4 months - 4 impressions

Hi!

EVS here is still going on!

I am Antonia from Austria and I am one of the new volunteers for the School voor Vrede.

First, I want to say a big thank you to Ildi and Thuy and also Elina for the impressions they gave us with this Blog before we started here! I am still very impressed from your work here, everything I found from you in the pottery, in the small cupboards, your paintings, from people telling me from your great work in the AZC. And we still have Klintas and Ellies Pen box :)

Hope and I are here since October 2013 and for us lots of things already happened, but I want to tell you about 4 things, which are at the moment strong in my mind:

1. SURPRISES

I am kind of an always-trying-to-organise person and so I tried to organise a picture in my head of how my year here would be.

But it definitely came different.

The kind of work I am doing here is actually how I supposed it to be, but I was very surprised that our coordinator changed already after 2 months and the fact that I didn’t had the feeling somebody is working here in the School for Peace. But after a short shocking-period, I was happy that our new, very nice coordinator Anneke starts working here and would be here much more often.

One really nice surprise for me was that I could decide for two projects outside the monastery to work in. And for me it was always important to do a voluntary year in social environment to get experience. So I now work with the great kids in the refugee centre and with old disabled people in a day- care centre. Doing so many different things once a week is hard, because you need more time to get used to every working field again and again. But now I really feel quite sure everywhere.

And one of the nicest things- the monastery and the people here! I had no idea how it would be to live in a monastery. But I was so positively surprised by the openness of the sisters and the hartelijkheid (=heartiness).  About the help they offer when you need it, about their beautiful psalms in the services and about their always happy faces when they eat the food we have cooked and everything is always: LEKKER!

2. WEATHER

I knew already before I came that in the Netherlands it will be rainy and windy. But if I would have known that it´s so hard and never ending, I would decided to go to the south of Italy or somewhere very warm and dry :P

No, I actually really like northern countries and was curious about landscape and weather and of course the sea- it is so beautiful!

In October I thought I can manage everything like a rough, dutch girl- going by bike by every weather. But after doing this a few times by heavy rain and tornado-wind I was totally finished and hated my bike and the fact that I have to bike here to come from A to B. To not let me pushing down from the weather again I turned meanwhile into a cosy person, who stays at home or takes the bus when dutch winter decides to send wind and rain.

A great girl I met in my the EVS training writes a very beautiful blog about her evs time in the Netherlands and she found the most suitable words for describing the weather here:
http://mydutchdiaries.wordpress.com/2013/11/02/good-to-known-your-enemy/

3.  INDEPENDENCE

Ooh how I looked forward to experience life on my own without my family I lived with my whole life. Even if I feel sometimes a little bit homesick, because I just have a really close relationship to my family and my friends at home, I would not like to be somewhere else!  I know I have grown here personally. I feel so independent and free- away from all the commitments I had at home. I am responsible for what I am doing and manage and organise myself. I have already learned about new things, from the work in the AZC,  a new language, a new culture, life in a monastery and I am still discovering!

That’s a good feeling. I start to get the person I want to be :)

4. ENCOUNTERS

It`s hard here to meet people and to get to know other young people. Hope and I met some really nice persons during our evs training, but they live in whole Netherlands and you cannot see them spontaneous for a cup of coffee or just to hang around. Then I tried meeting young people, went out, talked a lot, everybody was nice but it was not possible to really get to know somebody.

First I thought:  “Oh I am so lonely, I have nobody to talk to “- but fact is that I do have.

I recognized that there are people around who totally care about me, are interested in me and gave me support: the sisters, the brother, nice dutch teacher, people who live or work here and know me, great Willemijn and her lovely family. Thank you!

I learned that Loneliness is part of an evs year and of course also in life.

And sometimes I do really enjoy being alone.

So I end my first entry - four months are over and 6 left. I am looking forward to them!

The weather was so nice on this February Tuesday- felt like spring. Hope and I cleaned the whole wing of the School for Peace and our apartment. Feels so fresh everywhere! :)

Love,

Antonia