Every part of my body has now arrived
About integrating in latvia
SVEIKI!~~It´s been 3 weeks I am in Latvia now, and my head finally arrived, too.
Huge credits go to the on arrival training which I enjoyed a lot and which let me reflect about what I am really doing here and how I want to shape this year. When we arrived at the beautiful guest house at first it was slightly confusing as we all expected bunk beds in dorms but found out that there were rooms for 2 people in one bed. Still it turned out very well as I shared the bed with a French girl, Marine and we had loads of fun together! In general everyone was so kind and happy that in 4 days I felt like knowing this group for ages and feel tempted to call them my new squad :D The last day of our training we decided to visit Cesis together before heading back to our new homes all over Latvia, knowing that we will visit each other ASAP. In fact the next weekend Marine and her German co volunteer, Diana came to Riga. Together with two other girls, Isabel from Portugal and Berit from Germany, we discovered the local bars and photographers. And yes, you´re right there is a strong German presence among the EVS people, which is great for me so I still feel at home. This Saturday I´m looking forward to meet even more EVS people, guess where they´re from?
Nevertheless, there was also some work to be done and I had my first school visit on Tuesday. Excited as I was I arrived there 45min earlier and only after leaving the bus I saw that there was nowhere to get a coffee. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I am drinking litres of coffee in different places in order to find my regular place to go. `Cause pub crawl is so old style. Back to the serious stuff: My school visit consisted of presenting the organisation I am working with and my background to 3 classes of 15/16 year old pupils. That´s what I did in the first class, but when I saw that they don´t know what volunteering is and what different kinds of volunteering there is, I decided to change my presentation completely. With success! Afterwards they told me that they are considering taking one year off to volunteer, too or that I was very inspirational. Ah, the perks of challenging myself!
As for intercultural experience I went dancing at the RTU and the folkclub ALAand enjoyed it so much. There was a big hall and people from all ages dancing traditional dances to live music. Good that I watched some Jane Austen movies recently so I was in the mood, because otherwise I would´ve felt very awkward. I am not used to bow to your dance partner after the dance or some even brought me back to where I was seated. Sure it´s good that this is not used in daily life anymore but for some evenings it´s like a play and a fun one!
So it´s all about the silver lining right now and I am looking forward to the next 11 ½ months, to finish with my favourite Eels song:
I like the way this is going