It was taking me too long to write all about camp so I decided to split it into two parts so here is how the second part of camp went.
Tuesday morning we woke up to rain again. They said it got down to as low as -3*C (that’s 26*F) in the night so it was very cold. But today we got to choose between several different activities and I had chose to go to Ostersund, the closest city, to just walk around and see the city and shop. Ostersund stand for the winter city. In the winter it is a very popular place to go to sky and do winter sports. It was a nice break especially sense it was raining all day.
Wednesday was probably my favorite day. I went white water rafting and loved it! There were 5 English speaking people that went so they put us all in a boat together because the guides have to yell out commands so that way there wouldn’t be any confusion. They gave us all wet suits and life jackets and then went over the rules of rafting. The guides were a lot of fun and really made the day! Once we got in the water we all started splashing each other and they would jump from boat to boat tipping people out, so that we could get us to the temperature of the water. We were pulled by a motor for about 20 minutes before going through our first rapid which was a 1 on a scale of 5. So it was pretty easy. Next we went through a 2, which I fell out during, but the guide helped me back in and it wasn’t a big deal. We then stopped for lunch and warmed up by a fire, we were all pretty cold. After lunch we went through a 3 rapid, which was the most fun. At the very end everyone jumped into the river and floated down with the current. I thought it was all pretty cool! That night back at camp they had another impromptu dance until about midnight. Then it’s a tradition for one of the counties to make waffles over their campfire and share them with everyone while people sing campfire songs. It was a nice evening!
Thursday was the big volleyball tournament! This is a huge deal for the Swedes. Apparently 4-Hers brought volleyball to Sweden so everyone takes it very seriously, everyone, except the Young Farmers/IFYE Team. I was the only one on the team that had ever played or even knew the rules, but we had a lot of fun and we did manage to win 3 of our 12 matches. That night they had their closing ceremonies and gave out the awards.
I think one of the biggest differences from Swedish 4-H to ours is that there is no age cap. They start 4-H at age 7 and continue being apart of 4-H for as long as they wish. Swedish 4-H is funded by their government and they get a certain amount of money for every registered member they have between the age of 7 to 35. Some people were recognized for attending their 20th camp. There were also not really any chaperons, everyone came with their counties and have 2 or 3 group leaders that were in charge of organizing and getting information to people. Same with the Young Farmers, their group leaders were older, but they weren’t really there as chaperons. It was interesting to me to see how all the different ages came together because that aspect is so different from 4-H in the U.S.
Friday was just traveling on a bus for 18 straight hours and I met my new host family around 1:30 in the morning. They are very nice and I’m really enjoying Kalmar!
