Multicultural impressions

Within the EVS program all of the volunteers participate in an on-arrival training. We get more information about the EVS program, the country, our rights and obligations and our further opportunities through lectures, games or other activities.

My on-arrival training was in Coma-Ruga between 12th - 17th June. I really wasn’t in that mood to go. I thought that it would be full of eighteen-year-olds and I couldn’t find the common voice with them…
Anyway, my arriving was a disaster. It was my third time in Barcelona, but I still didn’t know too much about the city. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to find the way from the bus station to the Arc de Triomf railway station. Well, a 100 meters during 25 minutes…but it wasn’t a surprise from me. Ok, I wasn’t nervous, I had time. But then. Of course nothing is easy: there was a broken train on the way from Arc the Triomf, so I had to find another station. Everybody was really kind and helpful expect those people whose job was to give information. I managed to find a businessman-looking black guy who helped me a lot, but soon after the situation became a bit scary, cause suddenly he had to go to the same station with the same train, and he became too helpful. I was absolutely sure that I musn’t follow him, no matter how kind he was. But nothing happened, he was really in a hurry and nice, anyway: I needed, so I got a metro ticket from him as a goodbye present.

Of course I managed to get to Coma-Ruga. The group was a big surprise for me: probably the youngest volunteer was 22, but his way of thinking was older than his years. There were youngsters from all over Europe: from France, Greece, Romania, Poland, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, Estonia, Russia, Germany, Bulgaria and another girl and me from Hungary.
You could think that it was just a four days long holiday next to the seaside, but no. Our timetable was full enough, from 9:30 to at least 22:00 (with a 2 hours long break after lunch) and e.g. on Wednesday we finished the obligatory tasks at about 01:00 p.m! Of course the activities after dinner were always easier, like the international night (everybody introduced her/his country) or a historical Spanish movie screening (Las 13 rosas).

During these days we had the opportunity to meet with leaders from the National Agency, with ex-volunteers, we could get to know better the Spanish history and culture (e.g we made human towers), improve our Spanish skills and discover some of our potentialities through games.

You are not alone
This training is created also for the reason to give opportunity to the volunteers to meet people in the same situation. First I thought that we were int he same situation since we were volunteers. But during the training I realized that we were in a similar situation also before. The whole EVS program is great itself, but I think – and now I’m more and more sure - that it is chosen by youngsters who want to change their life, because they are not satisfied with one part of that.

I can say, I wanted to be a volunteer because I wasn’t satisfied with my life. I didn’t really like the city where I lived, my job was a disaster (without any professional developing) and of course I never found the „perfect” boy. I wanted to learn and see more, have new, useful experiences and I felt this opportunity was the best for me. I realized that most of us had the same reasons and I knew what they felt when they spoke about how they hated their city, their good-for-nothing job or how hard to find a nice and responsible guy. No matter where you live. Another important conclusion for me that till now I thought I’m from a really pessimistic country. But we are not alone…I think that whole Central Europe is a bit pessimistic. (Sorry Girls, I felt this.) I know that the economics is almost the same (bad) in the countries around Hungary, but now I know how the youngsters feel in connection with this. It’s not so different from the average Hungarian way of thinking.

We arrived there as strangers but said goodbye as friends
As for me the team-building was the best experience, a bit of a miracle. Unfortunately, I was working at a company at home whose owners never paid attention to their workers, so we didn’t get any opportunities to develop our team. (Of course we did it on our own, but those were private initiatives.) But I think it would be very important: whatever it is – a trip, a dinner, a party or anything else together, - the employees can feel that the company appreciate their work.

Of course I have friends at home who work at „open-minded companies”, where the leaders are aware of the importance of team-building. So I’ve heard some stories. As I remember they were like: „well, we had a trip together and then we had dinner, and, well, we got drunk together.” Or something like this. I don’t remember I ever heard about a „real” team-building program, like ours. This was a really well thought up and connected program.

Imagine 33 strangers with different cultural backgrounds, that makes the whole thing more complicated. Lots of us, but mostly the Northerners are a bit „colder”: they don’t even want to touch others and of course, „No kisses and no hugs, please!” As my Swedish flat-mate says, they don’t give kisses even in the family, just hugs. As for me, I’m Hungarian (maybe the others are more opened than me) but if I can choose I do not touch, kiss or hug strangers. And I’m really satisfied if I have my so called intimate sphere! I hate if a stranger move in it! Of course if a person is a friend, that’s another story. But can you say after four days that somebody is not a stranger?

The team-building games were focused on touches. My favorite memory is from one of the first games. We had to greet each other in different ways. First with eye-contact. Then eye-contact with smile. Then waving. Then handshaking. Then hug. Huuuuuuug??? Noooo, ooooh, noooo! „We don’t want to hug strangers!” Everybody exclaimed against it! But of course we did it, and it wasn’t that bad. My most memorable was a „cold” German hug from Peter. I wouldn’t call it a real hug it was just pat on the back. :)
Then we had more clever games, with more touches, and some time to get to know each other better. And the result? We are not strangers any more. We learned to help each other and to trust each other.
Maybe this is the point: trust. The last game was only about that. Would you ever lie on your back from a 2 m high wall if you knew that there are a „bed” from people’s armes under the wall? No, definitely no. But after four days we could do it. It wasn’t easy, but everybody who was brave enough to try, could do it.
Another surprising result was the way we said goodbye: with hugs. Everybody gave hugs to anybody else, even the Germen guy for me. A real, not just a „German hug”!:)

I got lots of new impressions, knowledges and relationships just in four days. I could learn from the others and from their experiences, learn about Spanish history, culture, language and a bit more about myself. This is the pack I got from my „on-arrival”.

You can read an article about us:)

Bases of the "Human tower":

El Mercat Medieval

 El cap de setmana passat era el mercat medieval a la Seu. Es podia comprar guarniments, calçats, formatges i molt, molt més. Va començar el dissabte 4/6 i va terminar el diumenge 5/6. Vam veure malabaristes, lluites d’espases, tornejos amb cavalls i danses de ventre. També hi havia molta musica pels carrers. El mercat era des de la Plaça dels Oms fins al carrer Lluís Sabater. Vaig comprar un tortuga de roba per a la meva avia, perquè esta malalta i l’agraden les tortugues, te un col·lecció a casa seva. És tot, perquè no puc escribir més amb català ;) Fins aviat!!

  

Los Talleres en la Salle

Esta semana hacemos talleres en la Salle. Los talleres son sobre nuestros países y también sobre SVE (usamos el powerpoint que hicimos para talleres pasados). La profesora nos gusta mucho porqué era muy agradable y nos contó sobre cuándo ella era un au pair y se fue a Inglaterra. Nos dio consejos como no se debe hacer cuándo ser au pair, y estaba muy bien para mí porqué quizás quiero ser au pair después de vuelvo a mi país.

El primero taller fue un poco mal para mí, porqué estaba enferma y no me sentía muy bien. También los alumnos eran muy jóvenes, solo tenían catorce-quince años, entonces no estaba segura si me entendieron o no. La segunda vez era para gente de dieciséis años o más, y fue mejor para mi porqué había comido medicina y me sentía mucho mejor.

Hicimos dos talleres el martes 31 de mayo y dos el jueves de 2 de junio. A mi siempre parece como fueron mejor y mejor, el primero el peor y el último el mejor, así también esta semana. También lo hemos hecho tantas veces que ya sabemos lo que vamos a decir. Siempre es mejor con gente un poco mayor, porque más a menudos hablen mejor el inglés, pueden hacer más preguntas y entienden más de lo que hablamos. También es más interesante para ellos sobre SVE, porqué no se puede hacerlo hasta ya ha cumplido dieciocho años, y claro no es tan interesante para un joven de catorce años que para un de diecisiete. Pero bueno, de todos modos ha ido bien y estamos contentas. Quizás la próxima vez lo hagamos en castellano

One month in the Pyrenees

Trips, trips, trips. I have just arrived to La Seu and I have already got to know lots of beautiful places in the neighborhood.

I have arrived to Barcelona on 1 May and came to La Seu on the same day. The bus journey took 3,5 hours, but I was not bored only for a minute. I could not believe it! The mountains were so huge and amazing, I thought it can’t be anything else but a dream.:)

Cortiuda, 03rd May
I did hardly arrive, I had lots of sort trips in the first month. For the very first time we went to the top of the 1014 meters high Cortiuda by car. It is as high as the highest peak in Hungary, that is called Kékes. During the trip we stopped at more places like Oliana or Peramola.

Castellbo, 04 May
Next day we went to Castellbo, which is a very small village, with only 17 inhabitants:). Living together with only 16 persons? Perfect. No noise, no traffic, no air pollution. We visited the church and the ruins of the castle.

It was really impressive for me, I love small villages. But it’s good to know if you’re not a farmer, or your job is not a home-based one, life is a bit harder in a small village like this. You have to work in a bigger town or village in the neighborhood, for this reason you have to have a car, because the public transport is not the best, there are only very few buses and your children have to go to school in a bigger village/town. (It is said that nowadays some school buses pick up children from the small villages.) But. Is it not better to wake up to the songs of birds or to cock-crow, than the noise of the traffic? :)

Ortedo, 07-08th May
The next beautiful village I saw was Ortedo. It is also tiny little, but beautiful as well. In fact we had the Stop Motion training here, so it wasn’t a so called trip, but we could have a look at the village. This place become very memorable for me, because I ate snails there for the first time in my life. And I am sorry, but snails are not for me. I am pretty sure that it was the last time too.:) I love them, they are cute in a way, but not on my plate:). Till now I have never thought I would ever eat snails. But I did it. Now the question is: would I try - just because they are on my plate – dog or cat if I were somewhere on the East?

Castellciutat and Montferrer, 14-15 May
We usually go for small trips in the neighborhood with Kim on the weekends. One Sunday afternoon we went to discover the village of Castellciutat, the nearest village to La Seu. Meanwhile we were walking we decided to go to Arfa, but unfortunately we didn’t find the way, just a small footpath to Montferrer. Of course it was more exciting. We didn’t exactly know where do we go, but all of a sudden we found ourselves in Montferrer. Both villages were fantastic. There were only a few people on the streets, everything was peaceful and quiet. On the way back we stopped at the local pub in Castellciutat, where we found only two people. One was sitting at a table and reading a newspaper, the other one was sleeping at another table. But. Where is the innkeeper? We didn’t find him anywhere. Then a few minutes later the reading man stood up and woke the other man up. Because he was that. The innkeeper:) Then we drank a refresher and a beer on the sun and became much more red than before. It was a perfect Sunday afternoon.

Organa and Cabo, 18 May
Another obligatory trip to Organa and Cabo. We love these obligations. It was a class trip with little children. We started from Organa (that is rather a big village with almost a thousand of inhabitants) and we had a 1,5 hours long walk trip to Cabó. We had two nature guides, they talked about plants, animals or other interesting natural formations. The sun was shinning very strongly, but it was perfect for a trip. The kids were incredible. They wanted to know and see everything, they were running and fighting with each other all the time and never ran out of energy! Some of them spoke a little bit of English, e.g.: "Do you like banana?" – it’s a very important question.:) Kids are the best!

We had a big surprise during the trip. We were just walking and talking and than, suddenly, something appeared then quickly disappeared with a big noise. It was a scared deer who was afraid of people, and started to run away when realized us. Fortunately ,Kim was filming at the moment, and just for a very few seconds, but we have a video about it.

We visited the Church in Cabó and then we stopped to eat our lunch at the center of the village. It has only 99 inhabitants. There is a restaurant which is really good at snail foods. It is said. There are some funny big snail statues on its wall.

It was only about four p.m. when we finished our trip, but we were exhausted of walking on the sun.

Alas, 22 May
No, we weren’t bored of trips, so we decided to walk to another neighbouring village, called Alas, on Sunday afternoon. It’s not far from La Seu, just about 4 kilometers next to the Segre river. It seemed again that it will be perfect weather for a trip. But the weather is so mad here. Suddenly, it started to rain but the sun was still shining and it happened several times. We managed to arrive to Alas, but we felt its better to walk on and on. Than we walked higher and higher until we almost reached the top of Banat. Oh, the view. Awesome! On one part of the sky there were amazing sunbeams among the clouds and on the other one it was raining far away. Astonishing.

Tuixen, 28-29 May
Tuixen is about 50 kilometers far from La Seu and extends the southern slopes of the "Serra del Cadi", situated on a small hill in an open valley, Y-shaped.

The reason why we came here was the festival of the "trementinaires". They were local women who produced medicinal remedies from herbs and turpentine extracted from trees, to treat all sorts of ailments, from aches and pains to infections and insect bites. (You can get more information about it from Kim.) The festival itself was very nice, with lots of programs: traditional dancing, singing, theater for children, craft market, camp fire etc.

But to tell to truth, for us it was the weekend of gluttony. Food, food and more food.:) There is a really cool restaurant in Tuixen where we ate wonderful meals. Really much meals. Unfortunately, I haven’t noticed the names of them (they where in Catalan) and we don't have real pictures, but I’d like to share the experience. So the menu: first cheese, olives and sausage as starters. Then three(!) courses. First, cabbage with potato, three slices of black pudding and some bacon on the top. It is very simple but I liked it. Then, the tastiest salad I have ever eaten. With lots of green leaves, red cabbage, nuts, pomegranate and olive oil of course. The main course was fish with fried vegetables (I love vegetables!!!) and a kind of applesauce. At the end: baked apple. Hmmm. Marvelous.

Catalan salad (illustration):

We honestly needed siesta after this. I wasn’t hungry but we got dinner at the same restaurant in the evening. There were two courses and of course starters and dessert. Too much again. Ok, I don’t describe them, but you have to know, everything was perfect again.

As I wrote, Tuixen is 50 kilometeres far from La Seu. Yesss, 50 kilometers with bends. Till now, I thought I’m not afraid of traveling just because of bends. But I have to say that was awful. And not because of the driver, Isidre, he is a very good driver and he was very careful as well. But it is simply too much. And it does not matter if you sit on the back or on the passenger’s seat. So, sorry Tuixen, we meet again if I’ll have a helicopter…

This is about my first months. Yes, I haven't written about La Seu. Of course that is the most important, but another story...

Fira de les Trementinaires

The weekend of the 28th and 29th of May, me and Éva headed to a village called Tuixent to be volunteers and to help out with a thing called “Fira de les Trementinaires”.

The beutiful valley of La Vansa

“Les Trementinaires” were women from the La Vansa valley who, from the end of the ninteenth century to the end of the twentieth, left their homes to sell self produces remedies in order to keep their families from poverty. The government started demanding taxes in cash, something that were extremly hard to get in the remote mountain villages of the valley. The knowledge about different herbs and how they can help you were something that these families had known for ages, passing it from generation to generation orally, but it wasn’t until the times demanded it that they really started taking advantage of their expertees. During the summer months the women were needed in the fields along with the men, but in the winter when the work was less, they headed out from their homes, backpacks filled with herbs and remedies, to try their luck far away from home. Their remedies could help you with just about everything, from abortion to problems with the kidneys. They were made from herbs and mushrooms found in the valley, and oil were also drawn from the trees or made from the gathered herbs. One of their most valued product, turpentine oil, were also what gave the trementinaires their name.

We had arrived to the future...

Isidre is interviewing two real trementinaires

So, like I said, the 28-29^th of May, the “Fira de les Trementinaires” took place in Tuixent, one of the original villages of the trementinaires. The fira is supposed to remind people of the trementinaires so that they and their incredible work are not forgotten. There were also a lot of activities for the children, among other things a performance about one of the trementinaires and her adventures and a competition in recognizing different herbs used by the trementinaires by their smell. They also had a lot of traditional dancing and music, and two “real” trementinaires came and spoke about their experiences and how it was really like. On Sunday the market took place, one of the main attractions of the fira. There you could buy, among other things, herbs used by the trementinaires, home made bread, cookies, cheese, soap and clothes. On Saturday night, there was a big “foguera” in the main square of Tuixent, and also lots of dancing and singing. Traditional dancing and singing was also a reocurring theme of the festival, and in every opportunity people spontaniously bursted out in a dance or song, even when waiting for food in a restaurant.

The foguera on Saturday night

I think it’s great that people here keep the culture and traditions of the trementinaires alive, even for the small children, so that it becomes a part of their identity. I also think the trementinaires are such a good symbol of strong women that saved their families from poverty, and I think that speaking about them can give hope to a lot of women today.