Fairy tale

Once upon a time, in a small small town in the heart of Catalunya, there was living M, a girl who had a very big dream: she wanted to travel, go abroad, discover the world and all it's wonders.

One day she made up her mind and decided to go for that dream, so she took all her things and flied far away. She landed in a new place, unknown and very different from where she came from, a land called Latvia. This place was fascinating! It was quite small and half of it was forest, the little towns were full of traditions and a big love for culture, the inhabitants had beautiful and colorful gardens, the nature was alive.

M arrived in one of those small towns that won her heart: Kuldīga, a city with a soul, the pearl of Kurzeme. A charming and quiet place, with peaceful streets, old houses, wonderful landscapes and an incredibly large waterfall! Yes, this was the perfect place where to start her story.

Summer ended and autumn started painting everything with amazingly beautiful colors. And then it started, all the citizens started to warn the girl about the winter, they said that it would be very cold and white, full of snow and with temperatures around -25 degrees. M was frightened, she wasn't even able to imagine how it could be so cold because she was used to another kind of weather, that's why at the same time she was very curious about it and was looking forward winter's arrival.

The days went by and the cold didn't increase, December had already arrived and there was no sign of the snow. M received news about her family who said that in her hometown it was very cold and it was even snowing! Everything started to look so unreal, the weather was getting crazy and the young girl was so disappointed, still waiting for the snow.

One rainy day, she met with her friend to bake a delicious honey cake. They were both in the kitchen, preparing the cake, cooking something else to eat, talking... And suddenly, they looked through the window and a big snow storm was falling! The excitement began: they started to scream, jump and laugh, finally they had what they where waiting for so much, the weather had completely changed in the blink of an eye, the snow had finally arrived in a great surprising way.

The following day, when they got up, everything was completely white, incredibly beautiful. But despite the amusement of M, she didn't feel very good, she had just got ill. Luckily, she had a fairy godmother in Kuldīga who always took care of her, provided her with warm clothes and shoes and gave her anything she needed. This time, the fairy godmother took responsibility of M's health and with a little bit of magic she got better very fast and could go outside to enjoy Kuldīga full of snow and Christmas lights, a truly fairy tale town.

Rainbows

Good morning! Labrīt! Bon dia!

Woaw.. so many days without writing and so many things to talk about! I wish the days had 48 hours, I want to do too many things!

Today I went out of my flat, coming to work, I turned right on the first corner and I saw a wonderful image: the sun was strongly shining between some black clouds, lighting up just some parts of the streets, but very intensively, and a rainbow was shyly standing in the background. It was very very nice! But, of course, I had this stupid thought of taking a picture instead of enjoying it so the clouds decided to move and the rainbow disappeared. Anyway, it was a beautiful start of the day.

So, let's review very fast what has happened lately!

Some weeks ago my family came to visit me. My father, mother and brother spent 6 days in Latvia and we visited Rīga and Kuldīga. I was very happy to see them and spend some days together, although at that time I had only been away 2 and a half months, it's always comforting to see your family. And they were so lucky! They came the best week they could have come, the autumn was at its peak, all the trees were full of colors: yellow, red, orange... Everything looked amazing! But then they left and to be honest I was sad and the landscape didn't help anymore because the leafs started to fall and everything became brown. By the way, during the days that the leafs were falling I loved to walk on the streets because they made such a nice sound!

I spent the following weekend in Rīga, with Anna, enjoying our time and discovering interesting places. We went to a tea shop so charming and peaceful, it was great! And it is written down on our list of cool places of Rīga (we have a lot of lists: our plans, the places/shops/restaurants we like of each city we visit, the food we want to cook, and some other).

I was really looking forward to the week that was coming. On that Friday I had my first performance with Focus, the dancing group I joint. It was in Saldus, in an award ceremony, and I had to dance 5 of the 7 dances we were doing. Actually it was pretty difficult to remember them all! Anyway, I really love dancing and I was really happy to dance there! But after the performance, I realized that I miss my dancing group from Catalunya so much... “Step By Step” is my second family.

And this was not the only good thing of the week: on Saturday I left with Anna to Lithuania for 5 days. It was a great great trip! First we went to Kaunas with some friends we had met in Riga two weeks earlier. They are doing an Erasmus there so they are from different nationalities and it was perfect for practicing languages: I found myself speaking in French to two sisters, they answering me in Spanish, turning my head and Speaking in English and Latvian words coming to my mind instead of the French ones. Hilarious!

Then, on Sunday afternoon we left to Vilnius. We stayed in the flat of a friend of a friend and they were so nice! The three days we spent in Vilnius were fantastic: we visited the old town, the castle, the forest, Užupis Republika, we went to very good cafes, restaurants, concerts... it was a fantastic trip.

So, when I came back to Kuldīga I got ill. Of course! I didn't have plans for the following weekend and my body decided it was the perfect time to get ill. And if it wasn't enough, I also burnt myself. Yes, making pumpkin soup I destroyed a little bit of my arm. Luckily it didn't hurt until yesterday. Well, I hope it will get better and my cold will disappear soon.

Keep calm and challenge accepted

I have just finished two dancing lessons, the first one with the students of the 5^th grade and the second one with the ones of the 2^nd grade. It was crazy!

Yesterday night, when I was going home with Zura, he told me that he would go to Rīga today and that I wouldn't have dancing lessons. We called the dancing teacher just to confirm it and she didn't pick up the phone. Finally, we managed to contact her at half past ten, before going to sleep. She said that she was injured and would not be able to do the lesson so that I had to go there and do it myself. PANIC! It was 22:30 and the following day at 8 o'clock in the morning I would have two lessons that I wouldn't have been able to prepare. At the first moment I was really scared but I realized that this wouldn't help me and I was so tired that I wasn't able to prepare anything, so I decided to go to sleep.

But the reality came back again when I arrived in the Youth Center and faced the 5^th grade students. While walking to Youth Center I had thought of some exercises but when I arrived here all of them disappeared! Luckily there was the pianist, a very kind woman who helped me a lot, who doesn't speak English at all (of course, let's make it easier!).

We started very punctual, doing some warm-up. My intention was to do it very slow and long, including all the parts of the body, because I can't teach Latvian nor Georgian dances and we couldn't do any Catalan dance because I didn't have the material but we had to fill the lesson with something. The problem was that after four exercises I didn't know what else I could do. So the first idea that crossed my mind was to practice the dance they had already started with the Latvian teacher. But this was not possible because the pianist didn't have the score! Luckily she remembered some notes and we practiced the basic steps of the dance during the rest of the lesson.

Then the students of the 2^nd grade arrived with their never-ending energy. After calming them down as much as we could (it's quite impossible for them to be quiet) I was able to do a better warm-up than with the first lesson, although I also needed the help of the pianist to finish the lesson.

And now, after this small disaster I did in the first two lessons, I am going to think of what I can do with the students of the 4^th grade who will arrive in one hour.

Keep calm and challenge accepted!

With Linda in Penkule

I have a friend, I have a really good friend: Linda.

Linda is crazy. Linda is crazy and great. Linda is crazy, great and one of the coolest persons I've met.

We met each other just when I arrived in Latvia, we went together to Laba Daba, a very nice alternative music festival where we did some recycling workshops with my organization (Radi Vidi Pats). Since then, I can't say I meet her very often, but I can definitely say that meeting her always means having a great time.

This weekend Linda invited me and some other friends to spend some days in Penkule, her hometown, because next week she is leaving to Bosnia, where she will stay one whole year doing an EVS. I'm really happy for her because doing an EVS is a great experience but at the same time I'm so sad that she has to leave now, just after we met. Thus, I decided that this will be a great opportunity for visiting the Balkans!

Anyway, I arrived in Penkule on Friday morning after my first hitch hiking experience (accompanied by Linda, of course) where Miroslav, one Serbian EVS volunteer, was already waiting for us. Penkule is a very small town with a wonderful tree-arcade entrance and exit; it just has one main road and two or three streets. There is one school, the sports hall, a kind of town hall, the post office and library building, the culture house, the bar and the shop. But also people, movement, activities, trees, forest, colors, animals, gardens, apples, goats, cows, a lake. Linda is in love with this little town, every time she speaks about it her eyes start shining and you can feel all the emotions and memories that fill her heart, it is really moving.

Linda hates cooking but I don't know why we spent such a long time in the kitchen these days: cooking lunch, baking apple cake, making pancakes, crème brulée that ended up being lemon cream, apple cake again, apple juice, croissants, apple juice, Serbian soup, steamed vegetables, apple juice, etc. At the end, we were really proud of all the results (specially the apple cake, it was delicious!) and we had many special moments in the kitchen.

One of this delicious apple cakes was made for a very important event that happened on Saturday: The Big Clothing Day 2. This initiative started by Linda consists in bringing all the clothes, shoes, bags, accessories, books or even electrical appliances that we don't need anymore so that someone else can use it. I brought there one jumper and one T-shirt but I got so many cool things, I'm very happy! I got skirts, dresses, T-shirts, trousers and even a coffee machine!

On Saturday evening Frans arrived in Penkule. He is a Belgian guy who is already doing his second master in Rīga being only 21 years old. With him at home there were 4 different nationalities in just one flat, awesome!

But what I haven't explained yet is the craziest thing we did 3 times. As I said before in Penkule there is a lake and as I also said before being with Linda means having a great and crazy time. Yes, it's not difficult to guess what we did; we went swimming! The best thing is that I didn't even go swimming on October when I was in Spain and now I do it in Latvia, where it is so much colder! But I have to say that it was great, I loved it! And, although the water was cold, we took very warm clothes and after swimming we weren't cold at all. By the way, if someone wants to do it my advice is to scream, scream, scream and scream when you get in the water, it really helps! And drinking some tea afterwards is also a very smart choice.

We were having a really nice time with Linda, so we decided that I would stay one more day there. Since Linda's mother works in the primary school of Penkule, we thought it would be a good idea to go to there and practice some English with the kids, it is always good for them to practice with foreigners. They responded very good, they were really interested and they even asked me to sign their notebooks! I really liked that idea of going to the English lessons and I think I will talk with the schools of Kuldīga if they would like to do the same once in a while.

Sadly, after swimming for the last time, I had to pack all my things and get ready to leave. Linda and her mum were so kind with me and they gave me a lot of food to bring home. I was so happy after this great great weekend! Linda is just amazing! And I already miss her, so I will definitely visit her in Bosnia, yes!

Linda, thank you for everything, liels paldies par visu!

On-Arrival Training: contacts which last forever!

Last weekend Zura, our mentor Annija and I went to the “On-Arrival Training” for the EVS volunteers (and their mentors) who have arrived in Latvia during the last months. This non-formal training took place in a very beautiful guest house near Riga, “Depkina Rāmavas muiža” and it consisted of 5 days full of activities that will help us to create an excellent EVS.

The training started on Friday's 20^th morning but unfortunately, I got sick because of an avocado (I think I won't be able to eat avocado ever again... It was so painful!) and I arrived there in the evening, so I missed all the presentation and team-building activities. But it was not so bad, all the people was so friendly that I didn't even noticed I had skipped them. And luckily, I arrived there early enough to be in the Latvian evening, where all the mentors taught us Latvian songs, dances, games and history and of course they all brought tasty food from different regions.

As every morning, Saturday started with some warming-up out-door activities. Then, we worked on voluntary work, important players in EVS, non-formal education and Youth in Action values. After a very tasty lunch (I have to say that all the meals were delicious and they gave us so many sweets! It felt like paradise) we went along with learning and the Youth Pass. This activity was one of my favorite ones because I developed my creativity very much by writing a poem with Anna, one German volunteer who has become a very close friend of mine.

But Saturday couldn't end by a better way than having an intercultural evening. In the training there were volunteers from 5 different countries: Germany, Turkey, Georgia, Ukraine and Catalonia, so we had the opportunity to discover all these different cultures by our presentations. We danced traditional dances, learned songs and played traditional instruments. It was very interesting!

Sunday was the last day with our mentors since they would leave in the evening, but we still had a very intensive day in front of us. After breakfast, we took the bus to Riga, where we had to accomplish a very difficult mission: success with all the tasks that the trainers gave us. But everybody knows that it is much better to work with great colleagues than alone, so we made a group with Anna, Zura, Therese and Beqa and managed to do almost all the tasks while having good fun. At the end of the day we ended up with a conclusion that for me has become representative of the training: with the right people, everything is possible!

Then, we came back to Rāmava and each one of us made a poster with magazines' pictures about how we wanted to be after the EVS, so I took my sheet of paper and some magazines and went outside, under the porch, accompanied by the smell and the sound of the rain and started to work. For me, this was the best activity because I came up with how I wanted my future to be like and I got to know myself much better in a very creative way. After this, we got together with our mentors and started making an activity plan taking into account the poster we had just made. This was so productive and we had so many ideas that we only planned October.

It was time to say good-bye to our mentors and start cooking the dinner ourselves. We decided that we had to take advantage of our nationalities and cook something from our countries. The result was delicious: German salad, Turkish vegetables, Spanish omelet, Ukrainian sweets and fruit with chocolate as a dessert! And we kept Georgian meat for the following day.

But the last day had arrived. Monday was the day for crisis management and questions we hadn't dealt with the other days. We talked about so many situations and how to solve them all, I think it was very useful for all the volunteers. In the afternoon, we thought of projects and activities we can do together and we had some very nice ideas such as making a lip dub for the International Volunteers' Day and hugging people in Riga's streets. We are also planning to travel not only around Latvia but also to Estonia and Lithuania all together.

Finally, we left on Tuesday after breakfast. But we wanted to spend one more day together so we stayed in Riga, walked around the Old Town, had lunch in a traditional Latvian food restaurant and went in some second hand shops.

The training was over but we left with full batteries, a lot of energy, optimism, ideas, creativity, great friends and ready to make an excellent EVS!

Changes and news

The last two weeks have been full, very full and with many new things. 

If I have to think about last week it seems really far away; at that time I still was the only volunteer in Kuldīga although it wouldn’t be for long. I spent most of my time at work preparing the welcome for Zura, the Georgian volunteer who will be my colleague during this whole year, and making a presentation about Catalunya for the first cultural evening of the Youth Center.

On Friday I left to Riga with some friends, Guna and Edgars, who showed me this beautiful city and on Saturday we all went to the airport to pick up Zura. Then, we drove with their car to Kuldīga and went to Zabadaks, the place where Zura was supposed to live. But he didn’t like it at all so we decided that I would share the flat with him. And I am glad of this decision! Sometimes it is difficult to communicate with each other because he speaks very little English and I don’t speak Russian at all, but doing mimics to understand each other is very funny!

On Monday we had the first ballet lesson in Focus, the dancing group I go to. The teacher is a professional ballet dancer who comes specially from Riga to teach us! We also had rehearsal on Tuesday and Wednesday but it wasn’t ballet, it was theater, which is extremely necessary because the expression is very important in the dances.

But before I go to eat something, I want to talk about yesterday. Yesterday it was 11th of September, the Catalan National Day and I am very say I couldn’t be there in this important date. All the Catalans did a human chain, “Via Catalana”, to demonstrate for the independence. Here, in the Youth Center, we did the first cultural evening about Catalunya and I talked about our history, traditions and why the Catalans want to be independent.

VISCA CATALUNYA!

Plans and decisions

When I think about last week all the decisions and plans that we had to make come to my mind. The time of planning everything arrived: the activities I would do in the Youth Center, the timetables, the big events of the year, the international days, etc. Essential work that must be done in order to obtain good results.

The worst part for me was planning my own timetable because there are so many things I want to do. But the day only has 24 hours and the week 7 days, so I had to prioritize and decide which activities I would have to forget about, and that is something which I really hate doing.

My biggest dilemma was between theater and dancing as I love both activities. Dancing was 3 days a week and included ballet and theater lessons, theater was 3 days a week and included dancing lessons. Moreover, I had already taken part in both activities and I knew the people was great in both groups. But I had to take a decision and dancing won the battle.

Even though there are these odious moments when planning the timetables, there are also these great moments when you let your imagination flow and you start thinking about all the events you can organize for the year. Ideas, ideas and more ideas start coming to your mind and you just can't wait for realizing them all.

But planning the whole year is not so easy so we still have some work to do so let's just focus on the great moments and start thinking about Zura's welcome, he will arrive next Saturday!

When it rained cakes...

So happy after the results of the crash course in theatre! The performance was a great success and everyone acted very well! Here there is the hat I wore and the flowers I received after the show.

Finally I managed to say my difficult sentence, which actually meant "When it rained cakes…", a delicious way for saying "Once upon a time…”

Good feelings!

Two days ago finished the youth exchange in Kūrava, the house that was being restored by Italians, Estonians and Latvians. Saying good-bye to all the volunteers was a very sad moment because I had had a great time spending almost the hole week with their company! Now I will miss them so much!

We were very glad because the results of the project were incredibly good. We managed to bring water into the house and build the toilet and also to restore the window of what will be the bathroom. And the secret of these results is that everybody worked very hard and that we all got on very well.

But, of course, we didn't spend the whole day working. Everyday, after dinner time, we had some activities prepared: a night-walk in Kuldīga, a concert, a story evening, a photo session in traditional clothes, a wine tasting and some people even watched a movie. Finally, on Saturday, after Friday's cleaning party, we had a huge birth celebration for Kurts, Undīne's and Raivo's son. We were so lucky to see a completely traditional baptism, with all the ceremonies, costumes, food, songs and dances. It was so nice and I think all of us enjoyed it very much.

But last week I also did some other things apart from Kūrava. On Monday I started a crash course in theater in the Youth Center and tomorrow we will put on the play we have been rehearsing. And yes, I have a role in the play and I say one (extremely complicated) sentence in Latvian: “Kad vēl klinģerlietiņs lija”. Every time I have to say it I get so nervous because I always forget it! But I have a lot of fun there because there are from little kids to adults and when we play games it is hilarious.

Luckily, I also started Latvian lessons and now I can read, greet and address people, count to 20, say the colors and name some objects. But Latvian is a bit difficult and I will have to study a lot!

This week we will know something about Zura's arrival, the Georgian volunteer who will work with me in the project. I really hope he can come soon!

Projects everywhere!

Last week was very busy! I was taking part in two projects at the same time, one in the Youth Centre and the other one in Kūrava.

In the Youth Centre we organized a week called 'Young and Active', in which we carried out different kind of activities for all the youngsters of Kuldīga. Any day was the same: on Moday we had sports day, on Tuesday we painted a beautiful drawing on a wall, on Wednesday we had a meeting with various organizations, on Thursday we had an orientation race and on Friday we had games day. It was a very complete week and we enjoyed it very much.

At the same time I was in the other project: the restoration of Kūrava, an old and big house near the river Venta. This project lasts two weeks and its final aim is to make a bathroom in the house with the help of 5 volunteers from Italy, 4 from Estonia and 5 from Latvia. The project also gives a lot of importance to culture and the participants are taking part in many Latvian traditions. Although I didn't have much time for this project, I have to say that it is very interesting, with great people and till now it has had very good results!

I'm having a very good time in Latvia and I am really looking forward next September, when I will start all the activities in the Youth Centre!

First week

It's been one whole week living in Kuldīga, getting to know the streets, the people, the language... a week full of new things.

Everything started on Monday 5^th of August, with my first day at work. The advantages of working in the Youth Center is that I can meet many young people, the disadvantage of arriving on August is that there isn't many people. Nevertheless, I think I've found great people here with whom I did really enjoyable activities last week. Now I'll just talk about some of them.

These past days have been extremely hot in Latvia, even reaching 34ºC in Kuldīga, which is not normal at all. But in this city we are very lucky because we have one fantastic river: Venta. Last Thursday was one of the hottest days in the past three years so we went with some friends to swim in the river. The water temperature was perfect and we had so much fun jumping from the waterfalls.

But this awesome weather couldn't last for long and the following day the rain started and the temperatures decreased. Even though we couldn't go swimming, there were many other things to do. Some of the youngsters who come to the Youth Center also dance theater jazz in the Culture Center and on Friday they had a performance in city called Ventspils, which means Castle on the Venta. I was invited to go with them and see the show and I have to say that I had a really good time with them and I enjoyed their dances very much!

Finally, last Saturday there was a marathon in Kuldīga. I went to see it because some of my friends were working there but I ended up working too! We had to fill glasses of water and hold them next to the path were the athletes were running, so that if they were thirsty they could take them without stopping. Suddenly, from the loud-speakers it started to sound some swing and we spent all the morning dancing while giving the water to the runners, it was hilarious!

Today started the week 'Youth and Active' in Kuldīga. Let's hope we'll be able to tell great things about it!

The arrival

Before leaving to Latvia I knew it was a lovely country, but when I arrived I realised it was wonderful.

At Barcelona's airport I came across Guna, a latvian girl who lives in Barcelona and whom I had met some weeks before, so I didn't have to travel alone. When we arrived in Riga it was almost 11pm, we couldn't do much. Agata, the coordinator of the project, was waiting for us. Agata is a really lovely and friendly woman, she also did an EVS in Catalonia and she speaks Spanish very well. She took me to her grandmother's house in Sabile, where we slept.

The following morning we took some food from Agata's grandmother's garden and we went to Kuldīga. We met Ina and her daughters, who had the keys of my new flat and went there to leave all my things. The flat is very colourful and full of light, I really like it! After that, we went to the supermarket and bought some basic things for the flat and some food. Later, we had a super tasty lunch in a restaurant located in the main street of Kuldīga.

Once our belly was full, we walked to the Youth Centre, the place where I will work. They made me a really warm welcome, with flowers and traditional latvian food. After everybody introduced theirselves, the youngsters of the centre took me with them to play volleyball (although I'm really bad at it was great!). They were incredibly nice and tried to make me fit in. When we got tired, they took me to Ventas rumba, the widest waterfalls of Europe, and crossed it. The view was amazing and the water wasn't cold at all, I really want to come back there soon! Afterwards we walked around Kuldīga. The city is very beautiful, the houses are small and charming and the streets are ancient and narrow.

The following day some people of the Youth Centre took me for a guided walk around Kuldīga. We went to the most important buildings of the city such as the library, some churches, the townhall, etc. As I have already said, the city is very very beautiful and although now I need a map to go everywhere, I think soon I will know every steet of the city.

I have to say that my first days in Kuldīga have been fantastic and all the people is very nice. I have the feeling this year will be great!