Noah Adam Scheer
What was the peace camp for me?
It is difficult to describe exactly what happened at the peace camp because probably the experience was different for each participant, but I am sure, it was very important for each of us. For any body who did not share this camp with us, it will be hard to completely understand how and what it really was about. I will try to describe my perspective to give you my insight.
Right from the very beginning, as we drove in the bus from the airport to Reibers, it seemed to me, that we all had such an open mind and heart that we could immediately have fun together and deal with a lot of things. We sang together and made jokes. It was great fun.
When we arrived in Reibers, the connection between us got even stronger. Everyday we got closer, and I think at the end we were very good friends; and even with some of the connections and relationships to each other destined to remain for longer!
I would love to tell you something about the things we did in the peace camp. Every day we started with a warm up-meditation-group session that I think was very important to get to know each other better and have a good start to the day. After that, some serious stuff had to be dealt with. This happened in the large group. In my opinion the structure of the large group was one of the most important things of the whole peace camp. In these sessions we talked about the Israel- Palestinian conflict and our emotions around and about it. But most important is, that we learned to listen carefully, think first and only then respond in a respectful and thoughtful way.
Every afternoon we had an activity with the artists who also were an important part of the peace camp. In the evenings we first had some free time and than every group had to make up a cultural evening, which meant that they had to present there traditions in food, singing, dancing, language and what ever else they wanted.
At the cultural evening of the Austrian delegation there were three stations. The station work was more or less similar for every cultural evening. We had one food station were we cooked and ate Kaiserschmarn (a traditional Austrian dish made of eggs and prunes). A language station were the others could learn some important words in German and a dancing and singing station where the participants learned some traditional dances and a typical Austrian song.
The ten days in Reibers were very special and none of the days was similar to another. 37 participants got to know each other very well and had a great time through out the whole time. I think that the peace camp was one of the best thins that happened to me so far. The most important factor was the feeling of experiencing that I can make new friends by myself, being able to communicate myself well outside of my family and well known world at home. Another very important experience was that I witnessed that one can have real conflicts and different opinions and completely different perspectives and views about some things and even so be friends and learn to be able to listen and learn new insights from people who think and feel very different to me because they have had different experiences in their life. I will never regret to have done this camp, quite on the contrary I loved to have spent my time there and I hope that I can stay in touch with some of the other participants.
Noah Adam Scheer, Austrian Delegation
