What was the total cost to you – airfare, cost of camp, additional funding Total cost is difficult to estimate, but roughly:  Airfare - R11 000 (This could have been a lot cheaper though, you can find flights for R6 000 -7 000. Visa R1 200 Cost of the camp -100 euro. (50 euro of this was given back for spending money) Train tickets to Bremen- about R300 Insurance- This was free for me because travel insurance is a benefit offered by my bank, but for other participants this is a significant cost.

Would you recommend the German Summer Camp? For sure!! This is a great way to travel and meet new people. It was an amazing experience. I learnt so much and my German improved a lot. I have spoken to other participants and the camps in London, Finland and Croatia are also a worthwhile experience. I think we should definitely encourage more participants from South Africa. For example, there were 25 spots on this camp and only 13 were filled. Other countries send more than one participant and I have so many friends who would have loved to do a camp like this, but never knew it existed. Ps. I am going next year again:) (Hopefully to the Finland camp)

Apart from the meeting up with Rotaractors, was there any Rotary involvement during the camp? Yes, in the Bremen area there are about 5 Rotary clubs. Every club took responsibility for about 3 days of the camp. So we met Rotarians of all ages and attended their Rotary meetings. Our host families were also Rotarians. We spent some time with the Rotaract clubs in the evenings - Dinners, bowling, to the beach and such. We also had many Rotary exchange students join us for activities. For example, Long Term or Short Term Exchange students from Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Russia and Korea.

Would some orientation from SA Rotary prior to your departure be of any value? No not really. The camps are very well organised and there is a lot of "support" in case you have a problem.

What were the main languages spoken? About 50% of the participants could speak German (Some very well, some very little). So the camp was fully bilingual. [German/English] My host family spoke only German, No English. But I know the camp organizer paired me with this family because I'm okay with German. The people who spoke little or no German got English host families. If you speak a foreign language almost fluently, these camps are a great opportunity for that final bit of exposure, so you can return home speaking fluently.

Where were the other students from? 3 x Taiwan, 1 x Poland, 1 x Slovakia, 1 x Czech Republic, 1 x Romania (My Roommate), 3 x Turkey, 2 x Germany (included Emily, my host sister, and the daughter of one of the Rotarians), 2 x India were supposed to come but cancelled at the last minute.

Thank you so much for sending me! Any other comments or suggestions? I was the first person ever to attend from Africa! Can we please send more people from SA? All the camp organizers were so happy that our continent was finally represented. The camp was so well organised and it’s the perfect way to go overseas, especially if it’s your first time going without your parents. Thank you so much for sending me!