Hello friends,
I have just returned to the states after spending the last three or so weeks working at a scout camp (Pfadfinderdorf Zellhof – “Zellhof scout village”) near Salzburg, Austria. After I got over my initial worries of “what on Earth am I doing at a camp in the middle of Austria where I have to speak German for three weeks!?” everything was really great. I worked with and talk to people of all different ages from all over the German-speaking world and beyond. They were, almost without exception, wonderful. And for the first time in my life I was really the only American around. And that was very interesting.
So, you might ask, ummm Molly, how did you end up working at a scout camp in Austria? The answer: the internet. Hooray for the internet. And hooray for scouting. I have been a girl scout since I was four years old, and after not having been very involved for the last five or six years, it was wonderful to get back into. I had forgotten just how great scouting is. Some things were different from how they are in the US. In many of the troops the boys and girls were together. This was a concept that had not really occurred to me since we are always so separated in the US. But it works. And why not, right? Except that (no offense to any US boy scouts reading) the Girl Scouts of America is a far superior organization to the Boy Scouts of America. And I was somewhat shocked to see that you could buy beer, wine and cigarettes at scout camp. But for the most part I was struck by just how much the same things were. The songs are the same (albeit with lyrics in a different language), the activities are the same, the campfires are the same. It was all so familiar. And I can’t overstate how cool it is to hear a bunch of Danish girl scouts in Austria singing a song that I remember singing when I was their age at camp in California.
As for the language component of my time in Austria, I spoke A LOT of German. At first I thought I was toast as there were so many new words I didn’t know. I just hadn’t had occasion to talk extensively about wheel barrows and buckets and trash sorting before, you know? And often there was not just one new word to learn, but two. When you are working in Austria with people from both Germany and Austria you have to learn not only that in Austria a wheelbarrow is a “Schiebtruhe” but also that in Germany it is a “Schubkarre”. Likewise for bucket (Kübel vs. Eimer). That and you have to understand the Austrian accents which, to me at least, sound like people are always singing. Not everyone sounds like he/she is singing, but a lot of people do. For the first time I was speaking with native speakers, who actually know things like with preposition goes with which verb, which was great for my German. Sadly, now that I am here in California, there is no one to speak German with! Perhaps I should mosey on up to Sacramento and have a talk with the governor. Of course I have been told, by reliable sources, that Arnie’s German isn’t very good these days. I was even told once that my German was better than his. That, however, I do not believe.
There are so many more wonderful little incidents I could write about but, as I think I am tending to write longer and longer emails, I will just share one more of my favorites. One day, I was sitting at a table in the shop reading a book I had brought along with me. A very smart, very funny, 10 year old German kid who was working with his dad and brother at the camp sat down next to me. He asked me what I was reading so I showed him. And he said, “but it’s in English!”. I said, well yes, I am American, I read and speak English. And he was speechless. It was very cute. I guess he just thought I was a none too bright person who made a lot of grammatical errors?
I was extremely sad to leave Zellhof. But since I will be on that side of the Atlantic all next year, I already have several trips to Austria planned to see some of the great people I met. And next summer I really hope to go back. Masters thesis, bah! I’m sure I can take a few weeks off from that, right?…
Hope you all are well and keeping cool.
Bis bald,
Molly
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