Hi!

It’s time to continue the chronicles of oh-so-intense March.

We got a day off from the office after the on-arrival training but of course we didn’t rest. I was hesitant at first but Elena convinced me to go to Vienna with her and Ivan and I’m so glad she did. We didn’t have a proper plan, just roamed around the streets and enjoyed the beauty of the city.

There was a concert coming up in the church on March 30 – Antonín Dvořák’s “Stabat Mater”. I sang this piece in 2012, the first thing I practiced and performed with Tartu Youth Choir. Unfortunately, the tickets were 20 to 60 euros so I gave up on the idea to hear it quite quickly.

 

 

 

 

We were mostly walking and taking photos for the whole day and got quite tired by the evening. Monika found a really lovely cafe on Trip Advisor and suggested us to try it out. It was really cosy, felt more like someone’s living room rather than a cafe. The people who worked there were so lovely and so was the atmosphere. Such a great end to the day!

Graffiti of Vienna:

 

The next days we stayed in the office, probably updating free places of the workcamps, designing invitations or promo photos for the camps, taking breaks to have small laydowns or dance parties, celebrating birthdays… Nature announced the start of spring with warm weather and colours, everything and everyone was suddenly a lot happier.

 

Three days passed quickly and off we were to another training, this time in Senec.

The training was organised by INEX for the future workcamp leaders. Our incredibly wonderful trainers were Monika, Mirka, Danko, Pet’o, Mat’a and L’ubka. The place we stayed at had a view that deserves to be painted.

The training itself was condensed yet not super intensive. I didn’t expect the first day to be so long but otherwise I really enjoyed how things were presented.

During the last years, I’ve been converted to be a strong believer in non-formal education even though I’d say I was also quite successful with formal education. Did it steal my sleep hours, give me anxiety, stressed me out? Yes. Did I get good results though? Yes. However, I’m sure that non-formal education can achieve similar results without so much stress. It allows the students/trainees to engage more, to put the theory instantly into practice, learn by doing, be more creative, have fun along with learning. I’m not very familiar with methods used in schools these days but when I was a pupil, most of the time was spent in the classroom listening to the teacher, reading or doing exercises. I really hope it has changed and that teachers have time to be creative and inspire their pupils.

 

After the training, we had another day off on Monday. This time, our bodies and minds told us that they really need a rest. We took the rest and also had a relaxed weekend. Before the weekend, however, we had one more little adventure. We went to the Foreign Police to be registered. This is how it’s done in Slovakia:

1. Wake up at 5.30.
2. Take the bus at 6.40.
3. Arrive in the middle of nowhere.
4. Realise you took the wrong bus.
5. Take the next bus from the middle of nowhere to a field.
6.  Look around and start thinking of building the police office on the field.
7. Realise that Google Maps is right and follow the route.
8. Arrive to the police station at 7.15 and find a line of approx 40 people waiting in front of the door.
9. Wait for half an hour in the line.
10. Find a police officer opening the doors at 7.45.
11. Wait for your turn to enter the building and get some escape from the crispy morning air.
12. Get in the building.
13. Receive a ticket and anxiously wait for your turn for an hour. And another hour. And another hour.
14. Be called to the desk and be done in 10 minutes.
15. Leave the police office at 10.30.

 

On the same day in the afternoon, we took part in another workshop organised by BDC about leadership – very useful addition to the weekend training, met some volunteers from Eastern Slovakia, spontaneously decided to host them as our first guests, and had a chatty evening in the apartment.

In the office, we had fun dressing up in preparation of the April Fool’s Day event in Integra. Elena wrote a play in which she had the role of an alien who had gotten lost on Earth and needed to find a way back home on her planet Fantasia. I was SuperMerike, the protector of Slovakia and Ivan was Yellowman, the king of carnival. If you’re curious, there’s an album on Facebook about the event.

And thus, I survived the busy month.

I already have some exciting stories and events that are coming up in April so stay tuned!

Until the next time!

Čau!

→ Another way to informally greet people in Slovakia. Or Latvia. Or Estonia but in a different written form (tšau). Maybe some other places as well.

I promised to be back soon and here I am. Be prepared, I have A LOT of photos. This post is going to be more like a photo album with a little bit of commentary.

I left my story off to when Elena was going to introduce herself and present Greece at the Tea Meeting. The same day was also the day when a new habit in the office was born – lying on the floor because we needed a break from uploading the workcamps or in general from working behind the computer.

 

The next day we were off to the on-arrival training. It took place in Trenčianske Teplice which is a thermal bath town about 1,5 h train ride + 30 min bus ride away to the North-East from Bratislava. To be honest, when I came here, I had no idea about other towns in Slovakia except from Bratislava. Actually, I think I’d heard about Kosice but didn’t really know where it was. By now, I already have an idea where something is when they say it’s close to Poprad, Prešov, Žilina or Kosice. It’s always easy to say that something is this and that many hours from Bratislava or… in the middle of nowhere in Eastern Slovakia.

By the way, the interesting thing about Bratislava is that a lot of people commute to work here and then leave back to their homes in Eastern Slovakia every weekend. That’s why Bratislava doesn’t really feel like a capital. In February, it was really empty and quiet during the weekend when I was walking around the old town. Once it started getting warmer, people have started to come out of their caves more and more and the streets are bustling a bit more. In the last days, it has already been T-shirt weather so I can completely understand why people would want to be outside.

 Anyway, I got a bit side-tracked. Let’s go to Trenčianske Teplice.

Ivan looked like a businessman on the train. 😀 Also, on the same train there were Morgane from France and Tsarimir from Bulgaria. We joined forces and took the same bus from Trenčin to our final destination. The hotel looked super pretty from the outside.

The inside, however, had some issues. For example, at the beginning, I was put to a room which was right above the sauna. It didn’t feel very different from being in a sauna, to be honest. Morgane and I were supposed to be in that room and we tried everything to cool down the room, went to the reception several times, someone came to fix the radiator, we turned on the air conditioning, opened the windows which didn’t open to outside but to an indoor atrium… Nothing helped. Luckily it was possible to change rooms even though the hotel was supposed to be fully booked. Some other people had opposite complaints. The heating was turned down for the night in the entire hotel and in some rooms with a lot of window space it was really cold.

 

Well, despite the hotel’s shortcomings, the training was wonderful. Our trainers Ivka and Martin were lovely and very accommodating to our wishes and needs. We had a good-sized group of eleven people, good rapport among ourselves and everyone was surprisingly open to the others. It was a lot of fun but also beneficial and necessary. Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t get enough sleep but that’s the thing with trainings and meeting new people. If you want to do a lot, some things have to be sacrificed.

This was the atrium where we spent most of the break time playing pool, singing, chilling.

 

 

We had to draw portraits of each other without looking at the paper. I drew Léa who’s represented by the beautiful artwork on the bottom left corner. 😀 Another task was to introduce our organizations and speak about our learning (goals), highlights, difficulties…

We also had sessions about tips and tricks about surviving in Slovakia, some history and important people; EVS statistics; Erasmus+, youth portal, Eurodesk etc opportunities; treasure hunt around the town (the award was the knowledge about the place, how noble). There was time for energisers, games, meals, several of which were traditional Slovak food, and for two(!) trips. We went to discover Trenčin and the castle there, and on another day we hiked up the 500 m hill which was nearby the hotel.

Inserting photos here:

Trenčin

Museum in the castle

The hike

 

I love trees. They’re so majestic and peaceful. They’re strong and reach far far above. They protect us, they make us the oxygen to breathe, they’re just so beautiful. Hence, every now and then I’ll post some photos of trees, like it or not. I do. 🙂

On the top

On the top of the hill each of us wrote a letter to ourselves about what we wish to have accomplished by the mid-term training. I don’t remember anymore what I wrote but I believe I was encouraging and kind to my future self. It’s important to be kind. To yourself and also to the rest of the world.

Now I know I can’t attend the mid-term with the same group which is a shame. However, I had to make some difficult decisions and this time I chose to lead the workcamp that I’m very interested in instead of choosing to be at the mid-term with the same people. If it’s meant to be, we’ll meet anyway but in a different context. It was a beautiful experience and I’m happy to have met everyone. 🙂

 

I’ll have to stop here for now and make another post or this will become the fifth book of Harry Potter.

Until the next time!

I’ve left this place for tumbleweed to roll across for the last three weeks. I feel a little bit bad but I haven’t really had a chance to sit down and chronicle all that’s been happening.

The last two weeks of March were intense. I attended two trainings and one workshop, went on a daytrip to Vienna, got the experience of meeting Slovak foreign police… I’ve also been introduced to many new faces and characters and stories, laughed and cried, re-evaluated the effect of my behaviour on others, had the most open and honest and respectful conflict management discussions I think I’ve ever had as well as enjoyed the sun and live music and felt happy. In sum, I’ve experienced a lot and I feel I’ve definitely grown as a person.

I could easily write about what has happened, add beautiful photos to the blog and make it seem like everything is perfect but this is not what I’m here for. I want to be honest with myself and with whomever might have inspiration to read this in the near future or in the next years when they’re looking for an EVS project to apply to. Of course there will also be the fun memories but right now I’d like to take some time to analyse not only to describe what I’ve been experiencing.

I’ve been thinking about conflict a lot in the last month. Conflict is something that I’ve seen in a new light ever since I attended the training course in the ASHA centre last summer. I learned there that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative situation as long as all the parties in the conflict are willing to solve it and it doesn’t escalate to violence. In the context of peace, violence and conflict, the latter can be considered a central point which has two possibilities to evolve to – violence or peace. Peace is also not just a state but rather something that has to be constantly worked for. The worst outcome, in my opinion, would certainly be violence so I will remove it from the table at this point.

Here, in this EVS project, I have to create a workshop to carry out at the workcamps (or international voluntary camps) about a topical subject or issue in the European society/societies. I wanted to choose something that is relevant not only now but transcends the limits of time and can be used even in ten or twenty years. The workshop is still in progress but it will be about non-violent communication. It’s been a wonderful lesson for me to practice this type of communication before I go and tell others about it.

I would like to thank one person in particular for being able to do it – the person literally the closest to me here in Slovakia, the person I’m sharing a common and also personal space most of the time, my dear roommate Elena. Coming here, I knew I had to share a room with someone else but I could never imagine it would be someone so open to share and listen, to consider other point of views, to accept and explain if something is truly unacceptable, someone so considerate and willing to make compromises. Someone honest but respectful.

Conflicts are uncomfortable yet they’re the birth-givers to growth, to (self-)development. And that’s exactly the reason why I’m here. I want to develop my skills but also in general to be a better person. I can’t say it’s been easy for me. Coming out of the comfort zone, re-evaluating the past habits, questioning the reasons for reactions or behaviour – it’s exhausting and unpleasant. Someone wise told me that often we can’t control how we feel but we can control what we do with these feelings. We can decide how to process them, how to react to them, how to get rid of them if they are not so pleasant. I’ve learned to take criticism less personally over the years. And here I’ve learned that perhaps it’s not the best to respond to criticism immediately. For me, it’s best to let it sink in, think about it and process it without too many emotions.

I’ve admitted to making mistakes and not always being right. I can’t say that I feel amazing. But I’d like to believe that I think and act better now and I’m very grateful for that. So… One more big thank you to you, Elena! ❤

 

I’ll be back shortly with a recap of the last weeks. Stay tuned.

Until the next time!