Photo Hunting

Hello!

On the 24 of July, Dawid and me organized a Gymkhana through the city of Pultusk, well more than a Gymkhana it was a mix of it with a photo contest as in every stop you had to make different photos along with some tasks.

To create the different tasks me and Dawid had to go throuh the city seeing what we were able to do, in the end after some work we were able to make a good one I hope.

On that day, the volunteers from Daria came to the town and we made two groups with a simple game, “break the baloon with your ass”, after it we had a group of two people and a group of 3 people, luckily we didn’t have anyone from the same country in the group, so it worked perfectly.

First group was a Spanish-Chinese one, and the second one, Russian-Korean-Chinese, too bad that it wasn’t gender mixed, but the balloons are the ones who decided!, there were many tasks that I won’t talk about them all, as you can check them HERE. But I will talk about some of them, that after the photos and videos I got were the most funniest of them.

First one was the Role playing of Napoleon, you can check one amazing video HERE, they were just great, another task, that was an optional one consisted in go to a Russian cementery that was at like 30 mins from Pultusk city center, but one group was smart enough to go there by hitchhikking.

The main idea of the photo hunting game/gymkhana was to teach them a bit of Pultusk History and I think they learned something about it, and after that we had a big surprise thanks to two amazing cookers, Sylwia and Weronika, where we could try some typical Polish food, in the end it was a great day, we ended playing some games like Jenga after the food, and both the winner and the loser team of the gymkhana had their prices.

We would like to repeat it other time, but not only with volunteers but with the youngsters of Pultusk, everyone is welcome to participate, you just need a bit of your time to enjoy what this guy can offer you.

Take Care

Hugo

Spanish Evening

Hello Fellas!

Night of 23 of July, a great night indeed, Andrés a Spanish guy decided to organize a Spanish evening in the workcamp, and as a fellow spaniard I was gladly to help with it, first thing was to decided what to do, we wanted to make so many things, but we had problems with the funds from the workcamp, so we had to make a bit less things, still it was great. We decided to prepare, Tortilla de Patatas, Salmorejo, Tomate con Oregano, Sangría and Queso de Cabra con Cebolla Caramelizada, I won’t translate the names to English, as you can see a photo of every dish by clicking in the names it will be enough!

We bought everything at 5pm, even though we were supposed to buy it at 4pm, alcoholic beverages went from our pocket, workcamp don’t supply non healthy things to volunteers!

After it we started to cook every meal, with the suppervision of Michael Tomato, a great guy from China who wanted to learn how to prepare it, or just wanted to eat while we were cooking, who knows, it was funny when we ask him for help with the Sangria and instead of peeling the fruits he was eating them.

We were cooking for 2 hours more or less and people started to get impatient, so we started to bring plates one by one, Polish people don’t wait the cookers to eat!, then with all the food over the table, we were talking, singing, eating, drinking, up to 1 in the morning, when the last ones went to sleep, as on the next morning they had to work hard on the forest again.

Take Care

Hugo.

With Children "en la forestra"

It was Tuesday morning and we started to wake up at 7:30 a.m. and heading to a cottage in the forest, with different games, and ideas to show to a group of 16 kids between 4 and 9 years old. It was really early in the morning, at least for me, but we had to prepare everything before 10:00, that was the time when the children were going to arrive to the place.

We cleaned everything and started to practice what we were going to show them, it was getting more and more funnier every second that passes, at around 9:00 everything was ready and prepare for them, we had special dances and popular games from Spain, a typical Korean board game, face painting (it seems that they lose their senses when someone offer to paint their face), and origami as usual.

At around 10:15 the children were arriving with their parents and as a welcome gift we teached them how to dance two typical Spanish dances, they were a bit shy at the beggining but with the time they started to enjoy more and more the activities we were doing with them, they were really funny, we divided them in some groups but in the end we modified the groups according to their preferences.

As the range of ages differ a lot the youngest children wanted to play with the paints and a bit older kids were with Andrés and Hugo playing different games and dancing, some typical Spanish game called “La Bandera” where you have two teams and every member of the team has a number, so when the one with “La Bandera” say a number, those numbers have to run to pick the flag and to go back to their line before the other catch him.

There was also a different Korean game, similar to Parchis where you had to eat the pieces of the other people, the maximun number of teams in this game were four, so in order to make more people participate we make the group bigger.

As a welcome to the children we paint a flower in our faces and different flags of other countries, in the end we had a barbecue with them where we were eating “kiełbasa” Polish sausage, really tasty if you want my opinion. At 2pm the kids had to leave with their parents, so it was a bit short but a great time with them.

I hope to be able to repeat it any time soon!

Take Care

Hugo.

Language picnic

Hello Everyone

On 16th of July we decided to organize a language picnic, it took place close to the main square of Pultusk, with the main objetive of make people from different countries that were gathering in Pultusk, went there to exchange their language and to learn different ones.

The picnic was divided in 4 places, in everyone of them was an specific language with different activities that the people had to do in order to get know some things about it, there was one of Spanish Language, other of Russian Language and other of English Language, the forth one was a multi-language place.

You were able to talk about stereotypes of different countries as well as the typical dishes of every place at the time you were learning some words and sharing experiences

About this language Picnic I cant talk much as I personally wasn’t there because different business, but according to everyone it was great! There will be two more soon, so get ready for them, and enjoy the day with everyone of us!, its summer after all!

Take care.

Hugo.

Europa Zmienia Warszawę

Hello everyone!

On Friday 4th of July we were cooperating with our brother organization from Warsaw in the event “Europa Zmienia Warszawę” aka, Europe is changing Warsaw! Oranized by Europe Direct. The day went really good, as expected we all were there on time and started to prepare the different things we wanted to do with children as well as organizing the information for who wanted to know about the event. It took place in Warsaw’s Castle square, and the weather would have been great if it wasn’t for the strong wind that happens sometimes and made the things a bit harder to do.

During the event we had different traditional games for the group of children that were coming during the day, the most popular among there were “ciupy” aka stones, “podwórkowe bierki” or pick up the sticks and giant darts in the ground.

The two things that the children enjoy the most, and really wanted to participate in them were the origami, where we were making flowers, frogs, boats and planes, and the section of eco-recycling where used toilet papper rolls were being used to créate different character or even hats, this was one the most funniest part of the event and everyone were enjoying and creating different things, the good part of it is how the imagination of the kids flow and you start to learn a lot from them.

On top of everything we had face painting, while the most demanding design was the mask of spiderman also a lot of other things like butterflys, dogs or cats, as well as flags were painted in the face of the children who were brave enough to let their skin in our hands!

Last but not the least we were using used t-shirts to makeamazing and colorful bracelets for all our guests, on the sad note of the day it was that during around one hour and a half, not many people were coming to the place and we had a bit boring time, as when we are doing something with the kids the only thing that you get from them and that its enough for all the energy you use during the day its their smile and their sincerity, its hard to see any sign of malice in them, and it makes you feel really good with yourself. We also had some quiz games about the different countries of Europe.

As a personal opinion of this guy who is writting this it was a great day, and I really enjoyed it, I would do it anytime and I hope that everyone who were there, the organizators, the volunteers and the children were really enjoying the event! It was really nice to see them smiling while you were working with them and their desire to stay more time with us.

Take care.

Hugo.

My arrival

Hi everyone.

One day out of nowhere I decided that I should do something different with my life, having finished my Bachelor and my Master I was looking through internet for different options, thats when one of my friends told me about EVS, at first I was really motivated for it, but as the time was passing and I was sending tons of CVs to different organizations without any answer I started to lose hope.

It was when I decided to focus on some countries only, and they were Czech Republic and Poland, as one of my goals was to learn a Slavic Language, suddenly one organization from Poland put me in contact with COCAT ( a sending organization from Spain ) and they talked with me about a project in a small town in Poland called Pultusk. I started to read about that project and it seemed really interesting, also both organizations, the sending one and the hosting one where writting to me regulary so I was quite happy about it.

Then I told to myself, why not? It has to be a great experience, and it’s something that you have to do when you are still young, as I was telling that to myself I started to send everything needed to them, I had to fly to Barcelona for an interview and then start to book the tickets to go Warsaw, my coordinator offered to pick me up from the airport so I wouldn’t get lost on my way to Pultusk, it seems that Spanish people doesn’t look realiable! ;)

On my way to Pultusk by car, after 16 hours in the airports and planes I was talking with Sylwia about different things of the project, we even had time to pick a girl who was doing hitchikking, when I arrived to the flat there was Daria, some Russian girl, and I also meet Dawid, a guy who was going to help me on my first days, after that and after resting for a while, we were visiting the city, Daria, Dawid and me, and they were telling me the History of it, there is even a beach,  well something like, you can’t call that thing a beach after coming from the coast of Spain, but it has water!

I came back home, a really nice house by the way, and started to prepare to this new experience, in a new place, outside of my confort zone, where the only thing that you can do is to learn how to grow yourself, without any more information about it, I will keep going with this project and see where it gets me, there are some reasons to do this project, let’s see if I can accomplish them.

Take care!

Hugo.