úterý 8. dubna 2014

How is it going in Postojna?

Well, today I decided I have to write something, because it has been so long time from my last add. So how are we?On Saturday it is going to be 8 months in Postojna. So it is looong time. My longest time abroad. 
The weather is amazing for last 2 weeks. Sometimes rain comes, but I love this spring rain so the weather is perfect for me. 
What do we do?
So I will write about ours activities.
1. We are still in social centre twice per week, where we work with kids from social disadvantages families. For this Thursday we are planning to decorate easter eggs, so I hope they will like it:)

2. We have two different lessons of slovenian language. One is with Petra, slovenian woman in Ljudska
 Universita. It is not lesson, but it is more just about speaking in slovenian. We really like it, because we practise slovenian language a lot. Second is slovenian circle in our MCP. We arranged it with other foreign in Postojna, because we werent satisfied with this circle in one institution. It is really interesting to meet other  foreign and their opinion about Slovenia and slovenian language. There are 2 spanish- one girl about 30 and man about 55 :) one italian- he is 75 years old, but he looks like 55!!!CRAZY! One French guy, who works like sculptor, one man from Romania, who can speak  about 6 languages! he is translator, and he is really good! So we really like this lesson, because everytime we have a lot of fun.

3. From January we have visited ŠENT. ŠENT – Slovenian Association for Mental Health is a non-profit, non-governmental, organisation intended for individuals with problems in mental health and those people who find themselves in momentary emotional distress, their relatives, experts in this field and all other people who are interested in mental health. 
So once per week, sometimes twice, we visit them and we talk with people there, we prepared projection of czech movie- Pelíšky with Croatian subtitles, and tomorrow we will be also decorating eggs:) we also started with mozaika, so I hope I will be good at it:) We love to go there, because people are really nice. First time when we came there, they asked us more questions than other people for half year. So we really appreciated this interest about our country, about our life and our future plans. 




4. Our new activity is visiting the retirement home. Maybe it can be funny for czech readers, slovenian word is Dom Upokojencev :D so I think we have been there 3 times. It is also very interesting for me,I guess also for Adam, because I have never worked with this age group so I am glad that I can try it! Last two visits we were playing some game- like Člověče nezlob se -Človek ne jezi se, Dobllo, and we were creating some crafts.
I wanted to put some photos but I didnt find how I can download them:( so you can find here:
http://www.du-po.si/zanimivosti/fotogalerija/906-medgeneracijska-druzenja#

http://www.du-po.si/zanimivosti/fotogalerija/888-mesecna-medgeneracijska-povezovanja-druzenja-in-kreativne-delavnice

5. Internional evenings. Perhaps you remember one of my add, which was about our Czech evening. So we decided to have this kind of event every month. Russian evening was last one and in 10 days we are going to have Welsh- Finnish evening. I really like this kinds of events, because you can hear some interesting facts about others country, and what is the most interesting, of course, is traditional food and drinks. For russian evening we had a lot of food like caviar, dried fish and everything was really delicious. 
Now, I am not surprised anymore,that not so many people are coming for this kind of event. For russian evening came about 4 people who I have never seen.. It is really pity, because everything is free, so I dont understand...




 6. Exhibition. I decided to organize photos exhibition. I got this idea during Ice storm, when we were walking around Postojna and we saw a lot of people who were taking pictures of this ice disaster. So now we are collecting pictures, the judges will choose 20 of them who will be printed and posted in our MCP for next 2 weeks. People who will come to see them will vote for best one, which will win some price. I have to say we have received about 35 photos and they are amazing! so I am really curious who will win:)
You can see event here: 

https://www.facebook.com/events/733709793329144/

7. Hmmm what else.. yes, we were animators in one children party in our MCP:) But children were really active and clever and they didnt need our help:) so I just did photo corner and I was taking pictures of them. I have to say I really enjoyed it and I hope children like my photos:) Adam also did video from party which is AWESOME!

So I think that´s all. It looks like that we have a lot of work, but people who really know me, have to realise that it is nothing compared with what I was used to have:) so we have a lot of free time what is killing me sometimes and make me lazy and we started to have a problem where we can go for a trip. Because everyplaces which is  situated within 25 km, we have already seen for at least 4 times.. I think that no slovenian exists who has visited Predjama castle for 12 times like we have. :D the main reason why we have visited almost everything is it that we have a lot of friends who came to visit us and also we are quite active in Couchsurfing. For last month we had 4 people from Argentina, 1 girls from USA who came with czech girl:) and 2 spanish. So I am so happy for couchsurfing because the people who came are really interesting people who have a lot of experiences from travelling, who are really active and who are really inspirational for me! And we also had one of the most valuable visit here and it means my ,,flowers- lilie-" from czech:) thank you for your visit!!



couchsurfers from Argentina!


But now we are so exciting because on Friday we are going for Balkan trip for 10 days! so you know what about next add will be!!!
Thank you for your support!
Enjoy your life!!! 


neděle 23. února 2014

Midterm training


Midterm training! We were really looking forward for this event and finally it came! and what is it? The mid-term evaluation allows volunteers to assess their experience so far and to reflect on the activities, role and support of the Host Organisation and on their own contribution.Overall, the mid-term evaluation should offer a relaxed and informal atmosphere so the volunteers feel comfortable sharing experiences and saying whatever is important for them.
So the main task of Midterm training  is- for me- meeting other volunteers and sharing our experiences with them, because I think it really helps to hear the others problems and experiences. 
It is one of the best evs event so everybody is really excited where it will be, who will be there and so on:) So we got information in first week of February and when I saw who is gonna be there I was very happy:) and next week we also knew where it will be and we found out it is the best combination- these people and this place! uau! because we were really afraid that it will be in Velenje (we have been already 4 times there) or in Krško. :) but no! It was near Bled! so we took our red devil and full of expectations we went toward to the place of the event.I was checking hotel before, of course:) and I have to say, it was one of the best hotel which I have ever visited! We got the best room:)hahaha:) because we are couple. Here some photos are: :)




So hotel was perfect! Not just how it looked like, but also hotel employees were fabulous! I have never seen so nice and helpful employees who try to find decision in every situation! Also food were so delicious.:)
We were group of 24 people- 3 trainers and 21 evs volunteers- from Czech:), Spain, Portuguese, Belarussia, Ukraine, Romania, Germany, Poland, Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia, Sweden -I hope that´s all:)We really enjoyed it. We learnt a lot of things, we found out that we have similar opinion about Slovenians.- you can read here:)

We also improved our English- from Czech English we were transferred to Turkish English-  Are you Coffee? Are you party? Are you beer? :) this is simple example of the best turkish speakers in Turkey:)After training we decided to take opportunity that we are close Austria and we went to visit Klagenfurt and two castles. It was very nice experience, not maybe for our Red devil, because we had to cross mountainSo thank you everybody for amazing week! 













pondělí 17. února 2014

Disaster in Postojna

Hello everybody!
I hope you are enjoying this nice winter weather:) We enjoyed a lot in Postojna:) I think everybody knows about natural disaster which was in Postojna two weeks ago.
When we were coming from Ljubljana, everything had started. And what did we do in Ljubljana?
We were invited by one EVS girl from Croatia to help them with 7th International Arts Exhibition "Play with me" so we said YES:) of course. And it was very very nice experience. The exhibition is mainly dedicated to children and youngsters, especially those with special needs. Due to not knowing the population our society is still full of prejudices which believe that people with special needs are incompetent and different instead of getting to know their qualities and the similarities between us.The exhibition offers a unique opportunity of bringing one and the other closer together, regardless of age, education and other specifics. It is a great way of connecting and getting to know eachother through common activities by which grounds for a more understanding and open society are being build.So our tasks were animating the kids and helping them to put their own artwork on the walls of Cankarjev dom. I think about 600 kids came! so It was really big event and I really liked:)





Ok so it was on Friday. We visited some museum in Ljubljana, because we got free ticket. But a lot of snow were, so we decided to go back around 5 p.m. We were lucky because some nice guy cleaned our car from snow, so we were able to go away from snow storm to Postojna:) But it took us 3,5 hours!! Usually it is just 35 minutes, but this time it was crazy. We got stuck in trafic jam, and we didnt know what was happening, because we did not move for one hour. When we arrived we found out that they had closed the road! Everywhere were a lot of snow, but when we were closer to Postojna, snow was changed to rain.and the temperature was around 0 degrees = ice disaster! When we woke up, we didnt wake up to Postojna, but to Ice kingom!! It was amazing! Everywhere was ice! Around 1 p.m. electricity started to switch off every half our and after 3 hours it stopped to work for other 6 days :D For us it was not problem, because we didnt know what was going on. We expected, ok maybe today we will be without electricity and tomorrow it will be ok, but no:)Fortunately we wont leave alone, but with coworkers from our centre, so they told us what was happening. So we knew that the water is not drinkable, we knew that main electrical wiring is destroyed, but if they didnt tell us, we wouldnt know it...because you could not get any informations.No posters, no public radio (rediffusion?:), nothing.. I am not sure how crisis situations are solved in Czech, but I hope better:)So we were really lucky, because our flat  owners bought agregator, so at least we had heat and we could charged our mobile phones. But I heard some people had in the house just 5 degrees! CRAZY!I think we enjoyed first 2 days, it was romantic, we were playing cards, we were watching movies, but after we started to be quite bored. It is not just about dark evening, but nothing worked so we didnt have anything to do. After 5 days, scouts opened Krizni centre at Hight School and I could help there. (Adam left to Czech on Wednesday) People came to warm up themselves, to eat, because scouts were cooking there (a lot of people couldnt cook, because they didnt have gass) to charge their phones, to be with people, to know what is going on atc.. I think it was perfect idea and it was very good organized, but it came quite late.(but it was not fault of scouts, because I think everybody expected support from City. But everybody survived and I think it was very interesting experience. I am just really sorry for trees, because half of them are broken:(