The week of the Seminar (14-18th of July)

THE week has come... EVS JACis summer seminar is here. Those were our thoughts on Monday morning, when we were walking to JACis. All the preparations were about to be put into test in just few hours. The bus came at 9 in the morning, now we just had to put all the materials and participants inside  and off we went. Raznas lake was to become our home for the next 3 days.

The seminar gathered 20 participants, 4 trainers (us, EVS volunteers) and Vija with Katja as our support. Now very briefly about the program:

Monday

• arrival to Raznas lake, unpacking and getting to know the area
• after the lunch, rules of the training as well as fears / expectations, getting to know each other, icebreaking activities, name games and a LOT of teambuilding
• after dinner, an ultimate cultural UNO game and others

Tuesday

•  throughtout the day, 4 blocks each consisting of 4 different national sessions on the same topic covering an area of culture in our home countries
• evening by participants to test the trainers team spirit

Wednesday

• morning free time
• sessions on writing CVs & motivation letters
• final evaluation and departure

It was intense and often tough, but it was also a great experience, thanks to all the participants!

Thursday & Friday were kind of quiet in JACis. The children were outside thanks to the Kalim-bam-ba project, and we had time to put everything back to its place, do our individual trainer evaluations and sort out all the video material and pictures made during the seminar. Finally some time was left for a bit of painting on Thursday and crafts on Friday.

Photo sesion, Geocaching, and more!

This week was full with shooting for the postcards.
One of the most interesting ones was the 'intercultural postcard' for what each of us had to prepare around 5 items from their country. It was interesting to see what each volunteer had prepared as well as compare the items - different games, symbols, food.
In the end we had in JACis a pretty full table with international food which we ate with delight.

On the same topic - one of the postcards which took us the most time was  a postcard for which we had to hang different items on a tree. It was a hardwork choosing the items, preparing them and hanging them. It took us around two hours in total. While the shooting was no more than 15 min. For sure it will be one of the best looking postcards.

And this wasn't the end. At the night we went to make a photo with Prokop on the train station.












On the other hand this was the second week for the English camp in Zeimus. As the previous one Pilar and Prokop made their presentations, it wsa time for me and Georgi.
I, Lyudmila, went on Tuesday. I explained the kids a little bit about Bulgaria - where it is, its history and present, folklor. After this we made a workshop for Martenica where the kids did pretty dolls and bracelets in red and white. It's not quite the time for Martenica yet, as it is tradition for the 1st of March, but I'm sure the kids were prtty interested in it nevertheless.

In the end I talked a little bit about the Bugarian lenguage and its differences and similarities to Russian. We learned several fraces like "Good day", "Thank you" and "Do you want to be friends with me?". Interested? Well you can visit the dictionary page on this blog where youcan find fraces not only in Bulgarian and Russian but also in Spanish, Latvian, Slovakian and Georgian.
This is the way to become a poliglot :)
Georgi as well focused mainly on Georgian traditions.
He explained about Georgia and Georgian traditions. Then played an interesting game that helped the kids to learn soemthing about the Georgian alphabet which is so different from the latin and cyrilic one.
In the end he finished his activities with the game Flag to flag.

And in the end this week we participated in Geocaching which exists in Rezekne from this spring.

First we went to the information center where hey give us GPS with intstructions how to find the items. We went for two of them. As one of the rule of Geocaching is that nobody have to see you, I can not tell you about it in ditails. Let's just say that finding the place was much more easy than finding the item itself.
Want to try geocahing. Well, first go to its offiial site and read a ittle bit about it. Than you jsut have to take the GPS from the informaiton center and according to the rules start your search.
Good luck

A creative week

This week begun the awaited Summer English camp in Zeimuls on which the JACis volunteers were asked to present their countries and organize some workshops.

The first to go was Pilar who not only presented Spain on Tuesday but on Monday made wih Carmen, her sister and a volunteer in Zeimuls, a beading workshop.


















The kids were really happy to learn how to do animals, fruits or flowers from little beads, It's for sure a patient work during which you have to be really careful, But after all is rewarding, seeing the beauty that you created.

Do you like what the kids created?

On Tuesday was the Spanish presentation, made by Pilar and Carmen.

Spain is an interesting country and for sure the kids were excited to learn more about it.
Except general information about Spain: where it is, how big it is, what is the capital, Pilar and Carmen taugh the kids a little bit of Spanish. Enough so they can sing and dance one Spanish song together.
I think they had great fun doing so.

In the same time in JACis the other volunteers, Prokop and Georgi, tried a new game with the youngsters.







The game's name is Europe and it's a game with questions from all around the world. I personaly find that this kind of games are the best way for the youngsters to know and remember different facts.

 Do you like this kind of games too or find them difficult?

Wednesday was an eventful day in both the camp and in JACis.

It was the day of Prokop's Slovakian presentation. Slovakia seems both near and a distant country to us, deffinetely not one for which we have a lot of information. He did his best to get it known by the kids and in the end cook a traditional food.


In JACis on the other hand Georgi decided to organize a football game. Excitedly accepted by the kids, everybody headed outside .

Football is one of the favorite JACis games and everybody seems pasionate about it, especially the younger kids. Don't look at them lightly tough, some of them are better than the grown ups.

In the end of the week Pilar did another beading workshop.This time in JACis, to share what she had learned from hew experience in Zeimuls.

There were not so many kids as on the camp but nevertheless it was fun and interesting, needless to say - creative.

The Week when "Youth connected by the rivers" (16-20th of June)

Throughout all of this week JACis was closed. Why? Because another project "Connected by rivers" where also youth and workers from our center participated, was taking place this time, just outside of Rezekne. The project brought together 20 participants from Poland and Rezekne.

BUT...

that does not mean we- volunteers, were having holiday. Quite on the contrary!

Monday was dedicated to final rpeparations of our tuesday activity for the project, and in the evneing we were invited for the latvian evening by the project participants. Pilar, Girgi and Luci attended and may you wonder if they had a good time, just check attached pics =.)

On Tuesday the time has come for an activity us volunteers have been preparing for the project participants- the night orientation teambuilding game. But first things first. In the morning an excursion of Zeimuls took place, together with opening of little photographic exhibition of rivers, done by participants and presentation of the project for the public.

The weather was not looking very promising so we together with Katja and Vija got prepared for every eventuality- raincoats, umbrellas, reflexion vests, torches, simplye anything a team could need to complete the challenge and avoid getting wet and sick. After the arrival of participants to JACis, they were divided to 2 teams and they had 30 minutes to familiarize themselves with the tasks and rules of the game. Then a little "Singing in the rain" energizer and the team went out to complete the challenge. More than 4 hours of walking in & outside of Rezekne, looking for clues and completing tasks thoroughly tested the team spirit and ability to cooperate. After midnight both teams returned to JACis for debriefing tea & muffins session. The overall feelings of the participants about the event were positive, if only the weather was a little better, Maybe next time...






Wednesday and Thursday we volunteers spent doing what every kid loves to do- ripping papers off the wall. There is a big room where the walls had to be cleaned from old wallpapers so we went there and went crazy! I almost forgot how quickly time passes when you somehting as fun as ripping stuff.

On Friday all four of us met in Pilars / Lucis apartment and spent a few hours talking about the few big projects we have left to do on our EVS and dividing tasks. Namely:
- "Why to be an EVS volunteer?" set of postcards
- 3 days Summer seminar by us
- 10th anniv. JACis happy B-day video and final EVS video
- "Youth partners" EVS book

At the end of the meeting Prokop presented us with a delicious cold strawberry cake. Yummy!

To be continued....

Trip to Russia, tournaments and more activities (9-13rd of June)

 ¿Recuerdas nuestra actuación en Ruso, en el teatro JORIK, dentro de la actividad "Invitación a la poesía", dentro del marco de "Días de Letonia de la cultura Rusa"?
Pues bien, el 9 de junio fuimos a Pskov, Rusia. Hicimos la misma actuación (Con la excepción de Prokop, Anas y KArina, debido a varias circunstancias). Visitamos "La Escuela Regional de Artes",  que lleva el nombre de NA Rimsky-Korsakov. Leimos clásicos poemas en Ruso, extractos de novelas, prosa, canciones y baile. Ese día el público era especial, porque eran futuros actores que estaban miran a otros actores :)

Do you remember our Russian performance, in JORIK theatre, on the activity "Invitation to Poetry", set in the framework of "Latvian Days of Russian Culture"?
Well, on 9th of June we went to Pskov, Russia!! We did the same performance (With the exception Prokop, Anas and Karina, due to various situations). We visited "Pskov Regional College of Arts" named after NA Rimsky-Korsakov. We read Russian classics poems, excerpts from novels, prose, song and dance. That day the audience was special, because they were future actors watching to anothers actors :)

Después de la actuación fuimos a visitar el museo del colegio, un poco la ciudad y luego asistimos a algunos ensayos de baile y exámen de teatro en el mismo colegio. ¡Fue muy, muy interesante!

After the performance, we went to visit the musseum of the college, a little bit the city and then we attended some dance rehearsals and theater exam in the same school.It was very, very interesting!

 El 10, hubo torneo de Novus en JACis, organizado por Giorgi. Los ganadores consiguieron un diploma y un regalo.

On 10th, there was Novus tournament in JACis, organized by Giorgi. The winners got a diplom and a present.

El miércoles, el equipo de JACis y Zeimuls nos reunimos para darle la despedida a Linda Vanaga. Le deseamos muchísima suerte y felicidad en su nueva etapa, y por su puesto, nos volveremos a encontrar pronto :)
Como recuerdo, hice una postal con un corazón, el mapa de Letonia y en otro color la región de Latgalia.


On Wednesday, JACis team and Zeimuls, we gather for the farewell of Linda Vanaga. We wish to her luck and happiness in her new life, and of course, we will meet again soon :)
To remember, I made a postcard with a heart, map of Latvia and in another color Latgale region.



 Este mismo día los niños estuvieron pintando con Lyuci un mural relacionado con la festividad de Ligo, el resultado fue muy original y colorido :)


On Wednesday, children were painting with Lyuci a mural related with Ligo festivity, the result was really original and colorful :)


Otras actividades durante la semana fueron lecciones de Español, tocar el piano, decoración de ventanas, etc.

Anothers activities during the week were Spanish lessons, playing the piano, window decoration, etc.

2-7 June

Monday, as always, was a hard day, but this week started a little sad for us, because our friend Karina' evs project was completed. We have compiled in JACis, where we played our favorite game with karina. In the evening, we saw off Karina in Poland. At the bus station, we recalled stories and laughed a lot.J

Tuesday, I made Churchkhela - the beauty of Georgian cuisine. My friends EVS volunteers and Jacis' kids helped me in this process. Everyone liked the churchkhela and felamushi. They wrote down of churchkhela recipe. I was very happy when a local newspaper published recipe of Churchkhela in the newspaper.

On Wednesday, Lucy had a very interesting idea. We have prepared caricatures and paints for children. Two days later, our masterpieces were ready and we sticked caricatures on windows. some children were very impressed by their handmade and took  pictures at home.

On Thursday, we went to the park with the children, where we played frisbe with different rules. Our made-up rules were very interesting and funny. Finally, the children were very happy and tired.

we was in "zeimuls" we meet peoples from USE Embassy. it was very interesting. we talking about latvian life, how living peoples in Rezekne. becauses here is Russion border near Rezekne. Friday was a very busy, we have to plan night orientation trip for Polish and Latvian volunteers, who were in project - connected by rivers.

We traveled throughout the whole of the city across the bridge, took photos and prepared assignments. Two groups participated in this orientation. My assignment was to build bridges constructor. Procopius was prepared by Victoria on the Danube. Lucy painted a map of the countries of the Danube River flowing out and they have to guess which countries they were. Pilaris assignment was to paint a watercolor of the river and bridge layout rezeknes. Unfortunately our plans are disrupted severe weather of Latvia, it was rain and cold weather , and we had to change plans. We have carried out orientation of various tasks and Energizer. we were inventing Energiser. Despite the harsh weather and cold, it was a very fascinating and funny. Polish participants liked and Enjoy with us.

Our Jorik performance (26.05 )

We all waited for Monday (26. 05) to come with anticipation and a little bit of fear. The reason? On Monday we finally presented our performances in the theater Jorik for the Week of Russian culture.
We started preparing the event three weeks prior to it - choosing russian poems, learning it by heart and trying to present it to an audiance as good as possible. On this project we woked with the other EVS volunteers in Rezekne and directors from the theater - Genadi, Aivar and Andres.
The poems presented were from Puskin, Lermontov, M. Cvetaeva, Esenin, Mayakovski  to simple verses for children like "Nasha Tanja, gromko plachet..."

For some of us, who speak Russian, the task was far more easy than frm the others. Those for whom the lenguage was foreign and hard had to put extra effort in learnign the proninciation and antonation for their Russian to be understandable. On the other hand all of us worked on our performance skills so we can convey the feelings of the poems.






Needen't to say we were very nervous to finally present it.
It all begun with a very beutiful song from Nastq (a volunteer from Russia).

 

Mine (Lyusi) and Pilar's performance was third. We had prepared a scene inspired from Puskin's Evgeni Onegin - with three girls as Tatjana and one boy (the spanish volunteer from the theater) as Onegin. After the scene we read one poem from Pushkin in our native lenguages.








 Later on Prokop read a poem in both Russian and Slovakian. It was "Jdi menq" (Wait for me) from Konstantin Simonov. Georgi on the other side read a poem from Lermontov. The two of them along with Genadi and Nastq performed also a song.



The whole even ended with a Russian dance.
Maybe it wasn't perfect, out Russian was not always understandble and the dance was clumsy at times, but we were all happy thst we were able to prepare this for the people of Rezekne. For sure during the preparation we learnt not only about Russian lenguage and the skill of theater performance but also about Russian culture, litarature, authors and poems.