The Zeltlager Series: Taufen

Every year, the people on their first Zeltlager have to take part in a little event known as Taufen. Taufe literally means baptism in English, and is basically the initiation for new Zeltlager participants. 

Once I knew I'd be able to join for the Zeltlager, people started feeding me horror stories about the Taufe. Most of them had to do with having to eat some horrible combination of food. Even after I realized that most the other people taking part in the taufe were under 12 years old, I still couldn't help my imagination getting the best of me (think American frat/sorority hazing, except all in German). 

So on the first night, all the first years marched down to meet early before the Taufe and find what fate awaited us. 

In the end, it turned out to be pretty tame. We all got giant sheets of paper that we had to decorate with, who I'll refer to as(sticking with the theme of American frats/sororities) our big brothers/sisters. We decided to decorate mine with German/American stereotypes, which resulted in the following hamburger and flag for America, and bratwurst, Lederhosen/Dirndl, and beer for Germany.

After we all decorated our sheets (which were worn as shirts), we went up in groups of 4 or so the campfire where the rest of the campers sat waiting for us. In each group we had to introduce ourselves (name, age, instrument) and answer a different question each. Mine was something like what was the closest city to where I was born - nothing bad, really! 

Finally, we each got a piece of paper with an animal on it. We had to act out the animal while our bigs drew what they thought we were on our backs (on the paper, of course). So we only had to make fools of ourselves for about 2 minutes (which, if you know me, isn't really anything new). 



After surviving the Taufe, I was then ready for the next 4 days of camping as a full-fledged Zeltlager participant!