On-arrival-Training in Sarajevo

 
 
 
 

The European-Voluntary-Service (EVS)-Programme includes several trainings. The first one is the pre-departure-training, usually in your home-country where you get prepared for your EVS, talk about fears and hopes and motivation to be an EVS-volunteer. The second one is the On-Arrival Training in your host country. For the countries of South Eastern Europe, to which Serbia belongs, the situation is a little bit special, so all the EVS-volunteers of Bosnina and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia met in Sarajevo for their On-arrival-training.
So from the 1st to the 6th of June I met with 22 other volunteers coming from whole Europe, doing her EVS in the Balkans to attend this training. We shared our first experiences in our host countries, talked about our host-organisations and projects, about problems and things that are going well. In a special card game we got aware of the difficulties to behave correctly when you don’t know the rules, the same situation we meet in real life during our EVS, when we don’t know the unwritten laws and rules of the new culture we are living in. Another part of the training was dedicated to the EVS as a learning service. In the EVS should be space not only for non-formal, non planned, spontaneous learning, but also especially for informal learning, meaning learning out of official institutions, but being aware of our learning. With regard on this we were encouraged to set up a learning plan with defined learning objectives to achieve during our EVS.
Out of the official programme the On-Arrival-Training was a great opportunity to connect with other volunteers, to build friendships and make contacts for future travels. Of course we also used our free time to discover the amazing city of Sarajevo, having a walk in the centre and trying the famous cevapi and Bosnian coffee and sweets. Sarajevo is completly different of all cities I've visited so far...it really has this kind of oriental charm, altough it is too touristic for my opinion you can feel that athmosphere...the skyline is dominated by mosquees and in the ottoman part of the old town all the shops have small benches outside, there are this carpets and scarfs for sell everywhere and even in the most touristic center you may get in to a conversation with some local people. When I was searching shelter from the rain in an small shoemakers workshop the shopseller and shoemaker kindly invited my to a coffee and I had to promise to visit him again if I come back to Sarajevo. :-)

Beograd III

 
 
 
 
Beograd again...the fortress Kalemegdan and old ships by the river Sava...

Beograd II

 
 
 
 
Some more pictures of the serbian capital...

Beograd-Capital :-)

 
 
 
 
It has been a while since I've been in Belgrade but here finally some pictures...Belgrade...so different from Novi Sad or Subotica...very busy, noisy town, full of huge, grey, important buildings, old orthodox churches, coffeeplaces and bars everythere, on all the streets, not only on nice ones, many people on the streets, girls in very sexy cloths, bussinessmen, beggars, gypsis, too much cars, horrible traffic, small shops, worskhops, some nice old streets, modern buildings,dirty squares and sidewalks and very clean, fancy ones, a beautiful old fortress on the river Sava, a lifely pedestrian street an old "bohemian street" with romantic restaurant and traditional live music in the evenings, interesting graffitis and many buildings still showing the dammages of the war in 1999...It's a huge mess, and a living metropole, yes, you really feel it is the Capital! :-)

Finally

Hi, I am really sorry, it's a long time since my last blog and this one will not be that long either...and without any pictures :-( Internet connection is to slow and my pictures have to high resolution and somehow I managed to delete picasa again..so no chance...I am not going to waste two hours behind my pc just to put some pictures, even if they are very nice...you know, I actually shouldn't even write this post, but should go to sleep IMMEDIATELY!! Tomorrow, or actually allready today, early in the morning I will have to get up to start my bike trip to Dubrovnik. My brother Seth and my friend Lionel started it today allready, tomorrow evening I'll catch them up in Novi Sad. Then we will go down to Valjevo and cross the Serbian-Bosnian Border near Visegrad, later continue to Sarajevo and Mostar and finally Dubrovnik. I am really looking forward to that trip...I hope to meet interesting people, to get to know more about these countries and to see new landscapes...
But, you see, I really need to sleep...so again, I say I'll write more about last months adventures in a later post...there is a lot to tell anyway...about my EVS-trainings in Sarajevo and Ohrid, about my travels to Makedonia as well, about EXIT-festival and about my so called "every-daylife" in Subotica...

Another walk around Subotica

 
 
 
 
I wanted to put this pictures for a long time allready...but so much things happened in the last weeks, I was constantly very busy and never had nor time nor a real will to blog and to loose to much time in the internet. Unfortunately the internet connection in the dormitory is very slow...so every post costs me about half an hour...and regarding that I am here in Serbia for less than fith months half an hours is a lot of precious time I could dedicate to discover the place and to get to know better the people I met so far.
Still it some times happens that I am just going on a walk trough the center by my own and taking pictures of things and places that seem interesting or characteristic to me. It's not necesseraly nice places, but they have something special.
So that's some pictures of the non turistic and not nice side of Subotica, that still has some kind of charm.
At least I think so.
I also planned to make some posts about my trip to Belgrade and Novi Sad on the weekend of 16th of May and on the Activities we had for the Day of Europe on the 9th of May and then on my every day life here and on friends and people I visited and on some small excursions I did in the nature around Subotica. But as the internet connection is really terribly slow today and I have a lot of things to do before I catch my bus for Sarajevo (I have to go to an EVS-training there) this nights...I just won't have time to do so today...So bit of patience please :-)

Home sweet home :)

 
 
 
As I probably allready told you my room here is really tiny....but I somehow managed to arrange all my staff...creating every day something new, some decoration and so one...So here some pictures of my little home here...as it looks now. There is my "Nobody-Loves-Me-Corner" :) where I put all your letters, pictures and so sone to convince me that, ther ARE poeple, who love me, whenfever I feel like lonely. :)
Oh yes, in this corner is also the frog I got from my flatmates for my last birthday...keeping my curtains out of the window...if not my room would be much to dark.
And then I have an installation for my earrings...they serve me as decoration...:-)
Oh, and I also made some bookshelfes out of empty boxes...my room is really getting kind of cosy...so I had the plan to invite some friends for a tee-evening this night...but unfortunately my room is belonging to a student dormitory that has the rule, that nobody, not living here, has the right to stay in my room after 9.30 pm. A tee-evening from 9.15 to 9.30 doesn't make a lot of sense.

Some more of Trenchtown

 
 
 
 
Trenchtown...was really a good time...relaxing, little bit of working and than some friends cooked a delicious meal over the fire every evening. Enjoyed it!

Trenchtown 09

 
 
 
 

So I was at this Trenchtown-Festival last weekend....we had some activities there, which means it was kind of working, but still within the group of volunteers we had a great time there...relaxing, having fun...here just some pictures...oh...an for everybody who knows german or how to use google translate, I wrote an article about this festival for tink.ch.
Have to hurry now, there are some movies in the center I want to see..so writing more later...

Working, painting, ...

We are going to have some activities, games etc and an inforamtion stand about the LDA Subotica (Local Democracy Agency) at the Trenchtown Music-Festival in a forest closed to Subotica. So these days I have a lot of work preparing these activities, but its also quit creative...yes, I could finally bring in some ideas :). So monday evening Ivana (my language teacher)and I and Angela and Dejana a bit as well were painting from 4 to 11 pm a huge carton with holes to put your had in and taking pictures. It was really fun.

Budapest-Budimpest

 
 
 
 

I told you this already, on my journey to Subotica I spent also a few days in Budapest where I met also my russian friend Mila and my hungarian friend Maria, who organised Peter, a great "city guide" for us :)
So here some impression from Budapest in March 2009.

Pictures "Welcome to Subotica"

 
 
 
 

Youhouuu! I finnaly got the letter with the charger for my camera that I forgot in Switzerland.So I can make pictures and show you the ones I took in the very beginning. I just show you somem pictures of my arrival here. How my room was decorated like, me in the main pedestrian street the "korzo", still in winter, and my and Dejana, my tutor in the LDA office.