Time just flies by in JACis! (2.11.2014 -7.11. 2014)

Time just flies by in JACis! A week has passed, and it is time to tell you about the exciting things which happened.

The volunteers went to different schools in order to teach kids about their home countries and mother tongues. There were several very interesting lessons on Romanian geography, including a presentation, a true or false game and an exciting round of discussion. 

At roughly the same time, but in another classroom, a lesson on the German language happened. It is always exciting to go to classes, because it just allows you to reach a completely different crowd of kids, some of which you would've never met at JACis. And if they show up the next day, that is even better.

Speaking of what is going on in our "second home" JACis, we had quite pleasant visitors from Riga; they were the employees and volunteer of the "Jasma" youth center on their annual tour through Latgale. We decided to make caramelized bananas for them, a task that seemed easy on the paper, but herculean in reality. Soon, a feint smell of burned things filled the center, as we were frantically waving at the smoke detector in order to keep in from raising concern at the local fire brigade. The second batch turned out fine, though! We had some interesting exchanges with the Jasma people, and were even invited to visit them.

 The last big event of the week did not happen in JACis, but rather in the big "Pencil" (Zeimuls educational service center). We prepared a meeting of some locals and a group of Norwegian students, who were in town in order to study the renovation of Rezeknes sole synagogue, which is currently in a state of disrepair. The meeting went quite well despite some last minute changes and a fair bit of improvisation.But that did not totally mark the end of the flurry of interesting things that happened last week.

 On the weekend, our dear colleagues from Vecpiebalga came by, and the weekend was spent making them familiar with this lovely city of ours.

TU ESI LATVIJA

After a long work we (more precisely Clemence and Tanya) succed! Enjoy our movie about Latvia!

Apple pie!

Normally, I am not someone to compare apples and oranges, but today, we made this delicious apple pie in JACis kitchen! Big thanks to Gunta, Sarmita, Estere and Clemence, who worked more on this cake than me :D

Here goes the recipe:
You need:
350 grams of flour
1/2 tsp of salt
1 tsp of cinnamon (we used more, because you can never go wrong with cinnamon)
100 grams of sugar
180 grams (one Latvian stick) of butter
1 egg
1 kilogram of apples (or less), quartered, peeled, without seeds, sliced.
2 tbsp of Lemon juice
Some more sugar (brown or white), butter to cover your cake mold, a bit of cold water!

Mix the flour, salt, cinnamon and 100 grams of sugar. Cut the butter into small pieces and add it to the mix of powder together with the egg and a bit of cold water. Knead into a soft, tasty dough, split that dough in two pieces, one will be lower part of the cake, the other the upper part! Let the cake rest in a cold place (we used the windowsill of JACis) for 40 minutes. Then cover your mold in dough, add the apples, sprinkle with more sugar and lemon juice, and put the remaining dough on top of the apples. Bake for 35-45 minutes at 180°C.

Enjoy it! A lot!

We are growing into our new home: (5th to 12th October 2014)

Boy, this was an exciting week! Many different things happened. We started the week by baking pancakes: Clemence, of course, insisted on making Crepes and Moritz created the usual American style pancakes. It was great fun, and also much needed, as the same day marked the figurative "inauguration" of the latest (and final) addition to the Volunteers United "family", Georgiana.

Tuesday, we had an extensive briefing about the project, which was very interesting and necessary. And Georgiana dug up this awesome board game, Jungle Speed, the aim of which is to grab a rubber stick as fast as possible! Sounds easy, but it is incredibly fun and hectic and we all love it!

This week during language lessons, we took a non-formal approach and  Moritz and Paul went on a trip to the park and got to know all the names of the trees. Later we played some more Jungle Speed and Clemence did French lessons. It looked like a lot of fun, but we also played a German card game and talked about different kinds of stores in German ("Where do you go to buy milk?" -"the Supermarket"- "Where do you go to buy toothpaste?"- " Supermarket" -"Sausages?"-"Supermarket").

Friday was a special day, considering it was the birthday of our dear friend Enrike, volunteer at the Russian theater "Joriks", so instead of working, we got time off to see the hilarious rendition of
 "Dinner for one" he prepared together with Anastasija, who also works at Joriks. They both wore make up to look 50 years older than they really are, they could have been their own grandparents, so to speak. Enrike received a lot of presents after the play and we got to hang out at Joriks and enjoy some snacks! It was great.

On-arrival training (17th-21st October)

On Friday the 17. October we left Rezekne in the early morning, heading to Kegums near Riga. There we had a really nice Hostel named Umuri directly at the Daugava river.

When we arrived there we were the very first so we had to wait and used the time for a second breakfast. Slowly the other EVS volunteers and their mentors arrived and we could already get a first impression of each other. Then our trainers Valters and Sintja arrived and we started the training with a name game and some icebreaking activities. They were good fun and after only a few hours we already had a pretty good group feeling! The first day was really busy and in the evening everyone was tired and wanted to go to sleep but we got the homework to prepare our EVS-story until the next morning so we even had to work in the evening.

In the next morning after breakfast we had a very long round of EVS-stories. It was very interesting to hear, why the other volunteers decided for EVS! After that we had some discussions about themes as cultural diversity, social inclusion and active citizenship that should make us aware of the EVS values. In the afternoon we talked about the different EVS institutions e.g. sending and hosting organization, national agency or volunteers and mentors. In the evening the mentors (all Latvians) prepared a Latvian night for us where they showed us their traditions and habits in a funny way J

Sunday was the last day for the mentors and we finally had some time to speak with our mentors about different things. We also got a learning task which was to learn juggling with three balls in only one hour with the support of our mentor. Most of us totally failed but it was still very interesting and the aim of the task, to show us how learning and support works, was also fulfilled.

In the evening, after the mentors left, the volunteers occupied the kitchen and cooked very interesting food: Schnitzel, some kind of mashed potatoes and carrots, original Spanish tortillas, nice salad and Crepes as a dessert.

Monday, the last day of our training was still very busy but with different topics. We talked about learning Latvian, differences in cultures and possible clashes between them, and how to organize and advertise an event. In the evening all volunteers and the trainers enjoyed playing Werewolf – some of them until 3 in the morning. 

On Tuesday we all departed and most of us headed to Riga, where we explored the town a little bit but we just had to little time because most of us needed to catch their trains or busses in the early evening.

All in all we talked a lot about the future, our visions and organizing events. We made many new friends all over Latvia and already visited some of them. It was a very good and valuable experience and brought us a lot of inspiration for our EVS.

Holidays for youth (27th-31st of October)

Even if it was just a week of holiday, it was a welcome change for all the youth from here and even for us. You will see, it was a very hard week :D. The most important thing this week were of course our guests: Anthony and Bleuenn, Clemence's friends from France visited us for a week and we were more than happy to spend time with them and to show them the city.

We started to celebrate this week together with the teachers from Rezekne. We took part in an interesting Latvian trip in Jelgava. We visited the city, we ate good food and after that we visited the two Rundale palaces: the summer and the winter residence of Ernst Johann Biron, Duke of Courland. We listened to the Latvian guide, didn`t understand a lot, but it was worth it in the end.

In the second day of the holidays we spent some time in the park, with Clemence who prepared some interesting outdoor games for the youth of JACis. Of course, we had fun and we played until it was dark. 

Actually this was just some practice, because on Wednesday we participated in a competition  organized in Zeimus by Vitalis. It was a long and difficult sport competition. JACis participated with 2 teams (one of them won second place). We played a lot of games and had a lot of fun. A big "Thank you!" to Vitalis for this experience!

We finished this exhausting day with a very tasty Jordanian dinner (thank you Anas for the great food... and Clemence for helping him :) )

 Next day was dedicated to financial report (a great treasure hunt in the supermarket in order to find the perfect receipt for the financial documentation of this month).

And here we are again at the end of the weekend when we were happy to be part of the charity concert for children with disabilities, organized by the "Angels with us" association.

 As I told you... it was a very hard week.