EVS in OKO-centre: 2010/10

Halloween-time means exhibition-time for us volunteers in oko-centre. It is already our second exhibition - time is running really fast. This time we had already a little bit more experience and the preparation was easier for us. But nontheless we had to inform ourselves about halloween and learned a few new things about this day. Did you know that this celebration comes originally from Ireland? Or that it was first called "All-hallows Eve"? I didn't ;)

Besides doing some research on this topic, we had to be creative by making posters and games for our visitors. Yesterday and today were finally the exhibition-days and a lot of school classes have visited us.
It was hard for us to get up so early (how did we manage that in our schooltime???) but we had a lot of fun with the kids. Besides the exhibition we prepared some small games for learning the english halloween words and we made pumpkins. Here are some impressions of the two days:

You can find more pictures on this homepage

Have a nice (and long) weekend :)

We (me and Christine) are back from our on-arrival training course. We spent 6 wonderful days in Rakovice - countryside placed in the middle of nowhere! - where we lived in an old castle together with one mouse (one is the fact but maybe there were more!?) and 20 other volunteers who are in Czech Republic for their EVS and who have come from all Europe and even from (attention! pozor!) Brasil. So now we can travel in the whole Czech Republic and have bed & breakfast for free. ;)
We've talked about our voluntary job, shared experiences, ideas, first impressions of Czech people, culture etc. and learnt more about teaching methods, non-formal education, communication, feedback and evaluation. I'm sure we can put all these tips and knowledge into practice now. Above all, we had a lot of fun during trainings days and I hope we'll be in touch with some volunteers.

By the way, there was no central heating - people in the 16th century had no idea about it, really ;) so it was cold. In fact it was freezing, especially when we arrived. First challenge was to make a fire in stoves and day by day we had to take care of heating, bringing wood and coal etc. Now it seems to be easy but at the beginning for most volunteers it was the impossible. Survival camp! But hey, who knows what waits for us in the future? I'm absolutely proud of my new skill. :]

Another duty we had was cooking (breakfast and dinner) and it was interesting experience as well. Firstly because we had opportunity to taste various European cookery and secondly because together cooking forms special relationships with a group - the kitchen is the best place in the world for talking, laughing and whatever!

And here are some pictures from training, so enjoy it!