After several hours walk, a few camels were found…
‘I am the one who should ride on it.’ The thin boy dashed toward the camels.
Unfortunately, he was not a well-trained rider. He lost his balance and fell from the back of
the camel and got hurt. Streams of tears ran down his face, but the stream of tears was just too
short compared with his tall body.
‘Are you alright?’ Fred asked in a sincere tone.
‘Get me up! Why are you standing here? You are supposed to protect me from getting hurt!’
The thin boy yelled while sobbing.
‘What a kid! He is tall, strong and young! This kind of fall doesn’t even count as hurt in my
dictionary!’ Donald said to Wilson and Philip.
At this awkward moment, everyone was just frozen. Fred did not help him up. Donald was
preparing water for the following days. Wilson and Philip were helping out other kids to ride
on a camel.
‘Never-mind! I will get myself up! I don’t even need your stupid help!’ The thin boy yelled.
He got on the camel once again and hit the camel hard to signal to it walk faster, or to show
his frustration or anger for the embarrassing episode. However, the rest of the trip was not
pleasant either. Apart from the suffocatingly hot weather of 40 degrees Celsius, which caused
the kids to feel like they were melting, the huge temperature difference between day and night
was the most terrible situation for the kids to adapt to. After sunset, the temperature would
immediately drop, to -40 degrees Celsius. Whenever the dark night arrived, the howling wind
would hit their tents fiercely. The kids would stay inside, putting their hands nearer to the heater
to get themselves warm.
Every single second, they just wished that time would pass swiftly. They were not able to
tolerate all these extremes.
‘I…just want to fly back home…I miss my pillow, my Western breakfast and all my maids…’ a
strong young boy said while he was shivering.
‘What?! I don’t even care about all that crap. One thing is that I have not put on my make-up
for 3 days! How can I face others? I need to sit in front of an enormous mirror, with plenty of time
to choose which eye shadow, lip stick and mascara to put on. I just want those days back!’
‘Yea! That’s right! There is no wi-fi here. How can I possibly access the network to refresh
and update my status for my friends on Facebook and Instagram? How can I chat with my
friends on Whatsapp?’
The tents were heated by the complaints from the kids. Donald, Wilson, Philip and Fred were
totally disappointed with this bunch of kids. Originally, they looked forward to this trip. They
imagined they could share their exploring experience which some adolescents who would find
listening to them interesting. They imagined they could introduce the beauty of the Gobi Desert
to them and the teenagers would find it exciting, or at least, they would treasure this opportunity
as a relief from the busy, soul-stealing, and noisy society, to be in nature, the original creation of
this planet. To their surprise, it was not the case. There was not much communication between the
older group and the kids, not only did the teenagers not find the trip to be exciting, they actually
thought it was irritating and annoying.
Everyone seemed to be lost, depressed, dispirited, de profundis…
‘Come out and have a look! The sky is flashing!’ Donald shouted loudly.
Fred, Wilson, Philip got out of their depression and ran out of the tent. They were fascinated.
