A week with half of the team (13-17. April)

This week was pretty unusual because we had only 2 volunteers in JACis most of the time. Georgiana had a friend from Romania as a guest all week long and Moritz got visited by his parents on Wednesday so they both took some days off to enjoy with their friends and family. But Clem and Paul were not bored at all thes days they were alone.

On Tuesday we had a JACis team briefing which was really needed and very productive. We have some big activities ahead like the French week, a garden workshop and a football tournament that shall take place end of May already.  

Thursday JACis was a very full house again because we got visited by a large group of people involved in Erasmus+ projects. They were 30 people from France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany and Latvia. They stayed here in Rezekne at the Zeimuls hostel for all the week because they wanted to explore what kind of work volunteers are doing here in Rezekne so they visited a lot of EVS places and also our center.

Clem and Paul played for them their song little talks on guitar and accordion and then just talked a little bit about their project. And at the same time they made some appointment to show the nightlife of Rezekne the next day!

Later the same day we started with 3 youngsters baking two sheep for Easter which was a lot of fun for everyone and also very tasty the next day!

Before we finished we got another visit by a woman called Ruta from Rezeknes library. She made a really nice presentation about paintings and pictures of Rezekne. There were around 10 interested youngsters who watched the really interesting pictures where you could see how Rezekne changed in the past 100 years but also kept some of its buildings like the old Apteka. In the end we finished baking and played pool and it was an exhausting but nice day.

On Friday then, we met at JACis and went to the Orthodox Church at 4 where we had a short tour which was not that interesting for us but then we went on the churchtower and were ringing the bells! It was incredibly loud but a lot of fun except for the people who needed to listen to us! After that we went back to JACis and had the sheep we baked the day before and tea!

On the weekend some volunteers were not in Rezekne because of their visit or some events. Moritz stayed in Tallinn with his family until Sunday. And Paul went with Tamara hitchhiking to Jaunpiebalga on Saturday to visit the “survival training camp” organized by two French volunteers. It was a lot of fun with more than 20 volunteers from all over Latvia and a nice Orientation game and soup at the bonfire.

We are looking forward to the French week, Clemence will get visited by her parents and Paul will go to St. Petersburg and Moscow next week.

Moritz also spent the weekend in Tallinn and now has all three Baltic capitals ticked off on his bucket list. Tallinn is a very different city from Riga and Vilnius. Vilnius is landlocked, and despite Riga being near the coastline, there is not so much of an obvious maritime culture. Tallinn, on the other hand, is located directly next to the Baltic sea, and it is filled to the brim with this certain Baltic feel. There is a real, finished skyline, the governmental quarter overlooks all the city, There are several giant parks and a medieval restaurant where the question for a spoon is answered with a straight "No"!