Night Hike

So, hi.

I had my another volunteer hours again by working with the Environmental Group in my community. They’re pretty awesome kids to hang with, and I’m glad I’m in it.

So, this night, we were supposedly helping the library to work with their Night Hike project, where you walk in the woods at night, try to find for traces of animal footprints and the other stuff. It’s pretty fun—from what I imagined.

We tried to walk through the trail first before they came to put all the clues and traces of footprints—because it would take ages to find the real one—and then coming back to the library. We saw a bunch group of young girls—around six or seven years old—and their mothers—and some fathers.
I was pretty much shocked and didn’t expect myself to see that whole lot of people to work with.

Basically, they’re all so cute and adorable, like your ideal of little six years old American girl in their scout group. The trail was so far so good because it’s pretty obvious and I still remembered.

Then.
Half and an hour passed. My flashlight was dimming (well it’s actually dimming for the whole walk), although I had some adorable girls that tried to cling to me and they had these super excellent working flashlights, so I tried to keep them near me. The trail started to get smaller, and I wasn’t sure whether I walked in the right path. And the girls started to ask questions like,

“What if we’re lost?”
“No, we won’t. Since you have me.”
“Yeah, but I was just wondering if we’re lost…”
“…”

And the other stuff. One of the mothers asked me how long it’s going to take more, and I wasn’t sure myself. I mean, it was pitch black, I wasn’t sure how long we’ve been walking, and I wasn’t sure where we were at that time.

I told her that probably we’re going to have another 15 minutes before we finish, and then she started to tell me that they didn’t know that it’s going to be that long since it passed their bedtime. When I asked them about the bedtime, all of the girls said they sleep at 8pm.

Well, probably you should just use my bedtime.

The road started to get confusing, and the distance between each clue started to get farther and farther, which made me a bit worried. I thought I was going to cry. What if we’re lost? What if they’re going to sue me since I’m not an American citizen and I know nothing about the park? What if they thought I’m a professional and when they know I am not, they’re gonna hate me?

Another What-If’s condition that I don’t really need to think about. Hem.

And finally,
We arrived. We’re finished.

All of the mothers were in hurry to go back to the library since it passed their bedtime—which they tried to walk in front of me, the leader, instead. We rushed back to the library. They were ahead over me and then made a circle to have some snacks. The lady that talked about the bedtime asked me whether I want to join their goldfish snack time, and I unwillinglypassed it. After that, I bid farewell to them, didn’t get a chance to say where I came from though, but I’m glad they’re happy.

And it seems that I got the biggest group ever—15 people or so!
Means I have the right to feel a bit nervous.
Man, hard night.