Impeesa Weeks 1 & 2, Year 3

So I've been gone for the two week overnight camp. I had a weekend off in the middle, but I worked both days and had a few other obligations which distracted me from updating my blog.

Both weeks were at Impeesa, which was the location I did both overnight weeks in my first year, and I did one week there last year as well.

I spoke on this last year, but "Impeesa" is pronounced "Im-pess-ah" and was the nickname of Robert Baden-Powell, who was the founder of Boy Scouts when he was fighting in Southern Africa. His enemies called him this, and he told his friends it meant "The Wolf That Never Sleeps". However, in the Ashanti language, which was the language of the people that named him, it means "Hyena" and is a derogatory term. It's probably still an honour to receive such an insult from your enemy, however. You don't want your enemy cheering for you, right?

Our activities were pretty standard. We had campfires on Tuesday and Thursday nights, movie night on Wednesdays, and a formal dance on Thursdays. We had groups go out on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for swimming at a pool in Paris, Ontario, and we had a reflection painting activity on Thursday. Otherwise, time was pretty free. We ran nature walks, played chess, checkers, othello, did a puzzle (failed to finish it this year), played frisbee, football, soccer, volley ball, etc.

First week, one of our participants brought her collection of DVDs and offered them for movie nights. Our official night was voted in for Wreck It Ralph, which is about a video game villain who would like recognition for his participation in the game he's been involved in for the past thirty years. When he is not accepted, he moves onto other games and the people who took him for granted struggle to find a replacement for him.

It came across as a weird, cartoon, tech-based version of the Hindu mythology surrounding Shiva, the god of destruction, and Parvati, the goddess of creation in Hindu mythology. One participant made the situation more ironic by pointing out that the "Fix It" guy wants to break free, while the "Wreck It" guy wants to build a place for himself.

We also watched Tangled since Wednesday was an indoor camp fire due to weather. Didn't watch most of it since I had other obligations, but I've seen it before. It's based on the "Rapunzel" story, it's animation style, title, and the time of release are similar to the more famous Frozen so the two often get compared.

My cousin visited during this time. She got to meet all the participants, we played the President card game, and she got to meet my coworkers

On my day off, me and the other guy I was spending it with watched Suicide Squad. Like a Superhero flick with the protagonists being former villains. I can appreciate using former villains as heroes, as the path to villainy is more complex than the path to heroism, and thus seems to inspire more creativity for writers. But it felt like there was too much content to be covered in the time length of the movie, and so the Squad members and their relationships with one another felt underdeveloped. I feel like that's the criticism I give every team-based superhero flick. I guess the length of a movie just isn't sufficient to fully develop an entire team. Sucks because I like teams better than standalone heroes. I like the team dynamic, clashing personalities, more specified abilities.

In Suicide Squad, I really wasn't feeling Captain Boomerang, and I wanted more of a psychological break from El Diablo when he first cut loose.

Back at the camp, despite having two dances yearly, I've only been to one. First year, my break was on Thursday evening, night of the dance, both weeks. Next year, I got one dance in but the other was canceled. Third year, one dance was on a scheduled break, and then the next week I was free on the night of the dance but another pair had some errands to run and wanted to trade with us.

There's an established tradition that staff on their night off bring a treat for the rest of the staff after hours. In the first two years, I've been the one tasked with the finishing treat. Because we switched nights off, I got to close the year for the third time in a row.

On our nature trails, I tended to get lost, and therefor we wandered off the beaten trail and came upon a giant ornamental face fixed to a tree. We named this discovery "Tree Face" and it became a regular walking destination. My phone camera wouldn't upload a photo, but here's a painting, done by yours truly.

I'm afraid I turned Tree Face into a bit of a false idol. I asked everyone to tell Tree Face something they were thankful for.

I said "Thank you Tree Face, for the harvest of bagels we dined on this morning"

A participant said "That wasn't Tree Face, that was you!" I said "I am simply a humble servant of Tree Face. Thank you Tree Face, for helping me guide this camp!"

I also thanked Tree Face for protecting us from Drumbo Dan, which is a ghost that supposedly haunts Impeesa because he lost his feet, and St. Pete says he's incomplete (story is told as a rhyming poem). So he needs to cut off someone's feet at night that are the right size so he can attach them and cross the pearly gates. I really think that heaven is inaccessible based on these rules, calling certain people "incomplete" and not letting them in based on a mobility issue. It's like the same people that run Wild Water Works also run Heaven. 

I painted the above image of Tree Face during our reflection painting exercise. I have two other paintings from my first year hung on my wall.

During my second break, we went to The Works which is a pretty infamous Ontario-based chain of gourmet burger restaurants. They pride themselves in their bizarre menu options. For example, several options come with peanutbutter as a topping, there's a Kraft Dinner topped burger, they had the infamous Reese Cup burger.

Menu's kind of judgemental. There are "Right" and "Wrong" options. For example, there's a "Plain Jane" burger, "Ho Hum #1", and "Ho Hum #2" which get made fun of in their descriptions. I'd be intimidated to order the "First Date" burger, too. Patties come in beef, chicken breast, ground turkey breast, veggie, mushroom cap, crispy chicken, cheese stuffed beef, bacon & beef, and elk.

I got the Man O' War (onion, horseradish, dijon, and gouda) with an elk patty. It was pretty good.

The treat we brought back was a bottle of non-alcohol champagne and some cream puffs and mini cheese cakes that we plated like hor d'oeurves. We toasted a successful year. Remember how at the beginning I said the year was too easy? Well, it really never got much harder. Aside from a few rough spots, everything went smooth. We championed this year.