Day-3, Word of the day: Amplifier

Today started off with the secret friend game, the first few gifts were handed out, overall it was a mild start to the game. After this the group went outside for a nice hack and slash Samurai game, where the participants got to throw imaginary swords at eachother and shout eachothers names. After this the group continued playing some of the games that they knew, like a blinking killer game. 

When it started raining, the group went inside to play another teambuilding icebreaker, the game of princesses and castles. Two people together would form a 'castle' with their arms together, and a third person would live in the castle as 'princess'. There was always one leftover princess, who could decide to eighter mix up the castles or move the princesses. 

After we played this for a while it was time to sit back, relax, and introduce:

THE KILLER GAME!!!
dun, dun, duuuuun........

This game will be played during the rest of the exchange, each participant gets a victim assigned an a murder weapon. The victims can be any participant or leader of the exchange, and the weapon can be anything ranged from a flashlight to a passport. After a few days of bonding with the group, it was time to introduce some trust issues. Noone is safe anymore...

After the coffee break, we continued with a workshop called the spiderweb. The goal of this workshop is for the participants to work together and all cross through a 'spider web' made of some rope. The group got split in two teams and combatted against each other for the fastest time. One of the teams clearly showed how working together as a team can benefit, the other team showed how bad teamwork can lead to disasters and frustrations.

Then we all went inside for a game called the Babel tower, where some language barriers were created and taken down. A pair of participants was asked to come forward and convey the meaning of a sentence to eachother, only speaking in their native languages. Some Dutch people seemed to have a quick mind if it comes to Hungarian, but when it came to understanding Farsi, Cilia was completely lost. In the end she understood what the sentence was, and showed the group that with enough effort, these language barries can be overcome.

After lunch, Romy joined the group to interact with some people. Most of the group went to the Grebbelinie, a Second World War venue that would show what had happened in the region of the river during this time. Once there, we got to know the strategy the Dutch soldiers used in the war, containing trenches and the use of the river as waterline to create a defense against the German soldiers. After an interesting short movie about the history of the Grebbelinie, we got to see a part of the actual trenches that were still preserved while we were able to collect some blackberries and other plants for the activity of that night. 

When the participants got back they were surprized by the main room being closed off. They were asked to form pairs, male and female together. Pair by pair they were brough into the main room, where the girls were asked to take their shoes of and sit on the ground, next to the guy who could sit on a chair. The workshop continued by showing an ancient greeting ritual of the people of the Albatros. Hands were washed and food was exchanged, but all combined with such strange rituals that the participant didn't really understand what was going on. After the first part of the workshop ended, the explaination came. All the strange rituals were totally explainable and the participants got a better understanding of how things in different cultures might seem weird, scary or degrading, they could be considered to be totally normal.

Before the dinner started, we held a dessert and salad making competition with the family groups as teams. Everyone worked hard and in the end of the day we had an amazing dinner with nice salads and great desserts.

In the evening Romy came back an we all enjoyed a great campfire evening together. Adam even played on his guitar an sang some songs to entertain the group. 

Blog by: Natasja and Timon
Pictures by: Cilia Baanstra