Laba diena!
In this
article I would talk about my On-arrival training.
All
volunteers didn’t go to the same training. My training took place from 23 to 26
October, in a huge hotel set in “Berbusų dvaras”, around 30 minutes from
Vilnius. We were 21 volunteers from all Lithuania: 1 Armenian, 1 Georgian, 1
Serbian, 1 Bulgarian, 2 Italians, 5 Spanish, 4 German, 3 French, 1 Macedonian,
1 Latvian, 1 Portuguese.
By the way,
it was a huge hotel lost in the middle of nowhere.
We arrived
on Thursday 23rd on the early afternoon. After lunch, we started
some games to know more about each other. For example, one game was to write
down 3 sentences about us, 2 right sentences and 1 false sentence. We put the
paper on our back and everybody had to write a cross next to the sentence they
thought wrong.
I found
another game really interesting: It was a fancy/art game. We were sitting down
in one room and we had some material taken in nature (leaves, wood…). We had to
respond by our own imagination at 3 questions:
1.) Do we currently imagine our EVS as
we imagined before coming?
2.) What is/are our EVS challenge(s)?
3.) How can we achieve those challenges?
Our art had
to represent our EVS story. My story started in a forest representing the
chaos. That’s how I imagined my arrival here, in Lithuania. BUT, I left this
forest very fast, because I talked a lot with Kristina, my tutor before coming
and she reassured me. Furthermore, I realized pretty early that my hosting
organisation is well-organised and won’t let me down surrounding by
difficulties. (1st question)
One of my
best difficult challenge is the language. I took a frog and a tiger figurines,
face to face. The frog (me) don’t speak the same language as the tiger (the
children). Yet, as I said before, I am not alone and my tutor and mentor are
here. In addition, my flatmates and the other volunteers of Lithuania are here.
Dovilė, our Lithuanian teacher, is here so we will overcome this challenge
together and finally, the frog won’t face the tiger but they will walk
together, one beside the other.
Another big
challenge for me, and I’ll face it alone, is my Japanese skills. I am learning
Japanese since 7 years now and I don’t want to lose my skills. I know that not
use my Japanese during one year could be my worst mistake. That is why I decided to continue
autonomously and I’ll do everything in my power, no matter how the other judge
me, to pursue my goal. (2nd question)
So, I went
out of the forest and I arrived in a straight way, representing my EVS course.
This course is full of pitfalls and traps. I know more or less some of them,
like to be disappointed if my projects with the children don’t work, the
homesickness, not to be understood by the other, etc…
After
overcome all of those traps, I want to see the children and me doing some hand
craft workshop as origami. That’s how I see my EVS course.
This
article will be very long and I apologize for it. If you are brave, please read
this article to the end. I will skip some elements for summarized my thoughts.
I want to speak about a last (but not least!) thing: The hiking day.
It was,
according to me, the best day of the seminar.
You know,
I’m kind of person who like travels. Even though I always mention this “hobby”
when I talk about me, I’ve never travelled a lot. I went to France’s neighbour
countries such as Spain, Italy and United Kingdom. But it wasn’t a big
challenge for me.
I learn,
the day before, what’s the “comfort zone” (safety space where you feel good).
According to you, you can expand this zone, or if you do nothing to expand this
zone it will start to shrink. Over the comfort zone, you have to find some
things/people/mental strength to help you come back to your comfort zone.
With this
hiking day, I expand my comfort zone. It was the most amazing adventure I did.
But let’s begin with the start:
We left the
hotel around 11 am to cross the lake (next to the hotel) by canoe or boat. I’m
really afraid of canoe/kayak, since I can’t see what is under me, on the water.
I’m also afraid of sinking and being held under the canoe/kayak.
Nevertheless,
I was on this canoe to cross the lake. Even I was stressful, I can’t omit the
beautiful landscape in front of me.
After
reaching the other side of the lake, I was waiting for the other. We were 16
volunteers (if I remember correctly) who chose the hiking, despite -5°C. We
made a fire while waiting the others to come. It took some time, because the
Bulgarian boy (Milko) had his shin injured and therefore had to ride the bike,
as well as the Armenian girl, Serine (we were a nice multicultural team by the
way). When everybody were here, we drank tea and left the fire place, to start
the hiking. It was around 12:30.
At 3 pm we
stopped and made a fire for lunch. We eat pasta (kind of weird when I think
about it!). Seems that everybody was surprised that I eat with Japanese sticks
made with 2 thin branches and the knife of Ana, the Spanish girl who was born
in Georgia.
After
lunch, our task was to split in 3 groups of 5-6 people, go to the nearer
village, knock on the door and ask to do some volunteering task for half an
hour, and then receive a tea from local person.
I was with
Ana, Laia, Nadja (a volunteer in Panevėžys from Germany) and Maxime, a French
boy. We went to the village as well as the other teams. I was really excited
because I always see this kind of situation in TV, through a TV show called
Pekin Express. The aim of this TV show is to go to a foreign country, cross it
with 1 Euro per day and person, to do hitch hiking to cross it and ask to local
people to spend the night in their houses.
First of
all, the village looked like a haunted village, however we knock on the doors,
nobody respond us. The only people we saw was an old woman with her dog. We
understood that if we don’t leave her garden, her dog was going to bite us.
After that, the second person was a younger man (around forty years old) let us
understand that we were in a private property and we had to move.
Nice first
impression of the local people haha! !
After
knocked the door of every houses (there were 10-15 houses) we decided, a bit
desperately to cross the big road and go to the second village, near the first
one. But it was the same scheme: We knock on the door of every houses (there
were 5-6 houses in this village). We were really disappointed and thought that
we look scary with our big hiking bags, because nobody wanted to talk to us.
It was with
a last hope run-up that we knocked a second time on the second house of the
village. Miraculously, an old woman opened the door. I tried to talk in Lithuanian
with her, but the only thing I could say was: “Atsiprašom, mes savanoriai”
(Sorry, we are volunteers). After some understanding exchanges, she lets us
come inside. Her house was small, one living room and one kitchen separated in
two small rooms. We entered in the living room and saw another old woman,
apparently the mother of the old woman who opened the door. They invited us to
take a sit, and asked if we want a cup of tea or coffee. They also bring food:
brioche, cheese and mind candies (from Russia, from what I understood, the son,
at least the young man in the photo frame hanged in the living room who’s
living/studying in Russia).
I tried to
explain that I wanted to help them before but either they didn’t want our help
or they didn’t understand. So, we had our “comfort” before the “effort”. We
asked them to take a photo with the 2 old women and their address to send them
a letter.
Their
behaviours touch me a lot. It was much more than a cup of tea for them. They
seemed really poor, and even we didn’t do a volunteer task for them, we bring
our smiles to them. I’m still wondering why did she open the door the 2nd
time. Did she expect something from us? Maybe they just wanted some company…
Anyway,
when we came back to the fire place, the other groups were already there and we
realized that we were really lucky because the other groups worked but didn’t
necessarily receive tea or coffee.
I was so
excited after that, to receive so much from those 2 women. The simple fact that
they welcomed us in their house was incredible for me. We were so desperate and
it’s always in those moments that you can see a small glow. I totally forgot
how it was difficult to find a house, but just felt a strange and warm feeling
inside of me. We continued our way and arrived to a second lake. It began to be
dark and we knew the sunset will start one hour later. To be faster, we decided
to cross the forest. We arrived in a big road and the group had been separated
in 2: one went back to the hotel by car, and the other went back by canoe and
boat.
I decided
to go back by canoe, despite my fear. I just imagined the beautiful sky and
stars reflected on the lake, and Maxime told me “we only have one life. And go
back by car is not the adventure”.
We continue
on the way for 10 minutes since we reached some houses, whose we can see light
from one of them. Maxime asked us if we are okay to ask some hot drinks to
people. Of course this idea sounds absurd, yet we all were on and decided
together to knock the door. An old man opened, we started to speak in
Lithuanian, and after some misunderstandings an old woman completely opened the
door wondering what’s going on. She let us go inside their house, and the old
couple gave us some tea and coffee. We explained that we came from different
countries and they seemed really happy to meet some people from all over the
world, repeating the word “international”. We took some pictures with them and
also asked for their address. We explain that we are in the region for 4 days
and sleep in Berbrusų hotel. We understood that we can come back anytime. This
couple was adorable with us, caring about the cold outside when we showed them
that we will go back to the hotel by canoe.
It was
almost 08:30 when we left their house, we were extremely touched by this
kindness and we get back on our way with big smiles.
The next
challenge was to find where the canoe, the boat and the paddles has been
hidden. It was difficult to identify which way is the right way but we handled
that we find the canoe. I went back on this, with Maxime and Carmen (a Spanish
volunteer). We tried to put the canoe on the lake while the other found the
boat and put it in the lake too. This took almost 5 minutes to do that, but it
was really calm when we were on the canoe. We were afraid by the wind,
especially to navigate with the canoe. However, there was no wind and the lake
was quiet. Taškas, our trainer, was on the other side of the lake guiding us
with a light. We sent to lit signals with our light to him, but we switch it
off during a while, to look around us and admire the beauty of the lake by
night…
We finally
arrived safe on the other side and Taškas took a photo of the “7 team”.
It was a
big victory for us. We achieved this challenge, and for the first time of my
life, I understood what’s really mean the word “adventure”.
It was 10
pm when we came back to the hostel.
Emily
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