Wochenende in Duisburg

Can you do the funky chicken? I said ah-ooh, ah-ah-ah-ooh, ah-…

This weekend, from Thursday to Sunday, was the AFS regional orientation/lock-in in Duisburg. Many of us students were meeting each other for the first time, or at least talking for the first time, because in the airport and on the train here we were too anxious to talk. Most of all this weekend was a fun mix of cultures and talents.

I carpooled with Natalia/Natasha (she has many other interchangeable names I forget) from Russia and Katria from Finland with Katri’s Gasteltern. We ended up being the first arrivals at the youth hostel by about a half hour because virtually everyone else took the train. In Germany, the trains are the way to go, especially when AFS refunds trips like these. Seriously, when we told some people we took a car to Duisburg (which is less than a half hour from Wesel by auto), they stared at us and said, “Wow, that’s far.”

Thursday afternoon was spent playing “name” games. For example, moving around on small chairs to sort ourselves in alphabetical order, without touching the ground. We played a lot of group games, what the counsellors called “Energizers,” over the course of the weekend. Many of them were “Rock, Paper, Scissors” based though, including the “Amoeba” game and “Giants eat the Dwarfs, who eat the Fairies, who eat the Giants.” I never understood the psychology of those sorts of games, so go figure, I lost. I lose at one-on-one Chinese paper games, too, though I think I have mastered the concept of the Brasilian game (next time I want to play winner keeps the Euro game pieces).

Friday and Saturday were devoted to workshops. Sort of. Most of the information they gave us in the workshops I have heard about 5 times already. The counsellors claim the reiteration will help us remember them, but by the second hearing I knew the 4 “No-no-no-no’s” upside-own backwards and flipped over:

No Drugs
No Driving
No Hitchhiking
No Babies

I took advantage of the weekend to get to know my peers from all over the world. I now have friends from Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Brasil, Italia, Columbia, Russia, Finland, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Turkey, and many other places besides. One of the most popular activities at the camp were learning languages and folk dances. I can speak in Thai (So-bai-dee-mai? So-bai-dee-ka!) and Thai dance, for instance. We had Merenga and Salsa lessons from the Latinos. And a lot of us can now pronounce Kurt’s, from China, real name.

Friends from Hong Kong, China, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Thailand

On Saturday there was a sort of scavenger hunt in which you start out with an egg and an apple, knock on peoples doors and ask them (auf Deutsch) if they will trade you anything for your items. My group didn’t do so well, because shortly into the game one very nice lady gave us a tin for our collection of items and told us not to open it on her doorstep. It turned out to be money, and since that doesn’t trade too well, we tried to buy something (candy) which didn’t work too well. The escapade drained our enthusiasm, except to eat the candy, so we returned to the camp early. Everyone else did really well, someone even got a soccer ball signed by a famous soccer player in Germany.

Friday night was a disco, in which there was plenty of Merenga dancing, break dancing, shower dancing, invisible basketball dancing, etc. Most of the people left long before the hostel managers kicked us out, but we were joined by some Germans not in our group, so that made up for our numbers.

Saturday night was the talent show, and there were so many talents in our group of 30 or so it was amazing. The opening talent was “The Hostel Bathroom” acted in normal, western, sci-fi, cheer leaders (which was misinterpreted to be funky chicken), etc by the counsellors. Then we had songs in Chinese, juggler’s ribbons which sparked, guitar playing/acting, human veet box, accapella, Merenga and break dancing (because we hadn’t seen enough of the two throughout the weekend), Clarinet, traditional Mexican dance with a lit candle balanced on the dancer’s head, and the most impresive modern jazz dance I have ever seen. Katri and I were going to whistle with our hands, but we lost our talents less than an hour before the show, so we rock n roll danced instead. The ironic part was that she taught it to me.

A "magic trick" where Tuna (Turkish guy in chair)

was lifted by 8 fingers, two from each of the people

doing some kind of concentration exercise.

Lupita does the traditional Mexican dance,

complete with garb.

It was a great weekend. Talking with other people about our similar experiences so far is releasing. I can’t wait until the next time we all get together, either at the middle of stay or at the end, so we can share even more. I was almost disappointed when we had to leave, but I think I was ready to go back to the Kiefers.

The Americans strike a pose.