Venturing it up

The big moment has come! After 11 host country venturers (HCVs) arrived at Fieldbase yesterday (significantly improving the tunes around here; waking up to “Sunshine of your Love” is priceless), we just got flooded by another 65 venturers arriving from Bangalore airport. 

During their five hour bus ride to Fieldbase, they were well taken care of by our project managers; Barney, Chrissi, Emma, Janet, Natalie, and Stephen; who made sure that sufficient amounts of indispensible items - like expedition information leaflets, toilet paper, and calm advice on how to deal with the extraordinary experience of Indian traffic - were available. They also got their batteries recharged with some delicious breakfast dosa and chai.

All the venturers went through our infamous and super effective Raleigh anti-jetlag procedure, kicked off by welcome speeches - delivered by our lovely and über-excited managers Mark, Simon and Petr - emphasising the superiority of Raleigh India over ALL other Raleigh expeditions. EVER. Excellent choice, my dearest venturers! And this was just the beginning: we had a Fieldbase tour, health and safety training, code of conduct, medical 1-2-1 ‘s, administration and photo sessions in store; of course complemented by energizers and name games.

Thanks for making a mess.

Pete giving an eight minutes presentation.

Hmmmm...
Food it puts me in a good mood, it keeps me goin',
When under strains, ain't nothin worse than hunger pains.

Just before dinner, they had time to hang up their mosi-nets, unpack their sleeping mats, get homey in their dormitories, and then concluded their first exciting day with a session on cultural awareness delivered by Theja and Mark. And FINALLY they will get some of that well-deserved sleep, just to wake up to a sunny morning with temperatures at an enjoyable 25 degrees (jealous much?) and a fun day of hard skills training. Stay tuned for news!
Oh, and we got a special delivery: Richard Jones arrived with the venturers (applause please!). He is our new Fieldbase Medic, holding the fort when the others are out there constructing and trekking.

Doc Jones in fort holding position

P.S.: As managing 76 people is somewhat impossible, we allocated them to “Delta Groups” for the next five days, all taken care of by our PMs. So if you, the highly esteemed reader, would like to pass on a message to one of the venturers, please indicate name and group according to our elaborate scheme (So sorry... Names are not in order; But I can't possibly get to know 76 people in one day.):

Delta 1: Abigail, Chaluva, Christine, Frances, Grant, Isabel, James P., Jules, Kristian, Nicole and Suresh

Delta 2: Alexandra, Beatrice, Caspar, Charlie, Chyna, Jude, Max, Rebecca, Shaveh, and Thejas

Delta 3: Charlotte, Claire, Daniel W., James W., Jan, Katherine, Oliver, Ramesh, Sally, Sophie, and Suraj

Delta 4: Abhishek, Haydn, James H., Joel, Joost, Laura, Mandisa, Marjolein, Patrick, Sofia, Victoria, and William

Delta 5: Aashna, Daniel L., Eline, Flora, Jonathan D., Manjunath, Martha, Shaquille, Stephen, Ursula, and Vishnu 

Delta 6: Dominic, Helen, Jonathan C., Natalia, Roonmarijn, Sophia, Thomas, Venetia, Vijay, Wolde, and Yashaswi