My family (my brother Stephan and my parents) and I traveled to the Netherlands from June 29 to August 2 and stayed with family there. My mom was born there and still has aunts, uncles and cousins there. My mom is fluent in Dutch and I know a little bit. I can speak more now after our trip!
I went to a Scout camp in the Netherlands from July 2 - 7. My Dutch scout troop, Strandvogels (translates to beachbirds), rode bikes to camp. We met near the village, Rockanje (pronounced Rokonya), with our bikes and rode for two hours to the village of Ouddorp (pronounced outdorp) where the camp was held. My mom's cousin, Karin, is one of the Strandvogels leaders and my great-aunt Frederike was a cook at the camp.
Only Megan, one of the 15 girls, could speak fluent English. A few of the others could speak a few English words, but not much. All three of the Scouting leaders could help translate for me. I made 15 new friends that week. My best new friends were Megan and Simone (pronounced Seemona). I enjoyed speaking English with Megan. Simone and I had a special bond regardless of not being able to speak the same language!
I had a lot of fun! A lot of people would ask me what my favorite part was, and I would say "trying to figure out what everybody was saying!" It was different because instead of having a lot of troops at one two-or-three-day long campout, this was a week long with just one troop. The theme of the camp was "The American Wild West." The leaders decided this even before they knew I was coming. During free time we played a game that was a mix between badminton and volleyball. There were a lot of activities like making Native American headbands, playing banking, playing tag. We rode our bikes to the beach and a big playground. We also walked to a forest and played there a few times. On the last day we had a barbecue dinner followed by a large campfire with songs.
I was in the Netherlands for four weeks and my favorite part was being at the Dutch scout camp!
(Frances is 10 years old and in fifth grade at Discovery Community School. She is part of Girl Scout Troop 1991 in Kirkland.)[[In-content Ad]]