Jegersberg trip

The first trip of the course was to the schools backyard in Jegersberg. We were divided into groups of three or four, in my group there was Line, Max and Stella. Before we started the trip, each group put the tents up and looked at the cookers. We also talked about the food we were going to cook because there was going to be a cooking competition. Each country also had to think of a typical team building game from our country and present it for the others. I thought all the others would present a physical game with and thought it would be nice to have a game where we were just talking, sharing stories and bonding. When I started my studies in Iceland our teachers had us play many games and one of the games was a story telling, smarties eating game and I decided that was the game I wanted to play.

I was very excited and a little nervous for the overnight stay. To finally have a little trip and getting to know the other students a little bit but the weather wasn’t looking very good.
When we got to the site we started putting up the tent I arrived a little late and my team had already decided on the spot for our tent. Which was out in the open on a flat spot. When we were putting the pins in the ground we had to bury them in the snow and we were concerned that because of the rain the snow would melt so we had to stack a lot of snow on the pins. Later we found out that it might have been a good idea to have the tent better sheltered from the wind as the wind blowing during the night went right on the side, the wind was very cold and really shook the tent and kept me awake during the night. While we were putting up the tents it was dry out but as soon as we finished it started raining.

After the tents were up we started the group dynamic games. All the countries had their games ready and we started playing. A lot of the games were running around and most of them I had played before or recognized with different rules. –A German game was to close our eyes and grab each other’s hand and then try to solve the knot that formed. We were a large group so the first people who got free had to stand still and wait for a little time. But we had to use communication to solve the problem.

-The British Bulldog game was a simple running game where the people in the middle of the field tried to catch everyone and if you were caught you joined the people in the middle catching everyone. It was a lot of fun running in the snow and people in the middle had to work together to try to get everyone.

-More running games like where we were split into three teams and had to stand in a line and holding hands where one hand was between the legs. Then we ran up a hill and down another hill, which was hard to do in the snow and bending like that, my team lost contact a lot of times but it was fine because we kept laughing and trying to keep going.

-The Lithuanian game was also a running game but Martynes had a cool story to go with it, explaining how the Lithuanians are warriors, which was very interesting and made the game exciting. We were split into three teams and had to run to a specific spot on the path, but there was a catch, we had to run in a special way, maybe carrying another team member or turning in circles and then trying to run as fast as we could in the wet snow. The game was very funny because when people stopped spinning we were disorientated and entertaining.

-The Czech game was to carry one team member on a path in the area and try to finish before the other team. That required good team work and communication because we had to switch a few times and still try to get finish before the other team. It was a lot of hard work and fun running in the snow.

-Another British game was a game that I know as The chicken baseball game We were split into two teams and then we had to throw an object as far as we could and while the other team was running to get the object to throw it further our team formed a huddle and one team member started to run as many circles around the huddle until the other team threw the object. When the other team threw the object, our team ran to get the object then we started to pass the object over the heads and under the legs alternately until the last person threw the object again and the process repeated itself again. I love this game it is always a success when we play it with the kids on scout camps. But we have to stop it before it gets boring because it is a lot of running. But it is very funny and everyone has fun.

-The Americans made us work together standing on a tarp to flip the tarp over. A lot of us had played the game before and therefore we were pretty quick to decide on a strategy in order to complete that task. But there are a lot of variations of the game and if we had more time we could have played the game longer but we were cold and still had more games to go through and a lot of us had played it before.

-The Danish game was to make a sculpture with our bodies. But with only a few body parts that were allowed to touch the ground. We had a good time doing different things and trying be a better sculpture then the other team.

-In my game we all stood still in a circle and each person got a few smarties with different color and each color representing a different story that they had to share. They got a moment to reflect on their selves and what they wanted to share with the group. One color for an embarrassing story, one color for where they saw them in ten years, one color for a happy memory and so on. I thought it was nice to hear the different stories and some of the stories were really hilarious. And everyone got to eat a little chocolate in the cold. But it was a little cold and maybe I should have given them fewer smarties so we could get moving faster to keep the heat.

We were split into many different teams in the games which was good for getting to know everybody, it was good for team building, we had team spirits, cheering each other on, each trying our best for the team and having fun. After every game we had a short reflection on the game and discussed what we were doing during the games and what the positives and negatives were about the game.
The physical games we played were good for us because it was really cold outside and the activity was good to keep us warm. Unfortunately we were playing in the wet snow and it was raining for the majority of the games so many of us were soaked through our boots, jackets, pants or gloves. So this day got some of the people very aware of how important it is to have good equipment. Especially waterproof and an extra set of dry clothes.

After the games we started with the cooking competition. Every team had to prepare a meal that was good to bring on other trips, a meal that had a lot of nutrition and was quick and easy to make. We discussed before the trip what to bring and cook and thought we weren’t allowed to precook anything because that would be cheating. Then we saw that other teams had done that. It was a little annoying because of course the easiest and best way to have meals on the trips is to prepare them the most at home before the trips. Then we don’t waste unnecessary time, energy and gas or fuel to cook everything from the beginning.  We tasted every meal and saw that it can be easy to cook something exciting and delicious which is more likely to get us to eat during the trips. Especially during trips like this, it was so cold and wet that as soon as the cooking competition was over most of us went to the tents to rest and it wasn’t even nighttime. We didn’t have a group fire and the atmosphere was really faint we still met for a little while in the common tent, telling stories.

We went really early to sleep and when I woke up I was really disappointed that the time was only ten in the evening. After a long night it was finally early enough to take down the tent and because of the cold night and the rain the snow we had piled on the tent pins had turned into ice that we had to break in order to get the tent free. The whole area had turned into ice and we had a laugh trying to skate out of the area with our backpacks and tents. So even though it was a hard, cold and wet trip it ended with a laugh.