all the crabs - I screamed! I squelched back to the boat and tried to get into that mud again, and again, and again.... but I was useless! I shook with fear. I sweated. My eyes bulged. I stayed on the boat until Mrs Psillides came and gently coaxed me in. (She actually told me there were no crabs....hmmmm). She put her feet into the mud and as she took her foot out she told me to step into her footprint. However, as I moved my feet into the footprint, crabs came running into the hole. I was disgusted! So I quickly squelched in, planted my sapling and when I was ready to go back to the boat- a huge mud fight had started! I had to wait there, stranded in the mud, until everyone was done playing with the mud, so that they could help me get out of there! I had to stay there for about a minute, but it seemed like hours to me. When they finished playing, Mrs Psillides came to help me and we sank our feet into the mud again, deeply, and we washed in the muddy waters of the mangroves. I had to clutch onto her back and she gave me a piggy back because I was scared to death! I ran to reach the boat. As we left in the boat, I looked at my small tree and decided to call it 'James Bond'. I called 'Bye!' to my tree, gave him a wave, and I realized what a great thing I had done for the environment. The gross feeling was definitively worth it.