Workcamp in Deutschland

"Neue Wege gehen" am Tegernsee

von Jovana Momcilovic aus Serbien

My experience
Now from this point, while nicely cuddled in my chair, I can surely say, that was a trip to the future.
Germany is a great country. All those smiley faces, colorful Bavarian skirts, funny hats, wooden houses, greenest grass in the world… Now I can understand Serbian sigh for Europe!

Arrival
For the whole time of my journey, I was strongly holding a piece of paper, with the directions for how to get to Rottach Egern, in my hand. It was no big deal, if I don’t mention my luggage which survived three cut-offs even before I departed from Belgrade. Luckily there were some gentlemen willing to hop in and help. It appeared that 2 shorts, 1 pair of trousers and 2 towels are not enough for 22 days in camp. Fortunately there were those great girls who changed their clothes few times per night and they were more than willing to share their shiny and colorful wardrobe with me.
My first encounter with the group was during the dinner. Since I was the last one who arrived, all the “good places” were already taken, and I just sat on the closest chair, passed the already disappearing dinner, and skipped directly to ice cream!
The camp gathered various young people. At the first moment I was not interested in national varity because I don’t believe in ethnical diversity stereotypes. Those national belongings are more presented in a physical than in mental appearance. Even in some draft representation of a nation we are usually guided by some inflicted, usually financial facts – and not by some real stances.
We had great opportunity to have a glance look to cultural and ethnographic segments of a society. Of course our host had a great advantage.

I was more interested in variety of human attributes. There were fifteen of us in a camp.
—Paul - smart and pretty mature in his 15... Loved by everybody, because of his honesty and jokes.
—Marie, Paul's sister - terrible cook, made me think why France is so famous about delicate taste, but
she was trying hard and always made compliments about the meals that other people made.
—Iga - one of the leaders. Great dancer, every night in different dress.
—Jorge - Iga's little boy, charmed with her dance and smile.
—Maren - she's like everybody's mom. Always caring and wise.
—Davina and Teresa - inseparable from the beginning, from each other and from their novels.
—Seid - Turk, everybody's friend. You could talk about anything with him. Flowers, producers, soccer,
fashion trends... but I think mostly about love.After 3 days in a camp he already found his true love... he
fell in love with the Ukrainian girl...
—Sasha - Ukrainian flower girl. Pretty, cute and young.
—Svetlana andMaria - Russian girls, adventure seekers. They traveled to Austria and Italy for a weekend on a bicycle!
—Anna Maria - Party girl from Estonia. I was greatly amused by her question one night before
sleep:"Did you ever really kissed someone?" :) Sweet sixteen.And YES - she kissed someone before she
went home.
—Imre - Our leader, always carrying the biggest backpack, water supplies for all of us and occasionally
some sandwiches extra.
—My sister Mika and me.

My sister Mika also, for the first time in her life, found her true love. But her love were mountains, lake and long walks. Everyone will remember the moment when we had a long walk through the mountains, found a little lake and stopped on a wooden raft to have a rest. She started crying. "These are tears of joy!" - she said, surrounded by mountains, standing there on a couple of wooden planks on a lake - that moment lasted forever. Tears really are the words of your soul.
We had to love those mountains! We lived along with them for almost a month. We were making roads on them in the morning, having a great time swimming in the afternoon, and in twilight we were conquering those mountain peeks just because we wanted to look down at a mirror of Tegerensee under us and see the stars.

Our working day lasted 8 hours, three days in a week - leaving us four days for enjoying. We traveled to Salzburg, had nice boat rides, walked through Munich few times, visited Museum of Art, German Museum, Alianz Arena. We've slept under the stars, drank beer on festivals and learned Bavarian folk dances... enjoyed hot baths and saunas...
This camp was my greatest summer ever.
A HUGE Thank You to IJGDU and of course to my new friends.
Jovana