15th of July. On the way to Berlin
with Vanessa and Tamta, I’m looking back to the last two weeks since I came to
Poland, Wrocław precisely. I arrived from Bologna after a crazy week between my
last exam at the university and packing for
the new challenge of this year: volunteer in a summer school for children in
Poland. When I told to my family that I would pack again to go away for other
two months they stared at me asking “why?”
but as soon as I explained what the project was about they were
as enthusiast as was I. So I finished my exams, I packed, said
goodbye to my Italy and landed in the wonderful coloured city of Wroclaw. I
spent the first days to get used to the new city but it was love at first
sight, the colours, the people, the atmosphere, the food…everything was so
different but so familiar at the same time (probably because of the hundreds
Italian restaurants in the city centre!). I spent the first few days
waiting for the other three voluteers that would have become my flatmates,
roommate, collegues and friends for the next two months. I was wondering about
these georgian girls and the other italian, if they would have been cool,
friendly and so on, and I have to say that I’m really lucky because we are
going well along til now.
One of the hardest part of these two
weeks has been the training week. For one week, with the girls and the
coordinators, Justyna and Sebastian, we prepared the activities to do during
the summer school. The days were going around topics, energizers, expectations, fears, activities, games, and so
on. I have to confess that it has been really exhausting for me because I never
had to organize nothing like that, if I had to prepare a summit about international
relations, I think I could have done it in a blink of an eye, but non-formal
education has never been my major or my field. After the first two meetings I
was really demotivated, I knew nothing about this kind of job but then I took
it as a challenge and finally after one week everything worked out and we had a
sort of “agenda” to follow for the first summer school.
Like that it could sound that the
hardest part was gone, but I was completely wrong, because during the weekend
before the beginning of the activities I was really nervous. Doubts like what
if the kids wouldn’t like the activities, what if they would get bored, what if
we won’t be able to manage them...any kind of possible problem was rising in my
mind. Then Monday came, alarm set at 8, breakfast, get dressed, out of home at
9 so that we won’t be late, arrive to the Ekozentrum (where the summer school
is taking place) and waiting for the children. After some minutes after we
arrived at the centre, the kids started to arrive one by one, shy and curious
about us. As first day, it didn’t go so bad, til the end I was worried that
they would get bored but at the end, when we asked them about the day, their
responses were almost positive. Monday was gone and all my worries with it; of course,
the following day we still had some esitations but nothing that couldn’t be
forgiven for such beginners like us.
Right now one week of summer school
is gone as well, and we spent really good days with the children. We had the
day about our countries, the one about cultures and those about ecology, sometimes
has been difficult to communicate with the children but those were marginal
limits at the end and everything worked out and we had also fun. Of course, we
are still not professionals but I want to be optimist and see that there
are ways of improvements from us and the next weeks will be easier to manage.
From now that’s all and Berlin is calling!
Michelina