Christmas In School

Well, the whole performance was in polish, but I catched on pretty quickly. I'm not really religious and I  don't know the whole story, but from this I do know that Jesus was born on christmas -I still don't know what the witch and the kings got to do with that though. I apologize for my ignorance.The show was great, the kids were presumably adorable. We have some real talent in our school, also not only in the field of acting but in singing also. We got to see some really nice musical eprformances also. I've heard the girls singing a few times in events like this and it's so beautiful it always brings a little tear to my eye.
Also with Penina and Claudia we sang Silent Night, of course in our own languages (which also brought a little tear to my eye, but in a little bit different matter). We didn't practice before this and last minute we decided to throw an english version in the end for all together. Claudia sang in spanish and I forgot the lyrics. I should get video at some point of this event, I'll be happy to share. But overall, an enjoyable experience.

After the performances, the classes had their christmas eve suppers in their classrooms. I'm fortunate to be able to celebrate christmas so many times in different situations, because christmas equals food. Traditional style, we had barszcz soup and pierogi, and the rest of the food were provided by the students. Salad, fish, cakes, cookies, gingerbread... It was also nice to spend this time with a gimnazjum class, as I don't work with them so much. We broke some christmas bread and wished all the best and merry christmas to each other and enjoyed each other's company. And the food.

To be honest pani, you could have predicted this, with all the sugar you're allowing them to consume on this occasion. Just saying.

Anyway, this was a perfect last day, and I'm happy to have a little holiday right now. I'm excited about going to Finland, as well as I'm not so excited about still not having my backpack packed. I do this everytime, I manage everytime and I still stress about it. This is exactly why I need some holiday from time to time. So merry christmas, happy new year Poland, I'll see you in january!

Christmas In Poland

So yesterday we had a huge christmas dinner for the workers and volunteers of our organisation. The food was traditional polish christmas food and we learned also some of the polish christmas traditions, like making wishes and sharing bread (opłatek) and that you should eat 12 dishes during this meal.  Also polish people don't eat any meat on christmas, except for fish, usually carp. I don't know if i actually ate twelve dishes because I don't eat fish, but I enjoyed everything else and ate a lot. Also I experienced some new polish foods, like barszcz with uszka, which is beetroop soup with kind of like mushroom ravioli.

It was really nice for us all to get together, especially when the holidays are starting and people are heading home. I feel again very privileged and grateful for being here and among all these great people.

Poppy seed cake and of course, pierogi, my absolute fauvorite. Some of our muslim family members had never experienced christmas, so it waskind of fun and new for them. We're all the time learning other cultures and enriching our world view. Still I love how the indonesian girls always bring their own spices to the table. Also we wished merry christmas and a happy new year, and whatever else (we didn't make translation so I don't know what was actually said), in all languages presented in the table. I always feel super weird speaking in finnish in situations like this; it's hard to imagine that it sounds exactly the same to the others than georgian or romanian language to me, and that no one understands. Except a little bit for my estonian brother. Still it was really nice atmosphere was just lovely and christmasy. And did I mention that the food was delicious?

Wesołych Świąt!

 Tomorrow at school we're going to have our own christmas celebration -my last work last day before the christmas holiday. The day after that, I'll be travelling to experience the finnish christmas (from what I already know, the food will be delicious).

Volunteer's Day and sick again

The International Volunteer Day is actually held on december 5th. It's a chance for individual volunteers, communities and organizations to promote their contributions to development at the local, national and international levels. We celebrated this day today and our lovely school and our fantastic and talented students wanted to show their appreciation towards their volunteers. And of course we did our own part, too.

There was singing and dancing in spanish with our columbian volunteer, and also a kenyan version of Joy to the world, that Penina had rehearsed with the children. The kids from the drama club had prepared us some theatre shows. They made they're own versions of the all over Poland well known stories of the Dragon Of Kraków and the Mermaid of Warszawa. They were so funny and clever. The students had even practiced all the lines in english!

It felt really nice to get this kind of recognition, even though I get my reward for volunteering at work everyday. And in other parts of my life, too. These kind of experiences can't go on without growing a person on the inside, even just a little bit. At least if the person is receptive for this kind of personal growth. I felt important today.

And I did well today, considering that I'm sick once  again! In all the pictures I really look very droopy, like I actually felt too. But I'm happy, and anyway it's getting better. We have a gingerbread cake in the oven with Birgit and I still have some glögi.
I've been sleeping through the days for like three days in a row. I'm starting to wonder if maybe my body is just telling me to go to my nest and get to my hibernation already. Even though we still don't have any snow after it melt away last weekend. I really, really wish there would be snow in Finland when I get there (next week saturday). It's not christmas without snow!
This kind of "diploma" I'm holding in my hand is also one of the most heartwarming things from today.  We all received this and it's something to indicate the school's gratitude and somewhat to concretize our importance in this place (this is especially nice, for not everyday is so easy from the motivational point of view, believe it or not).

And here's a christmas tree from Bystrzyca center. I hear they have a christmas market now, and we're gonna have one here next week. Our office is still located there, but all of my colleague volunteers who were living there have already moved to a new building, quite a lot more far away. The office will be moving to that same building too at some point, we'll see how much more difficult this makes my life (I'm already having trouble everytime I need to get there before three).

Anyway, I'll keep on resting and curing myself and maybe I'll do a photo challenge again if I'm still sick tomorrow. 

What memories are made of

I had a busy weekend. On the 6th of December we celebrated Santa Claus day in Poland. On this same day we celebrated our independence day in Finland. My family decided to spend it here in Kłodzko, to bring me some finnish gingerbread, salmiakki vodka and glögi, kind of finnish mulled wine, which I've been missing all autumn, but this weekend was just perfect to finally get it, because we had our first real snow and it was all christmasy-feely, drinking it with woollen socks on my feet and with raisins and almonds, of course, and we also found out that polish wodka works perfectly on this, also added some gingerbread on the side and it's like heaven. All the snow melted away last night though. Now it has just been raining all day. Boring. I was kind of feeling it already, I even got some real shoes and everything.
Oh and yes! My dear Lea had been observant and reading my blog... she brought me real coffee from Finland and even a maker to prepare it! I couldn't be happier (I think I have already drank like half a package in two days just because I can).

Santa Claus day at school meant that the kids got presents from Santa, lot of candy and chocolate; so they were even more hyperactive than usually. We made christmas decorations, learned about christmas celebration in Poland and in other countries and watched movies. Overall a very nice, relaxed day. And this first class christmas tree was so adorable, the kids decorated it themselves so 90% of the balls and thingys were just a big bunch on the lower branches.

I was kind of worried how my family would manage the train trip from Prague -as my experiences in travelling from Czech haven't been so joyful. Surprisingly everything went just fine and the trains were on time so I welcomed them to our little town. It was fun to see this city from a more touristic view -I mean like eating at a restaurant and all that. I didn't expect that we would find even one real restaurant, but we did and even a really nice one. And it felt also nice to eat food.

On saturday we had a day trip to Wrocław. We had a nice time shopping at the christmas market (it's huge and really really nice, with lots of original products) and just looking around. It felt nice to be talking in my own language, but also to have a real chance in using my polish as I had to work as somewhat as a translator in some situations -I'm quite proud of myself. Tomorrow I'm again back to polish lessons after two weeks (and I didn't do much effort on improving it otherwise during this time either).  

We also visited the St. Elizabeth's church, which was absolutely beautiful. There would have also been a possibility to go up the tower (rising up to 91,5 m), but we didn't dare, for the day was really windy. It calmed down at some point. Anyway there wasn't any snow in Wrocław, when in our town just 90 km south we already had a few centimetres.  I was kind of disappointed because the last time a copule weeks ago I was there it was already very pretty with all the christmas decorations and I was looking forward to see how it would look like now. Still in the end the town is beautiful in any case.




We had some essential hot wine to keep us warm and kept the cups as souvenirs -actually we did pay deposit for them, so it's not stealing.

Kiitos ihanasta seurasta! Olette rakkaita.

Also I can't believe that soon four months have already gone by and actually in two weeks I will go home for christmas and when I'll be back here it will already be halfway of january, because as soon as I get back from my travels I will head to my mid-term training for a week. 

Ice skating

A perfect way to spend a day with my children. This was something that is really part of my childhood and my culture, all the way from playing with friends in the winter and coming home clothes all wet to going to hockey games and watching them from the tv.

We took a bus from school with a mixed group of children from different classes and drove for somewhat over an hour to get to the lodawisko. I was so excited and so were the kids, and especially my colleague Penina who had never been ice skating before. She did great progress in a few hours though (she even let go of the edge of the rink at some point!).

There's an ice rink in our city centre also. I really need to get some skates somewhere so I can go and show the locals where I come from and how it's done, hah. There was also some kids who were really such good ice skaters, or if not so technically pefect, at least so fearless that I would recruit into my hockey team anytime. Overall we had a great time, and of course some hot coco, a lot of energy and a lot of laughs.
I love my job.

Volunteers In Wonderland

 Couple of our volunteers organized this amazing event called Volunteers In Wonderland on saturday at their working place, the museum of Kłodzko. The point was for the local people to have a chance to get to see us, talk to us and meet other cultures and travel around the world in two hours as the leaflet says. First we danced some dances and saw even traditional azerbaidzan dancing performed by one of our volunteers. After that we got to taste foods from Indonesia and Turkey. I was surprised by the high quantity of visitors. They were very interested in talking to us and asking questions and especially the food stands were a hit. There was also the artwork of some volunteers on display and a knotting workshop. Everyone was having a good time and I really enjoyed meeting with people.

 No text, I'm lazy again...

Środa Śląska and a lot of rambling

On tuesday I faced the enivetable, the first snow did arrive to Kłodzko after all. How convenient it should happen exactly on the morning of my departure to Środa Śląska, to go visit a school in
Szczepanów. I was surprised to see the train arriving to the station no more than 10 minutes late. Anyway it did stand in the station for more than hour. I was so annoyed, but at the same time I felt like home back in Finland with our very winter adaptable italian plastic trains. I was going there with Enno, and we missed our train in Wrocław. We did get another one later, but I really feel the railways have something against me.

We arrived to Środa Śląska train station from where Iwona, the lovely teacher organizing this and hosting us at her house picked us up. We got to meet her amazing children, 2-year-old daughter and son 4 years old. So full of light and happiness. And most of all so cute and friendly. On that evening we went to the swimming pool with the group of children who atteded Euroweek last september. We got to know each other a little bit and after that we went to a pizzeria. I'm really warming up to polish type of pizza. We had a nice evening in the house and next morning went to the school.

Getting ready for the presentation of Indonesia. I had not seen it before so it was very interesting for me also. This first group of children were primary, so at first they were a little bit shy about communicating in english. Later they were actually raising their hands to get a chance to speak during the last game.The fact is that most of the children can talk in english, but are just too afraid of messing up or making mistakes. This is the point we are always trying to make: we don't care! I mess up when speaking english all the time but as long as I can communicate internationally, perfect grammar is secondary.

Can you show us where is Indonesia? 

After primary school we moved on to gymnasium and my Finland presentation! I have actually only done it a few times and just in my own school to children I already know. So this experience was something new and instructive for me. The older children should have more knowledge on the english language, but they are actually just in the point where they are deciding whether to study it or not. It's very easy to pass school without knowing any english and I know when you're 14 and have no use for it, it might feel just like extra homework. It makes me really happy to see the change and isnpiration in children at Euroweek and in school and I can just hope I could affect this also in situations like these. I always tell the children that in my opinion, and what I have seen and learned during my years of living; speaking english language is the most important talent you can acquire from school.

I was really surprised to see that a student could read the longest finnish word much better than I ever could. Polish people are actually really good at pronouncing finnish in general. People are often very curious about the finnish language, because they've heard it's hard or something. I have to say that my finnish is actually really awful. I don't know my grammar, but in finnish you can get far just by the simplified language. My approach is the same to my own mother tongue than english actually.

I really enjoyed our visit at the school. I really want to go back and visit them and my awesome host family again. This was again a thing to remind me why I'm here. Making me remember the things in life that are really important. How beautiful life can be - each and every one of them, of every child, every adult, every unique person on this earth. How full of opportunities the world is. How simple and dull your life can seem and be and still it affects so many things and is just as important as any other. And the fact that from that you can make anything is just mindblowing and full of hope.
The work I do here might not seem like much to someone watching or even to the children. At my own-arrival training one of the volunteers told me that I'm an egoist for telling about my work to people, for admitting that what I do makes me happy. Well, yes my motivation is also that it makes me feel good about myself. But it makes me just as happy to see someone else do the same. Still, I have to admit that I am proud of myself. I think it's just a positive thing, pushing me forward. I don't see myself as a better person for being a volunteer. This was just for me the way to find out what I really want to do. Something to investigate my own competences and strenghts. I won't even say that I'm particularly, or especially good at what I do, but I'm learning everyday and I'm loving it.

So once again I'm back home and back at my own school. The weather is freezing, and I'm happy that the heating is fixed now, even though our washing machine did break and I feel like all the light bulbs are burning out one after another, and right now my food supply is consisting of noodle soup and finnish hard rye bread (näkkäri) because I'm too lazy to go to the shop.

My fauvorite polish family. These kids absolutely stole my heart. So sweet. Next time I will just pack them in my backpack.

Life is good.