YMCA Camp

Monday and Tuesday of this week were spent at the Warner-Tulley YMCA Camp in Mississippi. It was kinda of like a mini SPIKE (project away from campus) where we got some hands on experience and a little taste of what we will be doing in the near future rather than just straight up classroom trainings. We rotated stations during those two days and got some quality bonding time with our new teams. My group started out at the high ropes course, which I did not do (because I am a major chicken and there was no time...shucks! haha) but I encouraged everyone, cheered them on, and took lots of pictures! Then we moved on to the low ropes course, which was a lot of fun team building activities that I really enjoyed--they were much closer to the ground! After that we had a much needed lunch break (I have been sooo hungry here lately!) and then we moved onto one of the toughest stations--trail blazing. We literally bush-whacked and created a trail out of the trees and wilderness. It was hot, humid, and torturous, but we survived! I will put a picture of some of my teammates working on the trail on my blog for you to see. I used a fire rake as my tool to chop up roots and such...I felt really tough and manly, except that it was so hot and we had to wear long sleeved shirts, pants, our steel-toed boots, and goggles, so I was way overheated and couldn't take more that 3 swings at a time without needing a water break! Our last station of the day was learning how to use construction tools like hammers, saws, power tools, etc. That was kind of neat, except that my job was to pull down a wall with a crow-bar, and I had no idea where to begin...and then it started pouring rain, which actually felt really good because we were all so sweaty from trail blazing! BUT then the thunder and lightening had to start up and totally freaked me out, naturally I didn't want to be holding power tools out in the lightening! We got to quit that project early and go into the cafeteria where we proceeded to have dinner in the dark, because we lost power! After dinner my team got nominated for clean-up crew (lucky us!) so we had to clean 100 trays, 10 big pots and pans, and a bunch of other kitchen items IN THE DARK! That was quite the experience, let me tell you! At least we still had water and a bunch of flashlights! After dinner we were all incredibly sweaty from being in the hot kitchen for hours (with no AC) so we went to the cabins to shower. We had to shower in the dark too...that was exciting, and right after we got dressed guess what happened....the power finally came back on! It was only 4 hours after it went out, and 2 minutes too late for us to use it to shower...great timing! Haha. Then we journeyed over to a campfire with everyone else who was patiently waiting for us after cleaning the kitchen. After that we were all wicked tired, so tired that I became what my friends here like to call "intoxicated by nighttime" which is when I get so tired that I get really silly and even more giggly than normal (hard to believe, I know!) and I was rambling on, not making any sense, and trying to convince everyone to stay in the cafeteria all night so we could just wake up and be right there for "Christmas," which of course I meant to say "breakfast" haha I don't know why I get so ridiculous when I'm tired, but at least my friends here find it amusing! So we played some cards (which I won!) and then decided to head to bed in our tents. Keep in mind that It had been raining for most of the day...so I was less than thrilled to have to sleep outside in the wet, scary wilderness where there are many types of poisonous critters! We had a million tents set up, 2 people to a tent, and when I went to try to fall asleep I wasn't very successful, because there was a street light that kept going off and on over us, a bunch of people chatting, some people snoring, it was 95 degrees so I couldn't actually sleep IN my sleeping bag, and to top it all off, I got a dud tent that was smaller than all the others, so my head and toes both touched the sides of the tent all night! UGH! Needless to say, I didn't sleep much that night! I woke up at one point and there was a big black bug crawling on me, so I freaked out and flicked it off my arm, then couldn't fall back asleep 'cause I had no idea where it was and I was afraid I would get bitten by it or worse, eat it in my sleep! Ahhh! Anyways, the next morning came too soon and I was exhausted, but had to push through for another day of work. Day 2 started out with roofing, which was really scary, but also kinda fun once I got used to sitting up high and realizing that if I fell off the roof, there was not much I could do about it! Then we moved to painting, which was fun, but wicked hot because we had to wear our awesome coverall suits over our uniforms to keep them clean. Since we were outside working so hard in the hot hot heat, we had to drink lots of water, but the only water they provided for us was cloudy and we all called it "sulfur water" because that's what it tasted like--gross. After painting we did some more team building activities, including a game where you have to act like a dinosaur to the person next to you and if you show your teeth, laugh, or smile, you are out--needless to say, I was out first every time! Lastly we had to clean the bathrooms, which in the daylight we could see that they were wicked muddy and disgusting...so we were actually glad that we weren't able to see how gross they were when we showered in the dark! Then we headed back to campus, which we were all surprised that after only a couple weeks here, campus seemed like "home" to us and we were all relived to be back. OH I forgot to mention the HUGE black and yellow spiders all over the place at the YMCA. I guess they were Banana Spiders, and not poisonous, but they may as well have been by the way I freaked out every time I saw one!