Living in a Wardli

Living in a Wardli is a foreign thing to most of us, seeing as some of us have never cooked or even cleaned! There are quite a few challenges that we have faced, some of these include: cooking food, making our beds (for some of us) cleaning our rooms, vacuuming and mopping, and just doing everything that our mums and dads usually do for us. Living in a Wardli introduces things that most people have never even heard of. But there are more positive things than negative, some of these positive things are making new friends, learning more things about the people that we are staying with, learning how to cook and clean everything ourselves. The living standards in the Wardlis are very high, and if these standards aren’t met then we have to spend a night in "Hotel Hilton" (The BBQ Shed) and as some of us found this out the hard way as everyone in our Wardli didn’t have everything tidy, so we have to spend a night in "Hotel Hilton" We start off with 10 points and if things on the Wardli aren’t in place we loose points, like having bags under our beds, having dirt and food on the floors, not having the bathrooms in order, etc. We lost 14 point so we have to stay in "Hotel Hilton" for one night. Another thing that makes it hard to live in a Wardli is the time. Everything is timed to one clock and for example on the runs we start at 7 AM on the dot, as soon as the second hand hits the zero we are starting to run. The washing machines were difficult at first s none of us knew how to use it but after Dale showed us how to use it we were fine. The highs and challenges that I have faced are:

Highs

• Free Time
• Chill Out Time
• Wrestling with Declan and Matt
• The sing alongs (High School Musical songs)
• Freedom
• Learning new things about people in my Wardli
• Cooking for ourselves
• Being with friends

Challenges

• Cleaning everyday
• Having magpies swooping me in Chill Out Time
• Early starts
• Fitness program in the morning
• Running out of food
• 3 minute showers
  
  
  

Wardli Members

Declan Russell






Blake Anderson






Matt Faull






Stefan Athanasov






Seb Mugford


Our Wardli Group















Sharing a Wardli
My strengths in the Wardli would be cooking and sort of cleaning. I have no trouble coking, just the cleaning part. I can easily cook a meal and it usually tastes alright. Keeping a house tidy is something I have trouble with. I have difficulty keeping the floors clean, like when my job is to keep the lounge room clean, when ever I vacuum or sweep, an hour or 2 later its dirty again. This is a pain because we clean it after dinner and then after we have had dessert and stuff it’s dirty. Then we need to have it clean by the next morning. This has to be done in the hour that we have, after the run, and after our showers and breakfast. For us this is a problem because it’s usually done in about half an hour.

One of the issues in our Wardli would be food. On our first shop we didn’t really know how much everyone would eat. We didn’t really get enough cereal because most of us have a few bowls each, but we did get the amount of milk right, because we have some left over. Next time we shop we need to buy more of everything, especially cereal and snacks. We defiantly need to buy more snacks and cereal, because during the day we are looking for things to eat but there aren’t things to eat. Another issue is people not pulling their weight. Some of the time people just do their job and then say that is enough. It would make it better if they just offered help, for example, when someone’s job is just to put the washing machine on, they just do that and then sit down while others are washing dishes and cleaning their rooms. The third issue in our Wardli is cleaning. When we have swept, 5-10 minutes later it’s dirty again. This is really annoying because it takes while to sweep the lounge room and then there is alot of dirt and dust on the floor again. This is bad because we have daily inspections, and when dirt is back in the house after a few hours, and then we have to sweep again. The verandah is real hard to keep clean for even an hour! Because there is dust blowing back onto the verandah.

All of the things that I have done in the Wardli make me appreciate how much my parents do for me, and what I take for granted. Some of the things I already do at home but others like sweeping, cooking every meal, making my bed (I rarely do this) and just cleaning every day. At home I wouldn’t make my bed every single day, sweep, mop and vacuum every day. After this program I will help out alot more at home. Probably a way to make us all keep everything clean at home would be threatening us with the sleeping outside if we didn’t have our room up to scratch.