Online trainings

In the ESC long term projects it is mandatory to have two seminars during the volunteering. The first ones´ name is ON- Arrival training it takes place in the beginning of the project. Around 20 volunteers in Lithuania, come together, and spent some incredible days in the outback. However, my ON-Arrival took place in November, so in the middle of the second wave. Hence, it was online. Our mentors really tried to do the best out of it, but still it means hours of screen time and not so much fun, than in reality. My hope was that at least my midterm seminar would be in real life. Well, that didn´t work out as well. It was also three days online, last week.  Nevertheless, this time it was much more fun. We were just 13 volunteers, and we had lots of energy and tried to spread as much positively as possible. In the seminars, we have quite a tight schedule. In the beginning, it starts always with a pedagogy question and for me the most ridiculous part: Find two symbols. One that represents you as a person and the other one should normally show what your life goals are. This time the second symbol refers to the current situation so we should find a symbol how you handle quarantine time.  I played this “game” at least three times in my life, and I still have no idea which symbol represents my personality. This time I took my day planner, because I am an organised person, which is a huge part of me, but does not really represent my personality. The second symbol was my crochet needle, because it has become my new COVID friendly hobby during the last weeks. However, most of the time we talk about useful stuff. We share experience and knowledge about our projects, emotional stages and leisure time. A huge part was how to deal in quarantine time. Quite interesting, because we are all in the same boat, and sometimes it is nice get inspired by other people. It doesn´t matter in what area you live in Lithuania, everywhere are the same restrictions. The have been expanded until the middle of March, probably they will prolong it again. Therefore, I am curious to hear new ideas what to do in spare time when there are not events or activities taking place.  Because most of my free time I spend in my kitchen or in kitchen from other volunteers, the common area in the flats. It is nice, but I slowly reach that point to get a kitchen hangover, I just can´t see the same place over and over again. At the last day of the seminar, we started to get familiar with the topic: reintegration. Most of us will spend at least 10 months in total in Lithuania and it will be a huge step to come back again. For me it was a bit too early to think about that already, because I still have 5 months left here. That is the reason why they already wanted to get us familiar with this topic, because time is flying and it is better to start getting used to the idea that this awesome time also has an end.