New Adventures

"Hallo! Velkommen til Skogfjorden!"  I was greeted by this unfamiliar babble as the rental car entered the gates of Concordia Language Village's Norwegian camp.  The warm, Minnesota sun filtered through the thick evergreens and the dust from the gravel road swirled in the air.  I had never heard a word of norwegian but was attending this one-week summer camp at my grandmother's insistence.  Butterflies danced in my stomach as my mother and I filled out basic paperwork and got checked in.  To the young, untraveled American, it was like entering a whole different world.  Everybody was speaking norwegian to me from the moment I set foot in the parking lot.  Of course, they didn't leave me completely in the dark, after looking at my terrified, uncomprehending face, the councilors would mime out their sentences and even throw a few english words in.  The cultural barrier wasn't my only concern, despite almost entering middle school, I had only had one other sleep away camp experience and it... hadn't ended well.  Once my my bed had been claimed and my bags unpacked, it was time for the dreaded, inevitable goodbye.

The days went well, filled with new friends, new food, and new language; but when the sun set, I started missing home.  In my mind, I had formulated an "escape plan."  I had pictured myself packing up my belongings and trekking along the miles of gravel road in the cool, midnight air. The separation anxiety led to sleeplessness and the next thing I knew I was tip toeing into one of my counselors' rooms.  Siri, the counselor of choice, was a perky young woman with strawberry blonde curls.  She was immensely patient and stayed up for several hours helping me cope.  The one thing Siri would not do was allow me to use her cell phone to call my mom.  "Hearing your parent's voice makes the homesickness worse" she assured me.  Instead, we spent a decent amount of the night reading norwegian folktales and trying to take my mind off the situation at hand.  Eventually I was able to drift off to a few fleeting hours of sleep until European pop music awakened the camp at seven AM.

The rest of the week was tolerable.  I made a calendar on a sheet of notebook paper and counted down the days until I would see my family.  However, despite the almost crippling separation anxiety I managed to enjoy the multitude of activities and games that filled my days.

Eventually, friday rolled around.  After a few hours of songs and recitations to, essentially, show off to the parents what we had learned during the week, we were finally reunited with our guardians.  At the time, I admitted to having a fun week, but swore I would never go back.  Little did I know, I would spend two weeks every summer for the next three years entirely immersed in Norwegian on the shores of Turtle Lake.