Third weekend in Szeged was interesting in one aspect - we had a Beer festival here. It was smaller than we could expected – just a couple of tents, where you could have found beer, salted or sweet food to eat. Also, we witnessed a performance of traditional band. They were great! Even though Daniele didn't understand anything it sounded great! They were using special drums made from deer skin to create a music. Somehow all that singing and dancing remembered an Indians tribes from North Amerika and their dances calling for the rain or to glory something saint. The performance was really nice to watch, and music interesting to listen.
„I believe it, if I see it".... it started like this. It is known, that Szeged is one of the most beautiful city in Hungary. We couldn't believe it, till we saw it for the first time. Anita arrived here first, on the 2nd October in the early morning, after her Danielé arrived on Friday, and than Benita on Sunday. And the journey started on Monday: we were in the city center to see the famous places with our mentor, Reni. After a big walk, we had our first lunch together, and a coffee. In the afternoon we were invited to the office, to get to know the workmates, the office and to introduce ourselfs. It was a positive experience to met those kind people. Because Gábor had his Birthday, they celebrate, so we ate cake. After all, we went home to have a rest, and we agreed that Szeged is a really beautiful city. It worth to visit!
In our project called MY MAP (Multiculture Youth for Multiplicate a Process) we would like to host four volunteers for 10 months form Germany, France, Romania and Lithuania. The volunteers will be involved in our youth projects (Tree of Ideas – Together for Disadvantaged Young People Living in Colonies, Mentoring Program for Integration). The target groups of the project are young people with social disadvantages and migrant background (third-country citizens).The goal of the project is to involve the members of the target group (supported by the volunteers) in innovative activities from the planning part across implementing to evaluation, which will help their creativity and entrepreneurship.
This is the end of the year. Surely, I still made math, Hungarian and English classes at the school, even attended to a few music classes with some of my EVS mates, to teach the kids songs of our countries, but all in all, December was mostly about Advent and Christmas. I think when you work with children this is to be expected.
It was the second day of December when we got a spontaneous invitation to participate at an Advent evening with the teachers from the Reformed Gymnasium (in Csurgó). This little event was organized in the basement of the gymnasium, where they usually have after school events. There they were a few tables where we could help make Christmas decoration for Christmas-related events that were planned in the second part of the month. I think the cookies and muffins with chocolate and cinnamon made a big part of the magic for me, but it was so nice and friendly to make some handmade Christmas decoration with all of the teachers.
If I don't accept the challenge that each day offers to me, then I will lose for sure. This is a certainty. And I don't want to lose.
For me coming here was a challenge. I didn't know how it will be, who are the people I will spend this whole year with, I only knew some things about the host organization and that was it. So I took the risk to try out something new. :)
First thing that comes to my mind is that my bus to Budapest was arriving late and after almost one hour of waiting I really thought that it's not coming after all. It was one of those moments when I really wanted to cast away all of my worries but as minutes were passing by I had more and more bad thoughts. Then after enough waiting, the bus finally entered the bus station and in a few minutes I was on my way.