The Summer I Was Almost Never at Home.

Two camps, a catamaran, cold forest showers, tuna with mango, a permanent problem with being late, and a Spanish exchange student waiting at home: my summer was not exactly made for resting.

By Sarah, France

My holidays were really, really cool. Actually, they were very big holidays because I had so many things to do that I was almost never at home. I think that is what I loved about them. There was always another camp, another place, another activity, another person to see.

First there was my Scout camp for two weeks in Alsace. Then I helped at another camp with children. I went to Mallorca with my mother and joined my grandmother, cousins and the rest of the family. I stayed at my grandmother’s house for a few days, went swimming and spent time with friends.

So yes. I had holidays. But I am not sure I had much sitting down.

Two Weeks in the Woods.

The Scout camp was probably the biggest adventure. We stayed in tents, with the girls and boys from each team sleeping separately, and we had our own part of the forest.

And when I say camp, I mean camp.

We had to build things ourselves from wood and cord. Each team could make its own tables and the things we needed for eating and living. Because we were in a new place that summer, we had to start the construction from zero.

The Scouts’ chief—the adults who supervise us—were there, but we did a lot ourselves. They checked that we had not forgotten anything, helped with important things behind the scenes, drove us to the shops and made sure somebody could deal with injuries. This is important when you are doing things with wood and not always thinking enough about hand protection.

There were also activities all the time: afternoon activities, night activities and big games. During the year, we help plan these things ourselves. That is one thing I really like about Scouts. You don’t only arrive and wait for somebody to entertain you. You participate in making the camp happen.

The same was true for cooking. Sometimes everyone ate together and a small group prepared the meal. Other times we cooked in teams of about eight people. At the beginning of the week, we planned recipes, made ingredient lists and went shopping.

Then came the cooking competition.

Our camp had a theme based on the elements, and my team got water. This meant our meal had to connect somehow with water and fish. We made a little tuna-and-mango salad for the starter, salmon pasta for the main course, and for dessert we attempted île flottante—floating island.

In the woods.

By hand.

Normally you would make part of this dessert with an electric mixer. We did not exactly have a beautiful professional kitchen hidden behind a tree, so we had to do it ourselves.

We did not win.

Not because the food was necessarily terrible, but because we were thirty minutes late.

This was completely normal for my team. During the whole camp, we were basically known as the team that was always late. Of course, when there was finally a competition with a deadline, we were late for that too.

At least we were consistent.

There was also a presentation for the competition, with choreography and costumes. I had to wear fake hair, and somewhere in the middle of all this there was even a photo montage of me with McDonald’s nuggets.

The nuggets had become a Scout joke. On another occasion we had passed two McDonald’s restaurants, and I was basically begging, “I want nuggets. Please, just give me nuggets!”

The answer was no.

So naturally somebody later sent me a picture with a nugget, and eventually I ended up in a ridiculous montage with nuggets.

Finally. My nuggets.

The Luxury of a Real Shower.

Living in the forest also changes your definition of luxury.

The toilets were very basic. Each team had a toilet in its section of the woods, and there were a couple of more private ones for situations when somebody was ill or needed them.

The showers were also homemade. We had a big tent, plastic pallets to stand on and something a little like the equipment you use to water plants in a garden. If we were lucky, the sun warmed the water.

If we were not lucky, the water was cold.

Actually, because the weather was warm, the cold water could feel quite good before going to bed. The problem comes after two weeks, when you realise you do not really feel clean anymore.

Then you see a real shower again.

Very beautiful. Very exciting. Possibly one of humanity’s greatest inventions.

Going Back to Camp, but on the Other Side.

My second camp was different because this time I was helping to take care of children and organise activities for them. It was especially funny for me because it was a camp I had attended when I was younger. Now I was coming back on the other side.

There were around 45 or 50 children, with a team of adults and young people looking after them. We played games, including a giant version of Mikado, had a cinema party, sang, danced and did a big walk in the mountains. We visited a First World War memorial site and had a bonfire too.

I really like children, so I loved being part of the animation team. They were sweet, the other people working there were funny, and there was always something happening.

It also made me think about doing the BAFA, the French qualification that allows young people to work with and supervise children at camps and holiday programmes. Now that I am 16, I can do it.

I think I probably will.

For me, it sounds like a very good combination: you can work, travel, organise activities and still have an interesting holiday. And if my English becomes good enough, maybe one day I could even work at an international camp.

That would be really cool.

Then Mallorca Happened.

After all the forest life, Mallorca was something completely different.

I went with my mother and joined more of my family there, including my grandmother and cousins. One of the best parts was going out on a catamaran. I had never done that before, and it had been one of my little dreams.

The colour of the sea surprised me. It was this incredible blue, the kind of blue I imagined somewhere like Hawaii, and I remember looking at it and thinking, “Oh my God!”

We swam in the sea and saw lots of fish. The weather was beautiful, and after tents, forest toilets and cold showers, being on a catamaran in that blue water was a very different version of summer.

I also spent four days at my grandmother’s house, and the rest of the holidays disappeared into friends, swimming pools and other little things.

That was basically my summer: one thing after another.

And Then I Came Home to Spanish.

By the time school started again, life had not exactly become quiet.

I now have a Spanish exchange student staying with my family for a month. I am really happy about the exchange because I want to improve my Spanish. I can understand quite a lot, but when I speak, sometimes the past, present and future all arrive together in one sentence.

People can understand me. But I want to speak Spanish the way I can speak English: maybe not perfectly, but enough that I can really express myself.

At the moment, my brain sometimes has other plans. I can start with Spanish, accidentally move into English or German and suddenly produce something like, “Hola, hello, yeah, no, sí, por favor!”

Very professional.

Hosting somebody for a month is also teaching me something else. I am very social and I really like talking, while my exchange student is much quieter and shyer. Sometimes I try to start a conversation with questions like, “Where do you want to travel?” or “What food do you like?” and the answer is simply, “I don’t know.”

Then I am there thinking: But how can I practise my Spanish if you don’t reply to me?

She is kind and really nice, and I know being on an exchange can be difficult. So I am going slowly. But I have also discovered that being with somebody 24 hours a day makes me appreciate the moments when I can be alone, do my homework, call my friends and just have a little space.

Soon it will be my turn. I am going to Spain for a month, and then I will be the exchange student trying to find the right words.

I just have one small hope.

Please.

Let me have my own room.

After this summer, I think I have proved that I can survive tents, forest toilets, cold showers, children, mountains, cooking without an electric mixer, a team that is permanently thirty minutes late, four languages fighting inside my brain and a serious shortage of McDonald’s nuggets.

But one month without my own room?

That might be the real adventure.