On-arrival
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Jeroen
20 December 2013 | Bulgarije, Sofia
For nine months I will be in Sofia, Bulgaria for community service. Life is already an adventure, but the experience I will have here seems to be specially adventurous. Paulo Coelho said: "your daily tasks are also your holy tasks". I agree and will try to live the insight, so that my life here is worth following.
Instead of forcing myself to post regularly, I will post when I feel like I have something of value to share.
I have been here now for two weeks already. What I am doing is called 'European Voluntary Service', financed by the European Commission.
Why am I here? I feel like now most of all I need voluntary working experience to grow as a person and as a professional. Understand more of the world, gain better skills and especially to know my heart better. And have great fun. Perhaps doing voluntary work in the Netherlands would be more valuable to me, but this 'project' is in any case also full of opportunities.
Doubts? Regrets? I feel like this is one journey I have to stick to until the end of the term. Besides, I really feel like the extent to which this experience will be valuable is depends for a huge part on me.
I arrived in the middle of the action: the first day of the national 'EVS on-arrival-training' that would last four days had started when I arrived. The training was nice. One day we had to do an exercise: we were split into groups and each group had to 'act out' an fantasy culture. Our group received instructions to be 'Coldonians': rational, hard working people who regard religion and emotions as silly and value their personal physical space which is why they greet only by looking into anothers eyes. We had 15 minutes to prepare ourselves and to practice. In my group, my English was the best and I understood the game. However, another guy, it who understood it less, was taking lead. I felt like we weren't preparing in the best way possible, but everyone was listening to him and not me. The lesson was that you might know what is the best thing to do, but others need to be willing to follow you. When the groups came together again, we had to pretend we were on an island after a plane crash, and had to built a shelter within a certain time. One other group was always touching us, while we wanted to keep our distance. Another group was mostly interested in having fun, and didn't listen to us at all. At the same time, we were rude to them and looking down on them for being so unserious. Even though this game was greatly exaggerated, the differences in culture were very real and recognizable in the participants of the on-arrival-training who came from all over Europe. Great game. ('The island of monomulti'.)
Until now the wind has been blowing favorably. May I keep the right spirit.
Instead of forcing myself to post regularly, I will post when I feel like I have something of value to share.
I have been here now for two weeks already. What I am doing is called 'European Voluntary Service', financed by the European Commission.
Why am I here? I feel like now most of all I need voluntary working experience to grow as a person and as a professional. Understand more of the world, gain better skills and especially to know my heart better. And have great fun. Perhaps doing voluntary work in the Netherlands would be more valuable to me, but this 'project' is in any case also full of opportunities.
Doubts? Regrets? I feel like this is one journey I have to stick to until the end of the term. Besides, I really feel like the extent to which this experience will be valuable is depends for a huge part on me.
I arrived in the middle of the action: the first day of the national 'EVS on-arrival-training' that would last four days had started when I arrived. The training was nice. One day we had to do an exercise: we were split into groups and each group had to 'act out' an fantasy culture. Our group received instructions to be 'Coldonians': rational, hard working people who regard religion and emotions as silly and value their personal physical space which is why they greet only by looking into anothers eyes. We had 15 minutes to prepare ourselves and to practice. In my group, my English was the best and I understood the game. However, another guy, it who understood it less, was taking lead. I felt like we weren't preparing in the best way possible, but everyone was listening to him and not me. The lesson was that you might know what is the best thing to do, but others need to be willing to follow you. When the groups came together again, we had to pretend we were on an island after a plane crash, and had to built a shelter within a certain time. One other group was always touching us, while we wanted to keep our distance. Another group was mostly interested in having fun, and didn't listen to us at all. At the same time, we were rude to them and looking down on them for being so unserious. Even though this game was greatly exaggerated, the differences in culture were very real and recognizable in the participants of the on-arrival-training who came from all over Europe. Great game. ('The island of monomulti'.)
Until now the wind has been blowing favorably. May I keep the right spirit.
Reageer op dit reisverslag
Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
