I will begin with introducing myself: my name is Ewa and thanks to Horyzonty I am doing an EVS project in Portugal. I live and work in Lousã which is a small town near Coimbra – a city with the oldest university in Portugal. But Lousã isn’t that small (oh, no!): we have a cinema and a theatre (two in one). It opens just once a week but who has time to go to the cinema during the week??? We have a swimming pool (opened only in July and August but in Portugal it is still cold in June so anyway no one would dare to have a bath before). Moreover, we have a lot of football fields (that, I guess, were inspired by Polish “Orliki”). So, as you can see there is pretty much everything here in Lousã.
My hosting organization – Activar deals with activation of local community through work with kindergarten children, adult education, promotion of active leisure time. EVS volunteers work in kindergartens but can as well get involved in other activities of the association. Me and Marco (a second volunteer, from Italy) prepare workshops to teach English in active way, through games, songs and playing. We make our workshops three times a week in three different kindergartens. Apart from that Marco realizes an Italian Course for teenagers and I am going to start Computer Workshops for seniors. We try as well to be involved in other activities of Activar – we helped with study visit from Grundtvig Partnership project, we had our stand during Youth Weekend, we will help in organizing a workcamp in July.
Oh, I forgot to mention how long is my project: it is 12 months, so I will stay here until February 2012.
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To finish my relation in a reflective way, I will write something about my multicultural observations and thoughts. It is strange in the beginning in a totally new place – you miss places and people that you know, you miss certainty and familiarity with your reality. For me it was good not to get stressed with that (not to make a big problem out of it in your head, and, instead seeing it as a problem, to see it as something stimulating), observe, meet people and try to get to know them and try to get to know the place and one’s opportunities there. Then you can find your space in this new place. What is really important from my point of view is language. It is important to learn (or try to learn) the language of the country you live in. Because it can be frustrating when you cannot communicate with people that surround you. Summing up: patience and openness for new experiences and people is the EVS key to success.