Hurts So Good

     Well...on second thought, not so much. Today was the quest and it left me with multiple hurting muscles in my chest, stomach and arms. Like I needed any more aches this week. I'm just glad I made it through the quest in one piece....Sheesh, I sound like an old man.
     I'll start today's post with an answer to a question from yesterday's post. Dan asked:

What are Max's talks about?

     Max's talks are usually designed to be a full-frontal assault on all preconceptions the students might have about life, the way of the world and Christianity. I've talked a little about his lectures in then past. This camp's series is titled "Way Home." Unfortunately I wasn't paying a lot of attention to the first lecture this week. Tuesday was about souls and the controversial subject (among the students) of whether animals have them or not. Tonight's talk is on morality and common morals. Before the talks, we have a short time for team interaction to figure out where the students stand on his topic choice.
     Also, by nature of the translation and Max's speaking speed, Americans (and I especially) usually don't get a whole lot out of his lectures. It's hard enough following a conversation in a crowded and noisy room. Change that to a speaker talking through a PA system and then try listening to a person quietly speaking in their second or third language and you have a recipe for minimal retention of information. Max's speed of speech also plays a big part in not getting his point. He talks a million miles a minute and that makes it very difficult for translators to follow. Usually the Americans only get the main points out of the talk with a little extra information on the side.

Always use the buddy system.

     Now, moving on to the quest. Boy am I glad it's over. It was a long, rough, and fun process to go through. I'm glad it only comes once a year. Unfortunately, my phone is on the way out so I didn't get nearly as many pictures as I was hoping to. But what I did get is included below. The cool part is that I did get to see two of the things I made last year in use; the labyrinth and the boxes. I can't find if I mentioned the boxes in a post before. You can see one in the photo above. They're basically small crates about a foot square by thee feet long. We used them to carry bags of sand around during the quest. More on that in a few moments.
     The Ukrainian staff has been planning this event for months now. Not only the camp but this quest in particular. The effort definitely showed. We had a series of ten stations to work our way through including everything from physical challenges (hence my physical discomfort right now) to mental puzzles. All through it we were ranging far and wide across the Zazimie Complex.
     I can't remember all the stations but I do understand the point of the quest. The staff wanted to teach the students about what is really important in life. At each station as we arrived, the person in charge there would hand us a bag of sand with a letter on it. At the end of the challenge if we passed, we had the option to trade the sand for an additional challenge. As it went on, it seemed more and more like the students on my team wanted to keep the sand. With every station, the letters kept adding up until by the end, we realized they spelled out (with some gaps) "sand treasures." Along the way, we had chances to trade our worthless sand for challenges that would bring us fun, enjoyment, and potentially a reward at the end. But the team, myself included were a little too shortsighted to see that.

Team planking for fifteen minutes with three second breaks between people.

I'm not angry, we had to make a photo with lots of different emotions.

Vladislav digging through the "Abomination" challenge.

Megan digging through the "Abomination" challenge.

Dima (white shirt) making an obstacle of himself.

One Soviet Ruble.

The flip-side of the Ruble.

     After all the torturous morning fun of the quest, we finally had a chance to relax and have some lunch. I ate and the retired to my room for a shower and some cool-down time. Things have been going from morning 'til night here and there isn't hardly any time to just do something else for a while. I jot a few minutes to clean up and catch up on some headlines and Youtube.
     Unfortunately it ended all to quickly. English was next on my schedule. It went well enough today. I actually found myself out of time right as we finished the last question.We then moved downstairs for a game of Pictionary. It seems like the students really liked this and the game of Taboo yesterday. They were asking to play Taboo again today. It'll have to wait until tomorrow.

     After Max's talk and another good dinner of rice and pork, we started movie night. They showed The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe with Russian subtitles. I've seen it already so I didn't watch it this time. But I did get to help demolish a huge bag of cheese-flavored popcorn. I don't think I'm a fan of it though. It's supposed to be cheese (I think) but it tastes more like Ramen noodles to me.
     Now that the general overview is out of the way, make way now for my opinions and observations. (insert dramatic and slightly evil sounding music here) I'm constantly amazed at the energy levels of the Ukrainian staff. I really don't understand how they do it year after year. For some of them, this is only one of two or three camps this year. Dima Zaitsev told me on Monday that he didn't sleep at all Sunday into Monday. I'd be dead tired or sleeping in class by lunch time if that happened. Throughout the events, the quest, and the discussion sessions, they seem to show tireless energy. It is my secret suspicion (not so secret now), that the Ukrainians are all robots. They don't need to sleep, they just recharge from the 220V sockets in their rooms at night while scheming up new and terrifying ways to make us have fun.
     By comparison, I look at the American team and see that they are all in one way or another (myself included), wearing down. Whether by injury, sickness or just fatigue, our energy level seems to dip precipitously low every evening. It might be the activity level. It might be the stress of an unusual situation. We'll all be grateful when this camp closes on Saturday. Perhaps, for next year, we should petition the CIA to send along some of their cyborg prototypes to help teach English.
     But seriously, please continue to pray for our health and strength while we are here. We'll need some supernatural strength to get through this camp in one piece. Thanks for continuing to follow along with our adventures.