Four girls go workcamp!

What and when?

International workcamp in the daycare centre of Pułtusk, Poland between the 30^th of June and the the 13^th of July 2013 with the participation of a Hungarian (Zsofi), a South Korean (Sumee), a Swiss (Clo) and a Polish girl (Kasia).

The arrival day was the 30^th of June, however, I only joined the team the next day as my EVS project started on the 1^st of July. By the time I arrived on Monday afternoon, the girls have already experienced how our time will be like at the daycare. After a quick meeting with Sylwia, our coordinator, we started getting to know each other and we were brainstorming for ideas about games for kids. We decided to put them into four teams and make a competition for them.

On Tuesday, after introduction and name games we chose the four oldest kids from the group.They became captains and they had the chance to choose their team members. Then, the task was to find out a name for the newly formed teams. In a couple of minutes,  the teams were ready: Super Ósemka, Galaxy Football Team, Child Monster and Ready to Play. The first challenge was connected to English. They had to recognize numbers and pictures. Then, we still had some time left until lunch, so we went outside to play some ball games there..

On Wednesday, the kids continued their rehearsal which was again followed by games together on the

mattresses. Then, teams designed their own logos for themselves. When everybody was done with that, we went for a little walk in Pultusk to see the Castle. After the little sightseeing we went to have lunch in Okruszek.

Thursday was the day of the Geography quiz. The task was to put the different country names to the right place on the map of Europe. And also, as the kids asked for it, we had another round of the numbers and pictures game. After this, the kids had their performance and because they did a great job, we went to have an ice cream.

On Friday the kids went to see a film in the cinema, but as it was in Polish, we did not participate on this. We had a day off and we used it to visit Zegrze. On Saturday, we went for a little sightseeing in Warsaw and Sunday was the day of resting.

On Monday we made really nice drawings with the kids about vacations and we also had the chance to pick up some Polish knowledge as the kids tried to teach us new words.

On Tuesday I had the chance to give a little presentation about Hungary. I was happy to see that they are interested in getting to my little country.

On Wednesday, we had Swiss day and thanks to Clo we got to know some new things about Switzerland. After this, we went to the sport centre where the teams had some competition games. There were many different game types, but one thing was always the same: the winner, as Child Monster Team proved to be the sportiest team of all.

Thursday was our last day officially at the daycare and we decided to make it as fun as possible. After Korean country presentation, the kids learned to sing and dance Gangam style. Then, the disco started. We had some music, balloons and also Christmas lights to get in the mood. Face painting was also very popular. The kids’ pretty faces quickly turned into different animals, vampires and characters from Monster High.

On Friday we went for the daytrip with the kids to a traditional Polish village and after arriving back to the daycare it was time to say goodbye. There were some hard days but all in all it was a GREAT experience for everybody.

What have I learned?

I’ve learned to be even more patient than before and how to effectively share my attention between five children at the same time who all want different things. Also, I learned basic expressions in Polish which are helpful in my everyday life in the little town where most people don’t speak English. I also got to know some things about Polish culture and especially food as we had lunch in Okruszek, a local bar with traditional Polish food.

Impact on the local community

Naturally, the most impact we had on the kids as we spent most of our time with them and this time of the day was always really active and useful. They and also the teachers got to know little pieces of the world without travelling as we all had country presentations. Also, cashiers in little shops are getting better and better to make themselves understood with gestures and body language.


Do zobaczenia,

Zsófi :)