Another week…

Drugs change everything- this was the topic of our last week. Prepared with an interesting presentation from Mathias, a matching game, a short movie and other interactive activities, we went to four different schools to show High School children what drugs are and what they can do to you, physically and psychologically. However, we showed them that drugs also have really bad social side effects.
It was really interesting, not only the children enjoyed it, also we learnt a bit more about this topic.

Besides this, I also started my Art Project. It was really great! I have 10 children from 11-13 years old. In the first lesson, I taught them how to paint clouds and sky with acrylic colours. I had the impression that they really enjoyed it and learnt already a lot. Now, I have to make plans for the next lessons, and I look forward to Tuesday and teach them more.

Also Clare’s and my Sports Project finally started. On Wednesday afternoon, we went to Rus to do some sport games with the children. It was nice weather so we could go outside and played Games like Dodgeball or Zombie ball. We hope that next time we can do some specific sports but we will see how it goes.

And not to forget also Mathias’ Environmental Project in Dumbravita started on Tuesday, where I am helping him with. The children were really interested in all the experiments we did with them.

So to conclude, you see, we are all really successful with our community projects. It was quite a busy week but I really enjoyed the activities we did.

This week, my parents are finally here! It is really great, I picked them up from the airport in Cluj and we visited the city a bit. They also discovered beautiful Baia Mare already and we will do some travels around Maramures County and some cities in Transylvania. I really look forward to it!!

 

A few words about Home

Dear readers,
As I mentioned in my last blogpost, six month are already over. I learnt how to play the guitar, I learnt more recipes for cooking, I discovered already a lot of cities in Romania during the weekends, I planned a lot of events and workshops, I met a lot of different, interesting and international people and especially: I found friends for life.
The bad thing on living and working altogether is, you have to accept all the “annoying” habits of the others (for example not washing the dishes straight away, what I aaalwayyys do hehe 😀 ) and you cannot just go out of the way from each other. But the nice and the best thing about it, is that we are like a family. Most of my flatmates know me better than anybody else. Every evening one of us is cooking for everyone. And partying, travelling and working is the best thing with these guys!
And then after 6 month you really realise; home is not far far away anymore, in a small town named Steinfurt. Home is not anymore in the big house with my own room and the beautiful garden. Home is not anymore where my parents tell me I have to clean or where we play Volleyball and Football altogether. Home is in Romania now.
This doesn’t mean that the place where I used to live isn’t my home at all. It is like my second home where I could always go back. Like the quote says: “Home is where your heart is.” And my heart is apparently in Romania now.
But from time to time, we are question ourselves: “What is after? What will we do when we finish our EVS project? Who will we be?”
For some of us it is easier than for others. Some already know their path and their plans for the future, some still need to figure out what they want in life. For me personally, I found out a lot more about myself here in Romania and have more of an idea what I want to do. Especially I discovered that I really want to study Geography.
It is nice to see that this year is what it was for. Find out what to do with the future.
Then, after this year I will find hopefully another place that I can call home. For me home is where I grew up, but right now it is here with my lovely flatmates in Romania. Next year … we will see 🙂

 

EVS 4 Life!

Hello Guys,
Six month are over now. Time runs so fast. We made so many adventures and such a great time already that it feels like it was just a month ago when I entered the plane to fly to Romania. For this occasion, we have an event on Wednesday evening. We will present with a lot of pictures and a funny video our last six month. Furthermore, we will play some nice games, so that we combine this event with our cultural Workshop. Then this week, the Community Projects are starting. So Clare and I went to Rus today, one of the villages where we normally teach English. We are doing our Community Project “Sports 4 Fun” there but unfortunately the Sport teacher with whom we are working with didn’t come up so will make the start next week. But at least Clare and I went for a run instead. We run a lot now because we still want to do the half marathon in spring or summer.
But going back to last week, we had a very busy time. During the Spring Fantasia week, we went to several Primary schools, a Kindergarten and had some children from the secondary school. The topic was spring, mother’s Day and Mârţisor. Never hear about Mârţisor? Before a few weeks, me neither. It is a very celebrated tradition in Romania. The boys give a small present to the girls, important is the red and white coloured string with hanging tassel. Mârţisor is an old Romanian word and means translated little march. This is why the date of this Tradition is always the 1st of March. It is a symbol of the spring and this red and white ribbon band should give health and strength for the year. So with the children, we did a lot of crafts, making cards, flowers or other beautiful presents.
On the week-end everyone was not quite motivated to travel. Apart from me! So I went with my friends from Arad to Budapest again. We had a great time, even though I was a bit tired after always travelling and working. But I really enjoyed it and now that it gets warmer and warmer it is even more fun to see different places and to travel around.

 

L.O.V.E and Mid-Term: a blog about the Volunteer’s work and travel world

L.O.V.E. This was the theme of the week. With the topics “Let our voices Echo” (Monday), “Love Our Valuable Earth” (Tuesday), “Let Our Volunteers Educate” (Wednesday), “Leaders Of Valuable Education” (Thursday), “Living Our Values Everyday” (Friday), we did many activities with children at every age.
Do you have any plans for the future? If there is one thing about Romania that you could change, what would it be? These and other questions, we asked to about 80 high-school students in Clare’s project “Let Our Voices Echo”. We recorded some of the interviews, so on Monday, Clare presented a short film with pictures and extracts from the interviews in the Art High School after a lovely piano concert and a traditional Maramureş dance by children.
Then we switched to the topic of environmental care. As Mathias wants to do an environmental community project, we went to the 7th grade class of Dumbrăviţa to do some really cool experiments. We used bottles, water, wool, sand and other useful materials to show how water energy works or how bad the oil spills in the oceans are for the wildlife. We had a lot of fun even though we kind of filled the whole classroom with water.
On Wednesday, the age of children reduced to the age of six and seven. These primary school children learnt in one hour how to dance a traditional Scottish dance with Inga and Clare and how to pronounce some difficult Danish words. At the end Mathias gave us the “compliment” that even the children can pronounce Danish words better than we do. But everyone had a lot of fun especially me and Fiona. With the guitar we sang the German Song “Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken”. At this point I have to thank my lovely friend Lucia who couldn’t stop singing and dancing this song a long time ago during the school breaks or our sport lessons. She annoyed us so much, I never thought I would thank her for making sure I never forgot this song. 😀
For those who already read my previous blog, I told you that, for my project, I went to different primary schools in Baia Mare and the Rural Areas to let the children draw what they liked best about their schools. So on Thursday there was the exhibition in the library, where I also present (to not so many viewers) the results and a short conclusion. Referring to the results, there are some interesting facts to point out, for example was visible that the village children enjoying more spending time outside in the nature during the breaks. Also the teachers in Baia Mare seem to be nicer and more likable to children. The reason for that could be because the teachers in the villages are still closer to the traditional communist teaching methods. Many different factors influenced the drawing of the children, for example the sport lessons were more appreciated in Baia Mare, certainly because they actually have a gym, something which you do not find in the rural areas. You could really see that there are many differences between schools in Baia Mare and villages, this means that in fact there are differences between the children as well. An interesting continuation of this project would be to connect the children more with each other, so that they can share the different benefits of their educational experiences.
On Friday, the last day of this event week, Inga prepared activities for children in the office as well as in a kindergarten. With many games, songs and creative tasks, the children learnt how to be polite, respectful and tolerant. In a nutshell, this was the working week of us Volunteers in Baia Mare; a lot of planning, preparation and patience, but also a lot of fun, action and joy.
And now to the other part of being a volunteer in Romania: travelling! Last week, for me, Inga, Fiona and Clare it was the Mid Term Meeting. This is a meeting of three days in Buşteni, not only to reflect and analyse our EVS at the middle of our service (in our case, after 6 months), and to focus on our problems and the possible solutions, but especially to gain more motivation, to look forward to the future, as well as to think about the time after EVS. Personally for me, I really enjoyed all the sessions, I found it really interesting to reflect on how we developed, to listen to other volunteer’s problems, and to realise how much I changed after going to Romania. All in all, it was really helpful and motivating. With all the energizers and interactive games it was also really fun.
Let’s do not forget the travelling. As we had two overnight trains booked for us to and from Buşteni, with a little leeway on each side to allow time some time for exploring, we pulled out maps of Romania, and decided how best to use our time. We spent the whole of Sunday in Sinaia, drank a coffee, meet other Volunteers, and last but not least, went to Peleş Castle, which is quite popular here in Romania and really interesting and beautiful.
After the Mid-Term, we decided to head south, so we went to Constanţa, a city on the black sea. Unfortunately we were not really lucky with the weather and apart from the sea there is not so much interesting to see there. But anyway we had a really great time there, and because Clare and I are power girls, we swam in the freezing cold sea in the morning. After that we were definitely awake. 😀
On the next day we went back towards the north, to Brasov. But because we had already pretty much visited already everything in Brasov, we made a daytrip to the town Raşnov. There you can visit the less popular version of Bran Castle, which is definitely the more beautiful to see. It is a fortress in the middle of the mountains and for sure more worth going than Bran Castle.
After all this, we were just happy when we entered the Overnight train back to Baia Mare. We had a really nice time, but it is always nice coming home.
I think with this Blog you have quite a good impression of what we Volunteers are doing during our EVS. You get to know the good things on it like the possibility of travelling around and discovering a new country, working in a social association and always meet new people.

 

Budapest-One of Europe’s most beautiful capitals in the world

Hey! Like I already wrote in my last blog, the five of us were travelling to Budapest last weekend. I already thought that it is probably a nice city. But I didn’t expect that it is so beautiful.
We arrived in the evening, and made a walking tour along the river and the fisherman’s bastion. When it is dark, the city is even more beautiful because all the important buildings are illuminated for instance the parliament or the chain bridge.

Clare and I stayed with my relative from my hometown who is doing EVS in Budapest. We cooked together and she showed us around. It was really nice to have someone who knows the city, also Clare has been to Budapest before.
The other day, we participated on a guiding tour which was not so much fun in the end anymore, because it rained the whole day. But together with two American girls who we met on the tour, we went to a Hungarian café and ate traditional goulash soup to warm ourselves up.

We also went up to the citadel where you have an amazing view of the whole city. So to sum up this trip, one can say that we had a really nice time, and to all that have never been there, it is worth visiting it!
But after the weekend, of course our work is waiting for us and this week is all about L.O.V.E. Each day, we have a different event and have presentations in schools in Baia Mare, a project in the rural areas, discovering different countries in primary schools and an exhibition in the library.
Next week, after our mid-term training, I will tell you all the details about it.

 

Venice Carnival!

Hello guys. This week is Carnival! Not only in Germany, also in a lot of other countries like Brazil and Italy/ Venice. The reason is to celebrate before the lent is starting. But everywhere Carnival is celebrated differently. This, me and Fi found out when we were researching for our Carnival Workshop. In Germany even in different regions it is not celebrated the same. In Köln where Fi is from, there is the biggest Carnival celebration. They have holidays for a whole week, just to party!

Workshop: Carnival

But on the other hand, there is Carnival in Venice which is completely different. The people have traditional masks and costumes and are quite elegant.
And this week was all about Carnival in Venice. Because the first semester in schools finished last week, the children have one week off and they can come to the office to play and do activities. We assist the teachers there, and I have to admit, not only the children, even me, I learnt a lot more about Carnival this week.

A balloon experiment

Also our preparations for the next week (L.O.V.E.) get busier and busier. Inga and I finished the exhibition for my project with all the children drawings on Tuesday and now the presentation and analysis needs to get ready.

The exhibition of the children’s paintings

On the week end we five volunteers will travel to Budapest to visit a friend of mine and to see the beautiful city. I look forward to have a break before the next busy week is starting, so hopefully the weather will stay as warm as now, and we will enjoy our time there.

 

A week of endings and beginnings

Salut! The weeks get busier and busier. We are working on our projects, events, workshops, etc. But I like it. It is nice being busy for a good thing. And can you imagine, I found a piano! Last Wednesday, when I went with Fi and Mihai to the Art High School to do the paintings for my event “Love our Valuable Education”, there was a classroom that had a piano, and after I played, Ioana, the teacher, told me that I could come more often to play there 🙂 I really missed playing the piano. Although I learned a little bit playing the guitar, it is definitely not the same!

At the end of the week, we had to say good-bye to the third and last person who was leaving us. Clare made a nice Lasagne and we had a nice good-bye dinner for Melissa.

On Saturday, for the 5 of us, the plan was skiing! And I can tell you, it was awesome. We went to Suior, a small ski region, 20km from Baia Mare. Inga, Fi and Clare had a Ski instructor with whom they were really happy. As Mathias and I have skied before, we tried all the three red ski slopes, and even though they had these small snow hills at some passages, we had a lot of fun 🙂
And of course, in the evening everybody could sleep like in heaven.

So one can see, the week was connected with a lot of changings, beginnings and endings. An ending of the five months with a team of eight people, with 2 Estonians, 3 Germans, 2 British and 1 Danish. Five months with many new experiences, laughter, working, parties, cooking, trips. We were a nice group of eight people. Everybody very different, but a good team.
Now we are 5. The flat feels empty and big. The office feels empty and big. A lot of work is waiting for us, especially if we won’t have any replacement. But we are a good team of five. We get along perfectly, we can work together really well and our group dynamic is very positive. I am sure, we will finish our EVS with good results, lots of joy and fun. And I look forward to the next months.

So let’s roll!

 

Iubesc Iarna!

Hello to all the people who are following my blog. The winter doesn’t want to stop. With -12 degrees on the week end, when Fi, Mathias, Clare and I travelled to Oradea, we couldn’t stay outside for more than half an hour. This is why we discovered many bars and cafés instead of walking through the city. And this was also really cool, there are many really interesting places. Besides we went to a rock concert with a friend who knew the city.

When we came back from Oradea, the goodbye dinner for Julia and Pavel was prepared, because they were leaving on Monday night. Also Melissa will leave on Friday night. Already the flat feels really empty. It is weird to not have a full table during the meals or sitting only with two people on the sofa. But since last week, our Organisation is looking for replacements and it seems like we will have one or two more volunteers from Germany. We will see what will happen. Even though it is weird to be only five and even though I really miss the others, it is nice to be not so crowded in the flat and to have some calm days or weeks till the other volunteers come.

Anyway, at the moment we are busy with preparations for the L.O.V.E. week. For my project “Love our valuable Education” we need primary children to draw pictures about what they like best about their school. For Clare’s activity, we need to go to the High Schools in Baia Mare to make interviews with them students with the topic “Let our Voices Echo”. On Thursday we will have a team building dinner in the old centre and on the week end we are invited to go skiing! I really look forward to that and I hope that the snow will stay till the weekend.

That is all I have to tell about my week, in the next week I can tell you how the skiing went. La revedere!

 

Brrr, este fric!

Hello hello! Welcome to winter in Romania. Believe me, it is crazy cold. This week we will have -10 degrees. Thank mum that she gave me new gloves as a Christmas present. But the good thing on hard winter in Romania is that here are many possibilities to ski. So we we will probably ski with our organisation in the end of January if there is snow and I really look forward to that 🙂
Actually I really enjoy winter but I think right now I would be glad if summer would come soon. Especially because my motivation to run goes gradually down with the cold at the moment. And also travelling with minus degrees is not fun. The last week end when we went to Cluj we were always happy to enter a bar or a café and warm ourselves up. However, we enjoyed this weekend anyway. We met a lot of friends and played billiard.
Now the working week is on, and it starts with lots of preparations for the L.O.V.E week and our community projects. Also there is the problem that three of us will leave so we need to plan the next weeks and deal with the fact that we are for a certain time only 5 people in the project. Hopefully we will get replacements.

In general, I got completely used to the life in Romania. I love the people, especially in the villages, I love my colleagues, I love living with eight people in one tiny flat, I love travelling every week end, I love speaking English all the time, I also love the Romanian language and get better and better in speaking, I just enjoy everything I am doing here. I noticed that Romania changed me. I am not that person anymore, who has lived at her parents’ house and just finished school. I know more about myself, I know what is important in life for me. I am pretty sure what I will study after this year. Of course not everything in my EVS life in Romania is perfect. But I can say that most of the things are really cool, and it is a great opportunity for everyone to go abroad. You learn so much more from life and yourself while you are travelling.
So everyone who is reading my blog, and is interested in going abroad, don’t be scared. Just do it!

 

Winter Festival!

Hey guys, ce faceti?

Last week was the start into our volunteering work after Christmas and New Year. And what a start. We had the Winter Festival week, where we ran activities for children, at the age of 4 to 8 years, the whole day. Because Annika M. and I were in charge of this week we were there every day and have overseen the activities. The children were lovely and were excited about everything from craft to sport. It was really fun to work and to play with them. It always makes you feel happy when you see that your work is successful and has a sense. You know for what you are doing it and can also enjoy more your free time.

Because we had this long week and were travelling all the time before, we enjoyed the last week end in beautiful Baia Mare, spend the night in a bar and the day on the sofa. It was really nice to just rest for two days and not to rush.
But therefore we will meet some friends in Cluj the next week end. You noticed maybe already that we cannot stay two weekends in a row in Baia Mare 😀 so this week end Fiona, Mathias and Clare will have fun in Cluj.

Concerning work I really look forward to the upcoming events. We will have plenty the next months, for example the L.O.V.E. week or the spring festival. Also our community projects get more and more realistic and hopefully soon, we will run them as well.
To sum up, a lot of happened, and a lot of work is waiting for us. So let’s roll!