My Parents as visitors at the Jamboree

Yesterday my parents came to visit me at the Jamboree! They flew from Frankfurt to New York at the 20th of July and from that day on a big journey for them began. They traveled to the USA someday in the past when I weren’t even born, but till then a lot of things have changed.

In the time I was born, the terrorism got worse, the politic changed, the mindset of the people changed, the world got more friendly and a lot of history happened. So in total they have seen another America this time as it was last time. They told me about the memorials and how the cities have changed through the years. In some way my parents were happy about the change but also sad because they miss some things from the “old days” like a hotel they wanted to visit in Philadelphia which got demolished.

My mom and my dad arrived to West Virginia at the 28th of July and got two of the last ten visitor passes for the 29th. I was so happy when they texted me that they’ll be there.

So yesterday I stood up early to be at times at the entrance. I waited from 8:50am till 11:30am as they finally arrived with one of the visitor shuttles. I saw them as they got out of the bus and started running to them immediately. As I hugged my mom and my dad I started to cry because I was so happy to have them back again. I haven’t seen them for three weeks and I missed them from the moment I got on the plane.

My brain stopped working in this moment because I felt home again. It’s just that one smell your parents have and that one kind of love that only your parents can give you.

After an eternity I stopped hugging them and gave a neckerchief from the German Contingent to both of them. Even they don’t are scouts, I wanted that they feel like a part of the Jambo.

We took a photo in front of the entrance. The man who was taking the picture gave us a flag from Texas and a lot of keychains from his troop because he couldn’t believe that my parents actually flew all the way from Germany just to visit me.

We went to the “Summit Bechtel Reserve” sign and I showed them how big subcamp Charlie is. They couldn’t believe that there are sleeping scouts in every single tent.

My parents were hungry so we walked to the food houses and as we were walking, I explained the whole “Novus thing”, the Global Ambassador Program, the different activities like the zip line, the leader, participant and IST neckerchiefs and the neckerchiefs of the different countries. I felt so happy because it felt like we were a real scouting family like I’ve seen them in the past days at the Jambo.

My mom got fries and soda from the Colombian food house and my dad got a potato from the German food house and a coffee from the Colombian one too. I ordered the same like my dad did because I really got addicted to the Colombian coffee here at the Jambo.

After the meal, I showed my parents the different activities like mountain biking, the Canopy Tour and Skating. We visited the bridge that goes to subcamp Bravo. I was surprised how far my mom and my dad came because they were very afraid of it and my dad also has a fear of heights.

We got back on the safe ground after five minutes and walked around the Goodrich Lake. They weren’t allowed to visit my subcamp so I took pictures for them. My dad wanted to have some more coffee and cake so we decided to go to the trading post and then back to the food houses. He also has fallen in love with the coffee and we enjoyed our last minutes together. I realised that the day passed away way too fast and I wanted to show them more but it wasn’t just enough time to see everything.

The Jambo is so massive that even ten days aren’t enough to see it all.

As we walked back to the visitor shuttle, I felt relieved because I felt so homesick and lonely in some moments. I realised that most of my time in North America is over and I’ll be home soon. I’ll see my rabbit and my parents again in under 100 hours. As we started the journey it was more then 500 hours and now there are only a few days left…

I hugged and kissed my parents for the last time, but I knew that I’ll see them in a few days. I watched my parents going into the shuttle and turned around so that they wouldn’t see me crying. I carried on going and just could think that this was my happiest day at the Jambo!