Last week, our whole middle school in PDS went on a field trip at a place called Nature’s Classroom. We did a lot of fun activities. The counselors were all very funny! They had weird nick-names, too. Their names were, Rustash, Johny Roby Benny, Home slice, Sloth Lord, Libby, Martin, and Mer. It was really fun and we slept over. We learned a lot about Marine Biology and how to survive in the wild.
One thing that we did there was to learn about something called called the “Underground Railroad”. We did a huge realistic reenactment of it! The counselors who were at the camp, were playing the masters of the slaves and the people who were buying the slaves. The students of PDS (which is us), played the slaves in the reenactment! We all split into groups to make it a lot easier. It was so realistic that they even screamed at us to really make us feel like we were their property. They told us that they would not touch us or hit us, but some of us got really scared. They said that if we didn’t cooperate, then they  would take out a special whip. It had nine ropes on it with big hooks on the end. Not just that, but the hooks are soaked in a lot of salt water! We also got bought to each other and sold to each other. We escaped from that placed (this is still not real) and pretended to travel for years and years to get to Canada! When finally “got to Canada”, we were free slaves.
After that, we went inside to talk about what we did. We all gathered around at about 9:00 at night. The people who we split up into groups with all talked. They told that most all of the things that happened out the was real. One part that wasn’t real is that not so many slaves would have tried to escaped. They told us how hundreds out of thousands of slaves try to escaped. We learned about drivers. They are like the slaves that take care, and control the other, worse slaves. If the driver does a good job, they get more food and a better bed. Sometimes if they were really, really good, they would get there own house! Out of those hundred only less then two percent survived or made it to there destination. One really fun part is that we learned a lot. Another part that was fun is that we did the “Underground Railroad” ,the whole thing, in the dark at night time (about 8:45, it was an hour long).
Because of all of the excitement that was happening, my bunk was really, really, really tired that whole week. We ended up going to bed around 5:00 in the morning!!!!
