Austria, France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Hungary and Germany, these nationalities are in this picture. But this is just an additional fact which doesn’t contribute much information about this picture at all. It is a photo from a night club, maybe most of us are not totally sober anymore and the night itself is also a little bit blurry, like most evenings at a club. But all that isn’t why I choose this image. It is from the week where I had my on-arrival training. This training, I already mentioned in the Blog article “Separated”, should prepare the volunteers for the stay in Poland and give useful advices to them. It was one of the best weeks in Warsaw.
Therefore, volunteers from all over Poland are meeting at hostel in Warsaw. For a week all volunteers will spend the time together. There is some official training and of course some free time activities. Besides from this the hostel provides meals. The plan of the meals was more suitable for a retirement home but that wasn’t too bad at all. Breakfast at 9, lunch at 12 and dinner at 6, and in between there were coffee breaks with cakes and cookies. This eating schedule was amazing for one week, but if this continues for a longer period then I would become fat
During the official part of the training we had a lot of activities which should provides for the duration of the stay, almost all scenarios were covered, besides a pandemic. How to deal with flat mates and difficult situation, which could occur during the project. How do get to know the polish language and how to integrate in a different country.
Besides this there were on activity which I remember well, and I think this activity was very well made. All volunteers got some question and it should be discussed in pairs and preferably with someone who speaks your mother tongue. But it wasn’t possible for me to have it in my own mother tongue, because there were only three persons who spoke German. Therefor I had the conversation with a Spanish guy in English, but our English was well enough, so that wasn’t a problem even for a deeper conversation. Even though the question were related to the project, the part about the project was done quick and the conversation was more on a personal level. For me sometimes it is easier to talk about personal stuff with a stranger. There you can get an advice without any prior knowledge, just talking about the situation how I see it. I knew problems should be viewed from both angles always but getting advice from outside can help. In this situation I needed an advice for my relationship. I got a pretty decent one, which helped me in the situation I was.
But also, besides this activity I had there many interesting conversations, about a lot of topics especially within politics. The role of media in different countries was one topic which made me think a lot. At this time, I didn’t know yet a lot about the situation in Poland with TVP, and then I was quite surprised by how many people from across Europe, do not trust in the state media. Because for me the Austrian national TV broadcaster ORF is trustworthy and I believe that their reports are objective. But now I knew many countries don’t have such a privilege of a trustworthy media.
At the beginning of the training the told us, that these training is also there for creating a network between the volunteers and that’s true there. I meet a lot of volunteers after the training again in their cities as well some were here in Warsaw again and maybe I will see some again in their home country or in Austria, everything is possible.
9.11.2019