Goodby Georgiana!

The last week for Georgiana was full with activities. She started to work for a calendar of the project so she had meetings with Natalie, the designer that helped her a lot. Looking forward to see the calendar printed.

She also had the last activity in school. She visit some students and she talked about EVS, Volunteers United projects, about her experience and activities that she did in JACis, prepared some games for youth and encouraged them to take part in different non formal activities.

The rest of the day she was busy saying goodbye to her friends, packing and preparing for leaving. On  Friday she had her goodbye party. JACis participants prepared some activities and said a big thank you for all her involvement during the last year.

It seams that Volunteers United arrived at the end. Now that we look back we can't believe that it's been one year already. One year in which we met a lot of people from all over the word, we've created friendships, we sow a lot of beautiful places, we discovered new traditions, cultures, we learned new languages, we did a lot of activities and we had beautiful results. There is one year full of memories, learning outcomes, something that we will never forget. We are all grateful to JACIs that made this possible and we are looking forward for the next opportunity that we will have to see each other again.

Begining of schools and apple week (1-13 th of September)

The schools has started and the good thing is that a lot of new people came in JACIs. The list with names was so long in the first week and we were very happy.

But the youth were not so happy about the beginning of the school. They already had long lesson and homework so JACis was the perfect place to come after school, complain about these problems and relax with a big cup of tea.


Between 7th and 11th of September we had apple week. Georgiana and Vija prepared  a lot of activities. That was pretty intense:
On Monday Vija cooked for us pancakes with apples very tasty. A new recipe to remember! The rest of the day we cut a lot of apples from color paper and we decorated JACis.

 On Tuesday we have stated to prepare our trip to the apple garden. We created a big apple as a gift for the owner of the garden.

On Wednesday, during the visit to the apple trees, the owner explain us his business, how he started, what kind of products he grow and sell, he presented us different kind of apples and how he takes care about them. We were very impressed to see besides a lot of apples trees, big and healthy tomatoes,  cucumbers, potatoes etc.
Wednesday was also Julia's birthday. Happy birthday Julia!
Thursday we cooked together apple pie  and we celebrate Karina Birthday, the last day of Agita and Olga in JACis. We had a big meal with a lot good food that Olga cooked for us.

Friday we paryicipated to a quiz  with some games about apples and Olga made another cake with apples.

Goodby Clem, Moritz and Paul! (17-30th of August)

The last two weeks of August were not so easy for JACis team. Vija and Agita together with the youth and Georgiana had to say officialy goodby to Paul, Moritz and Clemence.
Monday they prepared the last party for the three volunteers. A lot of emotions and memories filled JACis. We remembered together about all the activities that volunteers prepared during one year: a lot of ideas, teamwork, beautiful results, friendships... But their EVS arrived... We were in that point where we sayed thank you and see you soon.
The volunteers received each of them a beautiful presend from JACis team and enjoy for the last time the speciality of latvian cake. Very tasty! Also, they were very serious interviewed by the youth and had a lot of fun remembering the good moments that they live as a volunteers.
It was very interesting to discover their future plans but specialy the fact that there will be a lot of opportunities to meet them again.
The rest of the week was full with the last arrangement: tickets, lagguages, saying goodby to the friends from Rezekne etc.
Moritz left on 19th. Tamara had lead him to the airport and after that she spend the night in Riga in order to do the same for Paul and Clemence who had the plan on 20th.

After she sayed goodby to her friends, on 20th in Riga, Georgiana traveled to Sigulda where another romanian volunteer organized a nice event: SkirtBike. During 3 days, Georgiana meet local volunteers and youth, talked about EVS, her project and helped with the organisation on the event. She was very impressed about the city and she enjoy a lot the activities that she took part in.

The last week was pretty strange in JACis. It seems that all the youth left in the same time with the volunteers... So not so many activities happend in these days here.
Of course they were enjoying the last days of holiday and prepared for teh beguining of schools. We are waiting for them next week, with new ideas of projects

Our last week, 10th to 16th of Augst 2015

It is a special occasion, dear readers: This marks the last blog entry of the majority of the volunteers. Next week, Moritz, Clemence and Paul will leave, letting Georgiana alone in JACis, for a while at least. Moritz will go to Sweden, Clem to France and Paul to Germany. As they say in Germany; "Everything good has an end, only the sausage has two" (That is a real thing).

So, understandably, we were all incredibly busy preparing to leave, writing elaborate youth passes, photo books and packing huge pieces of luggage, just as we filled the figurative luggage of our minds with many different memories. Many things will have to stay behind, it is almost sad, but we will have space to gather new experiences with the help of what we achieved here.

But enough of the weird pathos, here is what really happened this week: We went kayaking on river Rezekne, starting about 13 km from upstream from the city. We separated the group into teams and had them solve amusing problems about their fictional European voluntary services, for example saving penguins in the Arctic, survive on the dark side of the moon or bringing teeming flora into the driest of deserts.  We stopped at a beautiful cottage, had a snack and then powered through the rest of the way, often getting out of the boats the push each other over rapids and fallen trees blocking our progress.

On Friday Georgiana and Clemence visited Aglona in one of the most important religious celebration from Latgale. They were surprise to see so many people coming from all over Latvia by car, by bicycle or just by foot in a long pelerinaj to see the procession for the day of Virgin Maria.

 

Summer camps (3-7 of August)

This week was really really special: we took part in two summer camps, we prepared a lot of activities, we had fun and we learnd new interesting things.

On Monday and Tuesday we spend time with the children from the Orthodox church within their camp. In the first day we split them in 4 groups: one of the group played interested board games with Moritz, another group learnd to creat mandale with color string with Georgiana, another one played with frisbee, balls and made bubbles from soap with Clemence and another one where participating in a face paiting workshop organized by youth from JACis.
At the end of the day, after so much work we enjoyed a fresh icecream coktail, with banana and peach. Very tasty :)

The second day, Vitalis came with a lot of ropes and created a small adventure park in the yard of Ortodox school. We helped him with the equipment for kids and safty arrangements. The last part of the day we cooked our traditional German bread.

On Wednesday and Thursday we went in Razna Sanatory, where kids with special needs had a camp suported by the Association "Angels with us". We worked in teams with youth from JACis. We split in 4 groups and we created a treasure hunt. The trail had 4 stops where eachone of our team were expected the kids with differets activities. We also spend time with kids, just playing with them. As it became a tradition, we cooked again our german gread and some barbeque and we lance the fire ballons.

What does it mean to be a volunteer? (27-31. July)

It was a full and constructive week for everybody here.
Monday we had Ligreto day. First, we started to clean the play-cards - we spend 2 hours on this activity but at the end they were like new.

After that we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and start to play Ligreto in JACis yard. There were a lot of small kids which played for the first time this game. They enjoyed a lot.

Olga, the lady who takes care of JACis prepare some amaizing food for us. We were very happy to try the rice with meet but also teh apple cake. Thank you Olga!

Next day we had another big event in JACis:  a public caffee about volunteering. A lot of youth came to talk with us about what do you need to do in order to become volunteer, where you can do voluntering, what's happend after a volunteering project and how can you use your experience and new skills.  We had also a special menu, cookis, and jus and Clem did a great job being a waitress.

On Thursday, Moritz started to prepare some materials for celebrating Pinata. We have created from paper mache some ballons that later we will decorate, fill with candies and play with them.

On Friday we made the last shoping for the camps that we will have next week: we bouth new games, materials, food etc. When we came in JACis with all the shoping Paul and Olga waited for us with pancakes. Very tasty :)
In this weekend Rezekne celebrated the days of the city: festivals, concerts, markets, fireworks and water performaces. It was the first time we sow so many people in Rezekne. A great moment that we will never forget.

Another week in JACis (20th to 25th of July)

Last week was delicious. Well, the week in and of itself was not necessarily delicious, but the great things we produced in JACis definitely were.
We started by preparing some materials for the camp with Angel with us. Clemence and Georgiana dresssed some jars with color string and colored a lot of pistachio shells that we will use for handicrafts during the activities for kids with specials needs.

 
 On Thursday we prepared a cocktail made from ice cream, bananas and apple juice, and it hit exactly the right spot on that day, since it was our sports day of the week. We went to lake Kovsu to play beach volleyball and make bubbles out of a mixture of soap and water. But 2 hours of playing volleyball are indeed exhausting, and that made the delicious cold drink seem like a miracle that allowed us to cool down our overheated selves.

Then, the following Friday managed to even increase on the great drink from Thursday.
At the end of the week volunteers went to say goodby to the old JORIK. The building where was the theatre is going to be demolished so the students from art school prepared some special moments inside of old JORIK: expositions, painting, concerts, performaces, party. It was a preatty interesting "funeral".