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Private R.J Nyangulu reporting for duty.
I went to war and came back alive...just! |
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| Ms Silva |
Paintballing Ladies and Gentlemen is not for the faint hearted! Seriously it was like being in a real battlefield with padded uniform, safety equipment and weaponry plus a living, breathing, moving (and unfortunately for my team) tactically brilliant enemy! It was also something I would never have done in a million years had it not been for this 30 list! I am a girlie girl by my own admission; a real princess so when a group of friends said they wanted to go paintballing (all ladies my age or there abouts I might add!), it was like the heavens opened up and threw me an opportunity to fulfil #29's 'something wild & wacky' challenge and so I jumped at the chance! The occasion was to mark a significant birthday for the very lovely Ms Silva, a good friend of mine so it was at the very least going to be a day of good company I decided and 'bit the bullet' as they say and went along bright and early on the morning of the day.
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| Post war pose... |
That aside the battle element was insane! So there were six of us (not enough for a full team) so we got lumped together with three other smaller adults groups to form the gold team. Then there was the black team, our opponents or as I renamed them, 'The Ninja's'. They were made up of males, obviously known to each other and had played together before (probably on holiday from a tour in some war torn zone they were that good!). They had strategy, communication and feline-like movement that made them impossible to beat and they not only beat us, they wiped the floor with us and then threw us in the gutter sewers. It was pitiful and painful and we were so bad my pride refused to rise to the occasion opting for an early autumn break somewhere else! So needless to say we lost, but its how we lost that made it so spectacularly bad!
We played two games, each game was divided into two lots of six minutes each (I mean this felt like a lifetime!). The first game's objective was to secure some huts before the enemy. I was shot on my left arm within the first 30 seconds of the first game (Ouch! is an understatement!!!) and had to sit it out as that counts as being dead. Watching the other team from the sidelines I knew we were in trouble! And that there was nothing for it than to just go for it and go mental! (Yes me! So I thought to myself, 'there goes my manicure!' But these guys cant get away with this!) In the second part of the game I was back in. As so as the Games Marshall said start, I ran for the nearest hut, half dived in as gun shot started ringing all around me and low and behold I was the first one there! Hut secured the second part of the task was to defend it for the rest of the six minutes. This was no easy feat. There were stray paint-ball pullets flying everywhere! Footsteps pounding the ground outside to the point of shaking the foundations of the hut, almost as an attempt to shake me out of the corner I had taken cover in. I held my ground for precisely five minutes and fifty-five seconds before a shower of bullets rained into the hut like hail stones and smashed against my shins, arms and chest...I was surely dead! And so close, how, where did they come from, I was stunned with disbelief! They had got me so close to the end!?! I was vexed!
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| This is me, armed and vexed! |
The next game I was ready for them! This time we were playing an offence / defence game. Defence team had the President to secure and protect, offence were assassins. In the first part my team were the defence team guarding the president. Seriously, we didn't stand a chance because; a) they were just that good and b) offence couldn't die in this game!!! They shot like navy seal snipers and moved like lightning and cheated in that they shot our president within three feet (sooo against the rules!) but the fact that they got this close is a testament to their skill. The second half of the fame, we were offence only the defence team was attacking us as well as defending their president. In the end their secured their package and we lost....again!!!! I mean we so never stood a chance! Seriously! Half way through I was wondering why they didn't let us play with the kids, at least then we may have stood a chance (more than likely, probably not!).
The worst part of the day was the pain those tiny little orange balls of paint really inflict on you! They are deadly! And if you are hit in a place that is not heavily padded, you could seriously get hurt! This guy is a good example of that; he got hit in the neck and that which looks like a passable gun shot would occurred due to a paint-ball. So when I say I was hit twelve times and it RRRREEEAAAALLLLLLLLLYYYYY hurt! You have to believe me, seriously. I still feel the pain now just thinking about it as I type this...it was insane!
When the games were over, we sat down over lunch discussing how we could have done things differently. How the lack of unity in our team had led to our downfall. Being so many different groups lumped together at the last minute we were unable to elect a leader, develop a strategy or even agree on a single course of action. The scriptures are true when they say that 'a house divided against itself cannot stand'. We also talked about how this experience had opened our eyes to the realities of warfare. We imagined if our pain-ball wounds had been real battle related wounds, how many limbs we would have lost that day...it, in a really small way gave us an understanding of what the troops in Afghanistan must face daily and it did sadden me somewhat. It also made me grateful that we have brave men and women out there in war torn regions defending liberty, democracy and our freedom. It also made me feel grateful for those who had passed on having fought and defeated enemies like Hitler who had threatened our very basic of human rights...the right to life.
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| From battle field to Photo shoot! |
These are some pictures of us modelling and 'working' the combat overall look! It is so a winter fashion must have!!!! Lol!
Dismissed.
