2003 O'Camp

February 21-23, 2003

The OSA's 2003 Orientation Camp was held at a location in the heart of the ever so charming South Australian holiday town of Victor Harbour. As many OSA members have asked, it is worth explaining at this point that, no, the site was not chosen because the OSA President, Victor Otieno Asoyo insisted that the camp be held somewhere, where his presence could not be overlooked. Having said that, not even severe illness could keep him from going to the place he claims was named after him...

Back to the story... early on a dreary Friday morning, 110 campers and 20 volunteers assembled to board the transport that was to take them to Victor Harbour. Despite the less than ideal conditions, most people seemed to be at least vaguely in the mood to head off for a weekend of games, food, activities, even more games and food, and so forth.

Upon arrival at the camp site, having enjoyed the numerous sights of Victor Harbour, campers separated into their respective teams (each named after a feared member of the Australian wildlife), to commence battle for supremacy of the weekend.

A fierce campaign of battles (as can be seen in the photos below - and no, campers were not being eaten by vicious native fauna), which took place across a variety of terrain, including the inside of buildings (a type of street combat, if you wish), and on the beach (not a landing in sight), competition raged between at least some of the teams and their members. Not everybody was feeling like trouncing the opposition; indeed, some team members refused to be supportive enough of the comrades to even wear the team colours...

Yet despite such brazen subversion, team spirit nonetheless reigned, and one team did indeed triumph over the remaining nine. Exactly which team won nobody knows (or at least the current writer does not, as nobody bothered to tell him... answers on a postcard, please). Does it really matter? To the winning group perhaps it does, but a cursory examination of the images below reveal two clear facts: the clear winner was social interaction and having a good time; secondly, as the photos indicate, the weather conditions were less than ideal, and sun only emerged as the intrepid campers were preparing to board the buses to depart...