EVS in LODZ
Volunteering: a memory that should never be forgotten
Happy seniors!
Even idea of working with seniors was a big surprise for all volunteers. I wasn`t an exception, because before coming here I was totally sure that I`m going to work with young people, making some youth exchanges or whatever it can work with them. But… FERSO prepared me a big surprise and new experience. What can I say about seniors as a group? They are seniors, sometimes even too much seniors, sometimes like a kids who didn’t get enough portion of attention. In that moment , different persons behaved in different way: some started to sing, some decided to argue or never come back my lessons.
Our language courses (Cristina`s English and my Russian) started with big enthusiasm! In front of us was long “how to be the teacher?” road. We searched for new materials, made thousands of copies (I will put pictures of Cristina`s folder=), downloaded movies and songs. Sometimes at 6 o`clock in the morning I heard sounds of English kids-songs from Cristina`s room. With the time our teaching experience went to increasing hours of the lessons from 6 to 2 per week. But just to make it more professional (not because we were quite full of special kind of energy=).
But hanging out with seniors was kind of part in this activities. Cristina found Santa Claus lover for Christmas and became his angel. Together they made great job of bringing happiness to the children from Caritas.
My seniors organized special evening for me with a loooot of Polish sweets (made by them=). And My first flower in Poland I received also from nice pani Crisitina (who didn’t come anymore because of differences in political opinions with others).
They were interested to know about our countries. As a great results of our work they can be experts on Slovakian culture, trips to Romania and Ukrainian dancing.
Firstly they became familiar with Ukraine. After little quiz with 5 famous Ukrainian cities (Kyiv, Lviv, Odessa, Sevastopol and Donetsk) we checked our singing skills. “Oj na gori dva dubky” (Oj, 2 oaks on the mountain) had big succsess.
Making traditional Ukrainian dolls – lyalka-motanka – was the next step of discovering Ukraine. On the picture you can see how creative seniors were making different hairstyle and dresses.
Romanian trip was made by Cristina. In addition to see her in nice traditional clothes (that`s why there were a lot of male activists=) seniors were impressed about the country and its beautiful nature.
Trip to Slovakia with Jana. We had a lot of fun with hat-game! Ask her and she can explain the rules of it! And we know that from the beginning that Slovak and Polish has a lot of similarities. In comparison with us, for whom Polish sounded like a set of –sh-, -ch-, -shch- , she made great job in communication in Polish-Slovak dialect.
You never know which kind of experience is waiting for you. EVS time was perfect opportunity to try something completely new and learn more. Even we were complaining with Cristina sometimes we enjoyed those changes =)
(Anyuta)