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A big city makes a person weak, often helpless in the harsh conditions of the wild. This is especially noticeable in our children. One day, a good friend of mine went camping with a group of eighth-graders. “We barely made it to the place where we spent the night,” he says. “The guys threw down their backpacks and lay down to rest.”

They lie there for half an hour. Forty minutes. Finally, one raised a voice: “Will there be tea?” “So there’s no fire,” I say. “We need to light it up…” the boy advises. - So there’s no firewood. “We need to bring it…” “There’s no one,” I say. Only then does someone begin to realize that neither mother nor grandmother is here, nor is there an electric oven.

Obviously, you’ll have to do everything yourself. Somehow we hauled in some wood. The fastest one began to organize a fire. I watch how they do it… they piled up thick wood at random and are trying to light it.

We fought for about 30 minutes, nothing came of it. This is in dry weather. Finally they thought of breaking small dry twigs, and the firewood began to burn. Now another problem arose: how to adapt the pots for tea and porridge?

Theoretically, we studied with them a hundred times how to make a fire and how to build a taganok. I see that my people are thoroughly hungry. No one is lying down anymore. They fuss around the fire.

They advise each other what to do. And practically no one can do anything worthwhile. Finally, the Taganok was somehow adjusted. We started cooking porridge.

Nobody really knows how much to pour. One says one thing, the other says another. The hungry people poured cereal into the cauldron twice as much as it was supposed to. As a result, the porridge “floated.”

They took it off half-baked. I had to heat the stew separately and then add it to the brew, cup by cup. The next day I look: their specialization is already beginning to show. One makes a fire, another cooks, a third gets firewood, the rest set up the camp.

There were also those who wanted to “suck.” But they were immediately seen through and worked on. In a word, some guys went on a hike, but completely different ones returned. Parents then came and asked: “What did you do to them?”

Now they do everything at home, and some others have become kinder, more tolerant, more proactive.” “It’s not me,” I say, “it’s nature that re-educated them a little.”