So. It's time for the next part now.
The following morning, which was the first official day of our workshops, arrived Slovaks in the morning at breakfast time. We had already started to get to know the Czech people. There was a very lovely girl named Heli, then Ivana, Johanna and Antonio. Antonio is an EVS volunteer who is doing his EVS in Czech Republic and Ivana is doing her EVS in Spain, in the place where Antonio is from. So from the first moment we met Czech group we realised that they were really cool people. When the Slovak group arrived, then they were also introducing themselves to us: Svenja, Jana, Kaja, Ivan, Natalja. After breakfast we went to the garage where we were supposed to have our workshops. So, in the beginning we had energizers by Antonio and namegames by Svenja. To get to know each other, we had to draw pictures of each other, so that we were sitting in circles and changing seats every one minutes. We also had to talk to the person we were drawing pictures of. It was a great way to get to know the names of the people and to find out things about them. in the beginning the people told very often to Daniele (the organizer) the name Antonio and also to Alessandro. The pictures looked really funny- e.g. Antonio looked like a Viking, Bruno looked very feminine and I looked like I had 4 shoulders..... Anyway we also made a name-game that we made in Turkey, too. It was about telling your name and making some kind of move and others had to repeat it. After that we made an agreement with rules that we applied to the whole project. Then after that we had lunch. After lunch we went to Sonia's home (Sonja is Bruno's sister) because we needed to get to the internet to download our presentation of Estonian handicraft's. Bruno and Sonia live in a very beautiful place with an awesome view to the whole town. And their house is very beautiful, too. Their mother, father and sister were at home and offered us grappa and some cookies made by their granny. Italians are so friendly and hospitable. From that afternoon I completely fell in love with Italians. So, after we downloaded our presentation, we went back to our workingplace. We had to make a small presentation about our handicraft's but we didn't have any computers. So we drew a picture and I presented it. Went well. After that workshop we had to discover Benestare. It meant that we were divided into teams and had to find certain people or institutions in Benestare. I was in a group with Antonio, Sonia and Kaja. We had to find an organization named "Pro Loco". This organization organized local big events and they were also cooking food for our youth exchange. So with the help of Sonia, we went to municipality house, where Pro Loco was supposed to be located. Unfortunately the head of Pro Loco wasn't there any more and her home was pretty far from Benestare, so we called the head of Pro Loco from the phone in the municipality house. We had to make an interview about handicrafts with her. So, after making the phone-interview we had to make a dance with local people and an act where we had to show our adventures. We made a pantomime about making cheese - Antonio was the goat and we had to milk him etc. Then we also danced. One other group had to make a musical and they made a rap musical. It was really funny. After the worksop there was time for reflection groups where we had to discuss about the problems we are having during the exchange. I was in group with Antonio, Kaja, Sonia. I had to also replace Meelika during the team-leaders meetings because she was ill. So after the meetings we had dinner. During the dinner the Hungarian group also arrived. There were 3 people in the group- Gabriella, David and Matyi. After the dinner we were supposed to organize a theme party which was also supposed to be our welcome party. We chose the topic Latin and in the evening the party started. We made some dances and then just danced. Some local people also came to watch us. It seemed like we were the screen and the local people were the audience. Weird. Anyway, I started talking to Heli a lot and in the evening we were probably the last ones to go to sleep. I discovered she was interested in the disabilities field and told her about Maarja küla. She is now interested in becoming an EVS volunteer here. I'm very glad for that. Heli is probably one of the coolest people I met in Benestare, but I can say that about most of the people. Oh, all the people were so great.
The following day was the day when Estonia had to make energizers and name-games. I didn't know that many name-games, so Francesca (the other organizer) helped me out. After the energizer's part Antonio organized team building exercise. In the exercise we firstly had to climb through a spiderweb without breaking it. And each whole could only be used 3 times. Obviously we broke it. :) When everybody had climbed through we were divided into teams. Our exercise was to build an instrument to get an egg down from the second floor's balcony without breaking it. The things to build the instrument from, were given to us. I was in the team with Lii, Heli and Gabriella. We made a plane for the egg, where we put it in a secured way. Our plane had written on it "I believe I can fly" and "Super-egg". We also created an egg catcher which was lying on the ground and was supposed to reduce the shock when the plane fell down from the second floor. After creating the machines we had to throw down the egg from the balcony. I had to throw the egg of my group. It landed securely on the catcher but unfortunately had small cracks in it. So - we "broke" the egg. But when we threw down the egg, we sang "I believe I can fly....". It was a really funny workshop and I could do this again anytime. It was fun to throw the eggs down. Only one egg was not broken. All other team's broke their's. So, then we had lunch. Pasta. And french fries. The meal was really good. And Estonian guys, hungry as they were, took the second round of pasta, too. We ate alltogether very much during the exchange. After the lunch we had another energizer. I made the playing cards game, where people were divided into 4 groups based on the suits of the cards. We were sitting in the circle and I showed the people cards one by one. The person whose suite was shown, had to sit to the laps of other person etc. The game ended when one of the plastic chairs was broken because there were too many people sitting on it. After that we went to municipality house to meet the local mayor meer. He told us that we're gonna have Italian night tomorrow and how glad he was that Benestare hosted our exchange. We also made a group picture and after that went back to our working place. Over there we started creating things out of clay. In the beginning we were told a bit about the techniques of making claywork by our "teacher" Bella. So, the first thing I made, was a mug. After that we had to make the first human on Earth. I made Homer Simpson with a nice six-pack (the beer wasn't invented yet). My Homie was starting to get on his feet and was a bit monkey'sh. He had a very surprised expression on his face and it came from the fact that when he saw further, he saw Marge. I was sitting in one table with Antonio and Sonia and there was also one Italian guy Giovanni. Sonia made a mermaid, Giovanni made Mickey mouse and Antonio made a very old man. After we finished making the things we had to present them to others. Matyi made Chuck Norris and his son (who had no mother- Chuck Norris doesn't need a female person to have babies). Anyway, after that we had again the reflection groups, the team-leaders meeting and dinner. At night we had Czech culture night. We danced one Czech dance and sang songs and tried their traditional food, learn new words. As everybody were pretty tired, the party faded out fast. Oh, yeah, in the beginning of the party we also celebrated Kaja's nameday. So we had wine. Our group also bought some wine from the shop so it was a great evening.
The next day we had a trip out. We went to Siderno again in the morning. I was in Bruno's car again and it was really cool, because he drove quite fast on the curvy roads. Hehe. There were 5 people stuck in one car but it was okay for us. In Siderno we had free time until 2 o'clock in the afternoon. We had our lunches packed with us and so we went to the beach. Me and Mart went swimming and a lot of people looked at us as if we were crazy. We were the only ones swimming... :) The water was warm enough for us and it was so blue and clear water. We spent about two hours in the beach and sunbathed. Then the sun went behind clouds and we went to explore Siderno. As our team already knew the town, we just wet shopping. I bought earrings for myself. Karel and Mart bought themselves Mickey-mouse shirts.... At two all the people gathered in the square we were supposed to meet each others. Kaja, Svenja and Ivana had bubblemakers so they made bubbles into the sunny-again sky. It was hot and beautiful day. So, then we waited for all the car-drivers to come and went to a small city in the mountains- Gerace. The road there was even more curvy. In Gerace was a lot colder than in Siderno- we were high up in the mountains. We went to one platform where we could see the mountains and the sea at the same time. Unfortunately we didn't have much time there, but had to start treasure-hunt around in the town. We saw two churches. We had to play Zombies in front of a church for animals. We also went to one platform from where we had a marvellous look to the sea and the towns next to the sea. We had to make a fashion show over there. So after that we went to the main square of the city where we had to make a 10-minutes show about "Building our Europe". We made towers of people, hummed, danced. After the show we had some Italian cookies and tea in local cafe. We then had free time to see the city. We went back to the platform where we had made the fashion show earlier and enjoyed the view and explored the city on our way back to the square. In the square I taught Svenja to play the jew's harp (which she had bought for herself). As it was already 6 o'clock we drove back to Benestare, where we had our dinner. After dinner, at 10 was supposed to start the Italian night.... The Italian night was really great.
But I'll tell about that in the following post.....
