At the beginning of 2002, seven South African Scouters and Guiders were offered a life time opportunity - to represent South Africa in Germany. It was supported by Nangu Thina the partnership network between European and South African Scouts that makes it possible for Scouts from the different countries to visit each other. In this way ideas are shared and assistance given to each other.

The group had an opportunity to work as staff members at the VCP national Jamboree (Jurtown) and DPSG Freiburg area camp Yuchunfung. The tour would last three weeks with the chance to learn techniques on planning and running such big camps.

Each member of the group was unknown to one another as half of the group was from East Mpumalanga (Kookie, Sydwell, Herbert & Mduduzi) and the other half from West Mpumalanga (Tanya, Carol & Bradley). So there was the added opportunity of making new friends within South Africa as well as new friends from Germany and around the world.

We left Johannesburg International on the morning of the 23^rd of July 2002 on our way to Frankfurt via Windhoek. After a long but pleasant trip we arrived late that evening in Frankfurt.

We were met by Max and Armin who took as to spend the night at the St Andreas Scout hall which is in a town called Altenstadt, about 40kms from Frankfurt. The next morning we were able to see the sights of the surrounding area before travelling by road to Rehau in the east of Germany, the venue of Jurtown where about 4000 Scouts would be camping.

We spent the first few days helping to set up camp before the official opening of the camp. Here we learnt how to put up those wonderful German black tents. Once the camp had started we had the opportunity to run workshops about different countries around the world including South Africa. This was called the Culture Club. We also help out with camp administration and security. In our spare time we could experience the workshops run by the various sub camps.

After Jurtown ended we met Marcus and we once again travelled by road into the South of Germany to the town of Bruchsal, the venue for Yuchunfung, a slightly smaller camp with about 2000 Scouts.

Here we worked along side a small group of international Scouters in running the Cafe International. Here campers could get a cup of coffee or later in the evening, a beer. Each country working there had an opportunity to run workshops about there country and these were well attended by the Scouts.

During this camp we had time to go on various tours like to Strutthof concentration camp in France, Karlsruhe, the German poverty program and a wind-powered electrification station.

In both camps we were made to feel very welcome and a lot of interest about ourselves and South Africa was shown by Scouters and scouts. New links to other German Scout Groups have been made and friendships that will hopefully never die. We also hope that we will be able to host some of the friends we made back here in South Africa.

We would like to thank the organizers of the camps as well as those who made it possible for us to attend.