Pancakes day to celebrate the end of the Russian Carnival

Hello! Today we had thanks to the colaboration of Sasha the day of the pancakes to conmemorate the end of the Russian Carnival, the idea was to gather people from different places and countries, of course also from Pultusk, to prepare everyone typicall pancakes from their countries, to share it with the rest of the assistants

The meeting was going to be interesting, at the beggining Sasha explained us about the different traditions in his country, and was showing some videos to us as well, the one I liked the most was when they have to climb a snow castle to take the flag, while the rest of the people try you don't climb it, according to him, before they were using horses and so on, but not anymore, so it became a bit softer

After some talking between us, the main part of the event started, A few Kilos of pancakes getting ready to be devoured by all of us, there was a lot of kinds of, sweet pancakes swimming in condensed milk, normal pancakes with jam, pancakes made with mushrooms, some filled with meat and mushrooms, and my favourite one, that I would call it a pancake cake, it was a cake shaped composed by different pancakes, with salmon, white cheese, spinach, and many other things, that was really delicious.

We also had pancakes from Stefan and form Alicja, one with Apples other with jam, the assistance was of 15 people, We had a girl from Greece, two girls from Portugal, one girl from Germany, one girl from Italy, two boys from Spain, and the rest of people from Pultusk, and small towns close to it, a total of 15 people as said without forgetting Sasha and Ignat from Russia

The event was supposed to start at 14:00 and last until 20:00, but it was delayed a bit, because the international people were a bit late with their busses, there was also a Karaoke to sing while eating and after eating, we were eating for 6 hours, and more people were joining later. At around 8 p.m the volunteers from Warsaw had to leave by bus back home,

Everyone enjoyed the day and they liked the pancakes and were really happy about it, Would be nice to do similar things in the future, meetings with food.

The overall experience was good and it went smoth all the time, enjoy your pancakes and see you soon!

Competition at the Day-care Center

Hello fellas, today Tomek a citizen from Pułtusk, wanted to do something with us and with the children in the day care center.  So the first thing was to think of what we could do together with him, that made us to make a meeting in the office the previous week and go to the day-care center on Wednesday to check the materials and the space there.

After a few discussions and a few talking we decided to do some kind of sport competition, the main problem was that the ladies wouldn't let us to do sports outside saying that the weather was too cold and it was dangerous for the kids, so we have to think of what we could do inside the room, in the space we had, and with the kids we were having that day, so then we decided to do some basic physical and skill of sport tests, as well as a quiz about sports, and in the end a table tennis competition.

But now the fun part of the competition, choose the prices, we had a budget of 20 złoty so first the idea of money price came to us but we couldn't do it for different reasons. Then we start to think what to buy for the winner and for all the participants, with the money we had, and even if is not the most healthy thing to give after sports, but well... they are kids after all, we bought some sweet things to them, a box of chocolates for the winner and lolipops for the rest.

The competition started, the first part was physical skills, were we had long distance run and a speed test

On the long jump competition, they had to jump with the two feet together, and in a single spot, the record of that competition was 146 centimiters and in the race they had to make 5 rounds around the 2 chairs separated by each other by 10 meters, the record here was 28,71 seconds

After that we had a skill competition where you have to kick a ball, without falling it down for the most hits possible and a quiz competition where Tomek was asking the children different questions. Record on kicking was 14

And then lastly we had the table tennis competition, to make off the tie in the finals!, in general was a nice day there and the kids were enjoying it. would be nice to be able to do it again.

Take Care! :)

Walentynkowy bal dla seniorów 

One day during my on-arrival training our Warsaw guide, EVS volunteer in the past, opened before us the beauty of Old Town. The Wedding Palace, the one of the most beautiful and historical building, were rebuilt after the World War II and everybody plighted lovers want to have a registration of marriage and weddings here. At this time the old couple went out of the Palace. “Never too late”, said our guide smiling. 

 “Never too late” can say seniors of Pultusk who celebrated St. Valentines Day on 14^th of February in Dom Polonii. Never too late to remember about simple gladness – love. Our organization FIYE was invited to Valentines ball in Dom Polonii to help seniors spend this day joyfully and interesting. 

During whole week before this holiday we start to prepare different thing needed for this ball. First of all we created two beautiful crowns for king and queen from gold paper, then – 12 cotillions for special dance competition and two photo buds – big heart and golden carnival frame with masks. Now we can hold different master-class and workshops from paper :-)

On 14^th of February in some hall of Dom Polonii we prepared the place for photo making – light, photo buds, chairs. Our local volunteer Sylwia made  photos of happy couples whole day. Yes, we cann't show you photo of main participants with our frames, but you can enjoy this photo: 

Ball started from a song that was devoted to Pultusk as a part of town contest “How inhabitians of Pultusk love their town”, then one of pani read her own poem.

 

In generally seniors spent their time very funny and happy: had a lot of food, dance a lot, smiling and laughing. In the end we held our dance competition. We chose 12 women and 12 men who took cotillions and found each other who had the same numbers. And 12 couples start to dance during 4 different songs. At that time other seniors tried to choose the best pair. 

12th couple became the winners and king and queen of ball. They was presented our handmade crowns and champagne.

Another participants aren't left without presents. 

           Our FIYE organization take active part in this kind of meeting for seniors. So read our blog and be informed.

All the best,

Elena.

Winter holidays

           Wonderful time came! Time we all expected! Winter holidays!

         Poland is an interesting country… This year children had an incredibly long rest from 24 of December to 7 of January (Christmas time) and from 19 of January to 2 of February (Winter holidays or “Ferie zimowe”). “Oh, lucky” I would say to myself 6 or more years ago.

      Our main task as a EVS volunteers was organizing children’s leisure time as funny and interesting as possible. Actually our work was concentrated in day care centre or “Swietlica” but we had to realize a lot of other ideas.

Hugo tell children from Gzy about Spain

   We started our holidays in village Gzy which we visited during European Language Day in September. Children in Gzy are amazing: the calmest and modest in the world. They are shy, smile a little, hide their eyes – regime “wildness” is off. As usual me and Hugo shared time, this time me as a gentlemen let Hugo start first. In one hour everyone presented their country and taught words and basic phrases in Spanish and Russian: “My name is…” or name of animals, numbers and colours. As usual a lot of photo of Hugo working, only one or two of mine :-(

Kids learn Spanish numbers and play

     Beside this work we showed them a Russian cartoon that Polish children like very much, made postcards from paper Russian Matrioshki and gave them old Russian woman names. At the same time Hugo created different competitions as armwrestling.

      I think children and teachers liked this beginning of winter holidays because they invited us for another visit. They gave us beautiful handmade flowers from paper and fed us tasty pizza for lunch. Hope to come back here one more time :-) Special thanks to Alicja Krawczynska for translation and positive energy :-)

     

      Next time of our holidays we devoted to our favourite day care centre and children we have known for a long time and too good - regime “wildness” is on. In the first week we welcomed our friends and EVS volunteers from our mother organization SPW office in Warsaw – Dominik from Czech Republic and Judita from Slovakia. They are very positive and open minded persons from beautiful Slavic countries. Dominik works in Jedrus as a volunteer helping teachers and Judita – in SPW office helping promote this organisation. Read their blog and new post about experience of work with Pultusk children. (http://siedzisobiejez.blogspot.com/2015/01/spw-volunteers-in-putusk.html) Everyone speaks Polish very well – our children help everybody learn it very fast. 

Judyta tell about Slovakia

      They showed a presentation about their countries – short video or pictures, cartoons, taught children some words in their language. In the end one of the children saw a movie “Harry Potter” in Judita’s pendrive and asked us to watch it. So as a part of our English club we tried to understand what main characters were talking about in English.

       Beside the work in Swietlica we created two extra meetings for inhabitants of Pultusk. First was tandem language meeting or “podwieczorek jezykowy”. This kind of meeting help students to overcome their level of foreign language, meet interesting people from different country and have a good time. Dominik headed English table and helped my English group with whom we have meetings every Wednesday. Hugo – Spanish table with a teacher from Pultusk Academia. Elena and Sasha – Russian with our local volunteer Weronika and our project coordinator Sylwia. I prepared different funny questions in Russian for example about favourite superpower or times you want to visit if you have time machine :-) This kind of meeting – in different form (tandem, picnic) – are very popular and productive.

Dominik and our loval volunteer play  "Catan"

     Second meeting – board games. We started from simple but funny game – Dobble. We had a lot of cards with pictures and everyone have to find similarities in their cards and the main one. Actually there are more different ways to play this game. The funniest moment was when everyone named pictures in their language – Polish, Russian, Czech, Slovak, English. It is the one of the best way to learn other language. And continued with “Jungle Speed”, “Wieża” and one of my favourite right now - “Dixit”. Our fantasy is the most important in this game. Everyone have three cards with different unusual and strange pictures. Our task is to choose a picture and say the word or sentence from books, movies and songs with which you have an association. “Dixit” has a side effects as remembering of different associations in our life, a lot of laugh and positive energy till the end of meeting.

     I want to say thank you for this interesting week to our EVS friend Dominik for optimism and fun and Judita for stories about Iceland and teaching me Slovak, Weronika and Alicja for translation and helping in day care centre :-) Sylwia for painting posters for grandparents day and Sasha for organizing our free time with watching Russian movies.

Fatima tell about Portugal

    Last week of winter holidays we were visited by another two volunteers from Warsaw – Fatima from Portugal and Alisa from Germany. Girls work in Helenow and the helping Hand Foundation with disabled people and they were very happy to change place and kind of work for one week. It was a good opportunity to start speak a lot in Polish, to find new friends among our children and realized all ideas they had. We had more advantage. First step – Portuguese day. Fatima created a presentation about her country, show different songs in her language, made language games with postcards and of course face painting. Second step – German day with videos and language games: you have to show animal and name it in German or jump as many times as need and call every number. 

Alisa tell about Germany

     Third step – Russian day – was opened by flood in Swietlica. Don’t worry, that just mean that our time didn’t come, we had to wait. Fourth step – last day of our winter holidays. We decided to realize idea with carnival. At 10 o’clock we started to make funny masks for children: flower queen, Spiderman, Indian, cat, Venice masks. Teachers decorated our room with colour paper. After – games with chairs, mummies from toilette paper, figure game with music and of course face painting and x box dance! There were not so much children that we expected in the beginning. Despite of this everybody was very happy, tired and with good memories I hope.

Carnival meeting

Our tandem meeting

      Fatima and Alisa also helped us with our second tandem meeting and board games. Fatima headed Portuguese table (yes, in Pultusk we have a people who speak Portuguesse, Fatima was happy :-)) and Alisa – English table with my English students. Special thanks to them for coming and jokes about German, Russian and Polish :-) 

     We were very tired during this two weeks but happy and proud for ourselves. Thanks to everybody who participated, special thanks to Fatima and Alisa for their enthusiasm and great dancing ideas, lessons of Portuguese (Sou linda e fantasica :-)) and German (now I know what is the song “Moscow” about). 

     Of course to be a group leader (or I prefer boss, as Fatima said ;-)) is not so easy, I hope I made everything possible so that they felt good and comfortable in Pultusk. Hope to see you, dear volunteers, one more time :-)

     All the best,
         Elena.