Her face puffy from lack of sleep, Vivika Barnabas peered down at the springs, rods and other parts of a disassembled assault rifle spread before her.
At last, midway through one of this country's peculiar, grueling events known as patrol competitions, she had come upon an easy task.
Already, she and her three teammates had put out a fire, ridden a horse, identified medicinal herbs from the forest and played hide-and-seek with gun-wielding "enemies" in the woods at night.
By comparison, this would be easy. She knelt in the crinkling, frost-covered grass of a forest clearing and grabbed at the rifle parts in a flurry of clicks and snaps, soon handing the assembled weapon to a referee.
薇薇卡．巴納巴斯的臉因為睡得不夠而腫脹，她凝視著散落眼前的彈簧、槍條等一把已拆解攻擊步槍的零件。
她在愛沙尼亞這怪異又激烈的競賽過程中，總算碰到了個比較簡單的項目。這競賽叫做巡邏競賽。
她和三名隊友先前已經撲滅了一場火，騎過了馬，認出森林裡的藥草，並在夜晚的林中與帶槍的「敵軍」捉迷藏。
相形之下這很簡單。她跪在林中空曠處這片起皺結霜的草地上，喀答喀答抓起步槍零件，很快就把組合好的步槍交給了裁判。
"We just have to stay alive," Barnabas said of the main idea behind the Jarva District Patrol Competition, a 24-hour test of the skills useful for partisans, or insurgents, to fight an occupying army, and an improbably popular form of what is called "military sport" in Estonia.
The competitions, held nearly every weekend, are called war games, but are not intended as fun. The Estonian Defense League, which organizes the events, requires its 25,400 volunteers to turn out occasionally for weekend training sessions that have taken on a serious hue since Russia's incursions in Ukraine two years ago raised fears of a similar thrust by Moscow into the Baltic States.
「我們非保住老命不可。」巴納巴斯道出「嘉瓦區巡邏賽」的重點。這場24小時的比賽旨在測試游擊隊或反抗軍對抗占領軍的技巧，在愛沙尼亞被歸類為「軍事運動」的一種，不可思議地受歡迎。
這種比賽幾乎每周末舉行，雖然稱為戰爭遊戲，卻不是用來作樂。舉辦單位「愛沙尼亞防衛聯盟」要求2萬5400名志願參與者不時接受周末訓練。自從兩年前俄國入侵烏克蘭，令人擔心俄國也會同樣入侵波羅的海三小國後，這種訓練就蒙上了實戰演練的意味。
Estonia, a NATO member with a population of 1.3 million people and a standing army of about 6,000, would not stand a chance in a conventional war with Russia. But two armies fighting on an open field is not Estonia's plan, and was not even before Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, said European members of NATO should not count on U.S. support unless they pay more alliance costs.
Since the Ukraine war, Estonia has stepped up training for members of the Estonian Defense League, teaching them how to become insurgents, right down to the making of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, the weapons that plagued the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another response to tensions with Russia is the expansion of a program encouraging Estonians to keep firearms in their homes.
The Jarva competition entailed a 25-mile hike and 21 specific tasks, such as answering questions of local trivia — to sort friend from foe — hiding in a bivouac deep in the woods and correctly identifying types of Russian armored vehicles.
愛沙尼亞是北約成員國，人口130萬，常備軍6000人，與俄國打傳統戰爭不堪一擊。不過，愛沙尼亞並不打算讓兩軍在曠野中交戰，甚至在美國共和黨總統候選人川普說出那句話之前就如此。川普說，北約的歐洲成員國若不分擔更多成本，就不該指望美國保護。
自從烏克蘭戰爭爆發後，愛沙尼亞就加緊訓練愛沙尼亞防衛聯盟的成員，教他們如何變成反抗軍，甚至如何製造土製炸彈。土製炸彈曾在伊拉克與阿富汗讓美軍焦頭爛額。另一個因應與俄國緊張關係的方法是，擴大辦理鼓勵國民在家中存放槍械的方案。
嘉瓦比賽包含25英里（40公里）健行和21個明確的項目，如回答有關當地瑣事的問題以分辨敵友，躲在森林深處的露營地裡，以及正確辨認俄國裝甲車輛的種類。
（文/Andrew E. Kramer 譯/李京倫）
說文解字看新聞
本文介紹波羅的海（The Baltic Sea）的愛沙尼亞，因應鄰國俄羅斯的軍事威脅，全民皆兵。標題的spook指猛然一驚，通常引發劇烈反應。《時代》雜誌評論美國總統當選人川普處理外交政策我行我素，讓全球領導人很緊張：Trump's cavalier approach to foreign policy had left world leaders spooked.可當名詞使用：The big spider gave me a spook.
Insurgent指叛亂分子，常用複數；insurgent group是叛亂團體。Insurgent造本國政府的反，愛沙尼亞反抗的卻是俄國。梅爾維爾（Herman Melville）名著《白鯨記》（Moby-Dick）中，狂人船長亞哈（Captain Ahab）面對船員醞釀抗命，舉槍喝令眾人立刻返回工作崗位：commanded the insurgents instantly to return to their duty.
政壇的非主流也可用這個字描述，《華盛頓郵報》稱川普是the insurgent president-elect，《華爾街日報》說他是a political insurgent。
主流或建制派勢力的英文是the establishment (forces)。
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