Going and Going Back: A Series of Fortunate and Unfortunate Events in Ö
By: Hamzah Jameel
Staff Writer
Chapter I: The Very First Moments
Have you ever found yourself thinking like ‘what a great journey it was; I wish I was there again.’ If you haven’t, I have. The moments that I spent in my trip can’t fade easily from my memory; a reminiscence I cannot forget. Moreover, the people I met in this journey are not ones I bump into in a mall and think little of them later. This is how it all started, in Ö, the name I prefer to call Salzburg because I think that the letter Ö in German sounds really cool and special.
We were at the train station in Vienna, where the sun was hanging like a bright jewel from the clear sky. I was carrying a bag loaded with all my camp necessities, including clothes, a sleeping bag, and other everyday objects, such as a toothbrush. The bag was heavy; ergo, I was thinking about how unfair it was that, with my small body, I had to carry that sickeningly hefty backpack while watching those trains sitting there comfortably on the rails. Then, I walked my way to a truck where I left my backpack to be carried separately to Ö. After about ten minutes, we climbed into the train where the beginning of the great adventure starts, neither horrible nor felicitous, but one filled with both fortunate and unfortunate events. It was certainly one that I can never forget.
The train was sluggish, and it could’ve been faster if I ran all the way to Ö. Despite that, I enjoyed the journey very much. Not to waste time, the other campers brought out the Uno cards, and we started playing.
“Vier Rot,” I said. It means “five red,” meaning that I put a red five card. To get introduced with the words, here is a short list: Rot (red), Blau (blue), Grün (green), Gelb (yellow). The numbers from one to ten are as follows: eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn.
So, here the game continues.
“Gehmine,” says someone. That is, ‘you’re so mean.’ Well, I can’t be mean if I put a card that made him hopeless. But, I couldn’t help myself because I didn’t speak German, which made me feel awfully inferior, since I was in a place that not many people spoke English.
“Sechs Blau,” someone continued.
It was my turn, so I said, “that’s so Gehmine.” This time he made me hopeless because I didn’t have a card numbered six, nor a blue card.
The game continues; as a result, the word “gehmine,” is repeated again and again. After we got bored with the game, I randomly started talking to the kids.
“Um, what is your name?” I asked.
“Me? Omar,” he retorted in a rather sharp way, as if he didn’t want to talk to me. He turned his back, so I decided to ignore him as well.
I decided to go to another kid. I started, “Hi. Wie geht es?” That is “Hi. How are you?”
“Abdulrahman,” he replied plainly with the same tone like Omar, which made me feel that this journey would be the worst ever and that Ö was going to be the worst campsite ever.
With that stated, another boy came and quickly made my statement clearly biased. This time, he started the conversation, “Hi Hamzah. You remember me? I am Abdullah and I’ve met you before in the Summer School.” Occurring before the Summer Camp, the Summer School days were full of unforgettable fortunate and unfortunate events.
He seemed like a nice 15-year-old, so I decided to continue. “Um… yes, I do. I guess,” I said, knowing that I remember nothing of him.
Replying, he said, “Oh great! I wish you’ll enjoy this camp. How’s Dubai?”
“Fine. How’s Austria?”
“It’s fine. I want to visit Dubai someday. How’s school?”
“Um… School is - well, I don’t know. I forgot everything about school. You know what? It’s vacation.”
“Oh… LOL. Laugh out loud. Haha,” he said goofily.
“Haha,” I laughed with him, although I didn’t really find it that funny.
And, the conversation went on and on, with the same tone and that ‘funny’ mood, which I found not funny at all.
The train stopped. After all, we had to reach an end sometime and somehow. Right? I went back to sit with Taha, who is one of ‘adults’ in charge. He was there with my sister Maryam and her friend whose name was also Mariam, but spelled differently.
Hopping out of the train, we rode a bus that finally took us to the campsite located near a lake. And, a campsite it was! The lake carried a magical sensation and the view was mesmerizing. The water was clear mirroring the blue sky above. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes disturbed this serenity. They were found every which way. We weren’t allowed to kill them unless it was a necessity, so I left them be. After all, they had their own lives to live.
Let’s get back to the pleasant moments and come out of the world of mosquitoes. Apple trees! Apple trees were everywhere. I went to one and picked an apple. It was so palatable that I ended up dreaming, feeling myself in a very different world - in a world where everything was picture-perfect.
I think we should get out now out of the apple world and come back to our own human world. After I finished eating the apple, which was really finger-licking, I started joining the rest down to the beach of the lake. We didn’t enjoy a lot of watery fun; but running around was quite fun, too.
After all this enjoyment near the lake, we had to set to hard-work. Once the truck came, we unloaded everything and started erecting our tents. It was certainly a tough job, but we managed it.
After hours of work, the tents were up and the food was ready. We ate our first dinner and then stayed watching the myriad of stars above us.
I put on a jacket and slipped into my sleeping bag, without changing into my pajamas. The temperature was about 3-4 degrees Celsius, so I kept waking up at night. Finally, before dawn broke, I fell into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter II: The Cooking Station
After a tortuous night of extreme coldness, the warmth of the sun finally reached my trembling cold body and the goose bumps I had all night started to disappear. I woke up late since I couldn’t sleep the previous night. At about 10 AM, I decided to step out of the tent, took off my jacket, and had some breakfast; some bell peppers, cheese, and a cup of fresh milk with honey. It was a good breakfast that prepared me for another long day.
“Guten Morgen,” says Jakob Ibad (pronounced Ya-kohb), one of my ‘tent mates.’
“I don’t speak German,” I said.
In German, he said something that probably meant ‘I don’t speak English’; therefore, since we both speak Arabic, we continued our talk in that language.
“Hey. Go get some wood,” said Abdulrahman, whom I unluckily had to share the tent with.
“What wood?”
“We’re building the cooking station.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed. I went down with Jakob to collect some wood and carry them up to the location where we were doing our job.
We started building the cooking station by making two X-shaped logs and fixing them in the ground. Between the two lied a bed of rocks on a raft-shaped piece of wood that hung above the ground.
“Dina, why is this thing so complicated!” Again, Dina was another ‘adult,’ but, being just 17, made her a ‘cool’ adult.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Well, I don’t know either,” I said. I turned back and saw Aliya, with a bucket of mud standing there. I turned away, not expecting much to happen. Aliya took a bulk of mud and threw it on my back.
“Ewww!” I exclaimed. “What the heck is wrong with you.” I went to the bucket and took my own big chunk and threw it at her. That probably was not very wise, because I, unluckily, had another chunk of mud thrown on my face.
Just before the sun was about to set and the temperature was getting a little cold, I started to put on my jackets. Then, I had a stomach ache and a headache, as well as a little cold. So, I went back into my tent.
“Sara,” I said. “My tummy and head ache.”
“Aww…” she said. “I’ll call one of my friends to get you an inner sleeping bag, and for now, just go sleep.
After receiving the inner sleeping bag, I thanked her and her friend. Thanks to the sleeping bag, this camping would be possible; without it, I probably couldn’t have survived the whole camp.
I went into my sleeping bag and fell asleep.
I heard noises outside, but I stayed lying down for a few minutes, before coming out. Once I was out I found out that everyone was having dinner, so I decided to join them.
It was bedtime again and another day has passed. My ‘tent-mates’ and I squeezed ourselves into the sleeping bag and fell fast asleep.
Chapter III: The Biking Experience
“What are we doing today?” I asked Taha.
“You are going to bike,” he said.
“Oh cool.”
“But I am not going.”
“Okay. Bye!”
We then went to a ‘bicycle lot’ to get the right sized bicycles and the safety helmets. After that, we started riding.
“Ne ne ne ne ne. I am faster!” I called to the rest of my tent-mates.
And, there we all started racing all the way until we reached our destination, which was along the lake.
“Okay. So here we are all. Every group [all the tent members] will go together to find the hidden clues. Once you find those, you should fill out a crossword puzzle. Once you fill out all of the spaces, you will automatically reach the treasure location and, therefore, redeem your treasure,” announced Safiyyah, another ‘adult.’ I just can’t imagine why there are so many of them.
“Oooh!” I said to my group. “That sounds fun!”
We started moving into the thin path, with Abdulrahman as our leader. He kept falling off from his bike and we all kept laughing. We saw a paper hanging from one of the trees. We picked it and figured out that it was a name for an astronomical constellation. The boys tried to figure out how it is spelled, but they couldn’t. Fortunately, two strangers came and spelled it for us.
“Yes!” Bara’a, one of my tent mates, cried. “We did it!”
We kept on moving with Abdulrahman always falling and us laughing all the time.
We reached a spot which made us confused.
“In which direction should we go?” I asked.
“Left,” said Bara’a.
“No, right,” I suggested.
“Yes. I agree with Hamzah. You see the bicycle sign on the right?” said Jakob. “We should go there.”
We set off biking again, on the right side.
“Stop!” came a voice.
We turned back to look only to see that it was Dina and Sara.
“You guys all started in the wrong location. Everybody is going on a different direction. So, we will take you all to the right starting point.”
“Okay,” we said together.
Jakob, Bara’a, and I rode ahead, leaving Abdulrahman behind us.
From behind, Sara called, “Hamzah, Jakob, Bara’a, can you all please come here?”
“Why?” we said heading back.
She asked, “Were you making fun of Abdulrahman because he couldn’t ride?”
“Yeah… but…” I mumbled.
“No ‘buts’… You hurt his feelings, so you have to all apologize.”
“Sorry,” we said together, and we rode together silently with Abdulrahman as the lead again.
We reached a resting place near a green wide meadow. I walked down to the meadow and stayed lying on the ground feeling very sick.
“Sara,” I said. “I have a headache.”
“Do you want to go back home?”
“Yes.”
So, we rode together back to the campsite. It was a very long and quiet ride.
Once we reached the campsite, I went into the tent and fell asleep again. I woke up before the sunset where I found my friends preparing dinner and so I decided to join them.
Chapter IV: Going Back and a Conclusion
“Wakey wakey,” says Taha walking into the tent.
It was time to wake up and do some packing. I started packing my clothes quickly because I was about to go on the mission of getting the Pioneer scarf, which can only be earned by mastering the following:
Learn and follow the Grundstänze, which was a set of rules to follow as a pioneer.
Learn how to perform first aid procedures.
Explore and love nature.
Study and learn how to use the knife safely.
Learn to do the sophisticated knots
Learn how to create a fire.
Learn how to prepare your own food.
I’ve mastered everything except the 5th requirement. After I finished packing, I started trying again and again in order to prove to them that I was able to do those sophisticated knots. I managed after all, but I was busy thinking if I could or couldn’t get the scarf. That took me hours of hard work and dedication.
We went to the train station and in no time hopped on the train itself.
On the train, Sara announced the names of the campers who will be getting the scarf. Once my name, along with many others, were called, I felt elated and proud. I held the scarf on my hand and couldn’t wait one more second to put it on. Once it was time, I started wishing that the English language had enough words to describe how happy I was then.
As you can see, this was my personal ‘extraordinarily unforgettable’ journey. I learned a lot from this experience; I learned many survival skills and how to cope with the environment. But, those weren’t that important. What really was important was the fact that I learned what it means to be together, as a group. I also learned that words can hurt and that the word ‘sorry’ is very powerful.
In the days that follow, I kept reminiscing those pleasant moments, wishing I was back there again.