Eight Girls vs. A Tent

While we were staying at Northwest Haiti Christian Mission we had the choice of either sleeping in the “dorms” or we could set up the tents we brought, on the flat concrete patio right next to the “dorm”. The “dorms” were these big one room cinder block buildings that were filled with bunk beds lined up in a row, a couple of twin beds, and lots of mattresses. The eight of us girls, decided that we were going to try and set up a tent on the patio because we weren’t sure if there were enough bunks in the dorms for all of us. It looked like it would rain soon, so we wanted to get the tent up as soon as possible.

 We started taking the eight person tent out of the bag and realized that the instruction booklet had disintegrated because of all the rain on the bus ride. We decided that if we all worked together we should be able to figure out how to put up the tent. It looked like it would be pretty simple; lay out the tent, put the four tent poles through the loops, raise up the tent, and secure. Little did we know that the challenging task before us would not only test our patience, but our team work, and communication skills as well. We had no problem laying out the tent and we didn’t seem to have too much trouble putting the poles through the loops. It was when we were trying to raise up the tent that trouble struck. We ended up having to take down the tent because we had mixed up the poles. To make things worse, the rain had finally caught up to us. So there we were, scrambling in the rain, tying to figure out what poles go where and how to put up the tent. Finally, we got things straightened out and the tent started going up. It was looking good. As the rain stopped, we finished securing the tent. We had done it. Together, we had conquered the task of putting up the tent and were ready for whatever else would come our way.

 Even though we had to take the tent down the first time and put it back up in the rain,   we finally got the tent set up and learned about the importance of team work…. all in time for supper!