Food in the Forest

Today I managed to wangle my way on to the first-grade "excursion" - an hour long bus trip to a campsite on mount Iwaki. Take 60 12-13 year olds. Place in forest-park. Split them up into ten groups. Give each group enough wood, bricks, grill pans, raw meat and oil-covered wood shavings to pose a considerable danger to themselves and the surrounding environment. Allow four hours for them to make fires and prepare food. Sit back and wait for food to arrive. A recipe for large-scale disaster, wide-spread third-degree-burns, food poisoning and acres of forest fires? Or a day's work as an ALT? Well in the end no-one got hurt (I'm pretty sure it's not the kind of excursion that would go down hugely well back home!) and the food was really good, the kids came up with all kinds of things from yakisoba and curry-rice to cabbage rolls and weener soup... and prepared the whole lot largely unaided, without burning anything down. Impressed? I was. Amazing what kids can do when you credit them with a bit of responsibility. So a good time, and a good feed, was had by all. I love my job.