Personal Narrative: My Volunteering Experiences

“Yeeww gunna taaake awl dat?” the mealy mouthed Beaumont native asked me. A question that still haunts me when I think about a certain weekend I went camping along the Neches River. Looking at his displaced eyeball, and the huge wad of tobacco juice he spat onto the ground, a quickly delivered response of “Yes, yes we are!!!” was retorted. Planned and necessary, every item was personally deemed necessary in order to “survive” the weekend. Even though I had never camped before, no one was going to question my need for what was about to be “pack ratted” into the tiny canoe. This was the fateful weekend that I learned that ignorance only requires two things in order to thrive- a narrow-minded individual and an unfamiliar situation. Our canoe sunk three inches into the water before my companion …show more content…
My rat pack transformed itself into a rat’s nest and revealed that most of the food and clothing were inevitably lost. A hungry and wet weekend acknowledged, we silently pulled the rugged canoe up onto a welcoming sand bar for the night. The camping guide I read had vivid instructions about pitching tents, I did not hesitate to eagerly build the contraption in order to impress my companion. After a few awkward silences, a warm fire, and inevitable bouts of laughter, we decided to continue the odyssey after a meager breakfast and settled down in the miraculously pitched tent.
“Gggrrrrruuiiisshhh!!!! Ggrrrrruuuuiiiiissshhh!!!” Yes, a sound just as convoluted as it looks here in print. Ggrrrrruuuuiiiiissshhh!!!” Pulling my seemingly shrinking sleeping bag closer to my chin, I quickly assessed the tent’s vulnerability to predators. Quick punches from underneath the tent accompanied the growing hisses and growls. Cocooned within my sleeping bag, I jumped on top of my companion and we both stared at an indecipherable blob that hissed and twitched underneath the tent