Happyness is here and now

A short review about our programme-weekend in the School for Peace

In the footsteps of Tich Nhat Hanh.

It is proved that if you smile it makes you happier and you also influence the people around you. You get a friendly smile from somebody and you feel better. We can’t solve all our problems, but at least give a smile to make the world brighter.

I felt so happy to see all the people coming to our programme weekend. We were from different ages, backgrounds and countries. People, who want to take a break from their daily life, try to be mindful and meeting new people. For me living in the here and now is also difficult, but it really felt easier on this weekend. Together we experienced meditation in a sitting, walking and dancing way. We went to the sea and made our footsteps into the sand to say: I am here and want to give the prints in the sand to the ocean and the universe. We thought about inspiring things, we draw them and learned more about each other. We cooked together and we ate together in silence, which was quite difficult for some of us, but I experienced it also as very helpful to enjoy the food more and recognizing when you are full. We sang together.  Because we liked it so much we were singing one whole morning. Music form Tich Nhat Hanh, but also pop songs and the one and only dutch song: Het is de nacht!
We discovered the trees in the beautiful garden of the monastery, without our visual sense, with trusting each other.  We heard the bells from the monastery and they were our Mindful bells, we stopped doing what we were busy with and took a deep breath- a moment for ourselves to focus on the here and now.

Thank you all for this weekend. Even when I was in charge for parts of the programme, I didn’t felt pressured and could be aware of myself and my surroundings in lots of moments.
Thank you all for sharing experiences with each other, to listen and to give good words to the others.
Thank you for drinking tea together, smiling at each other and doing tasks with your full heart.
For me it was a successful weekend, with lots of good things and very nice people. I would always like to experience being mindful with you again!
With much Love,
Antonia

The present moment is full with joy and happiness- if you are attentive you will see it.

- Tich Nhat Hanh

I have arrived

Hey there ! Its Antonia again :)

After a great Rots and Water weekend in the School for Peace ( for whom who don’t know what this is: ROCK and WATER a workshop to find you inner balance and compass, be self confident and work with your communication skills - thank you for this very interesting 2 day! http://www.rotsenwater.nl/) I took myself off for three days and went to Germany visiting friends of my family next to the Dutch border. I also needed a little bit space from my current surrounding.

So I sat in the German train, but I still went on acting like a tourist from a non- German- speaking country and asked the german train conductor for the right train in dutch without recognizing it.

 Also telling my friends all about my work- they were so curious- was quite hard because it didn’t felt natural to speak standard German.

So it was the first reason why I was happy to come back to the Netherlands because I enjoy it so much to handle with foreign languages in my daily life.

What I didn’t missed was the wind, which was not so hard than in the Netherlands, and also not my Dutch bike – which, by the way, broke today when I was in the middle of Alkmaar 8 kilometres away from the monastery.

 But however- in Germany I drove along with a super cool electronic bike and it was so easy going! Nothing could harm me- I was the queen of the little hills – biking up and down in a fast tempo!

And when the sun went down in the evening I looked up to the sky and thought : “ Ooh there is home!”

My Dutch home in the west. Dutch people say: “De Zon in de zee zien zaken” – seeing the sun sinking into the sea. And I knew in which direction I had to go to come back ;)

And I changed the lyrics of a Beatles-Song: "Here goes the sun - didididi..."

It's alright.

Last week we had a very nice group in the School for Peace – they had a storytelling workshop and told us in the end their stories. A kind of main topic in their stories was- home is not a place – home is a feeling.

That was inspiring - ooh yes -and everyone I talked to about the presentation afterwards still had the impressions of this sentence in his mind.

So I was wondering where I feel at home than – I hug my Mama and my Papa, because they created my home in Austria with giving me warmth and support! I know it is still home, but do I have to come always back then or can I find another home where I maybe also don’t feel pressured. What I really often felt there...

What is true for certain: If it is another place or not - I have to find it in myself.

I also try to understand how it is for people living in the refugee centre. Most of them didn’t had another chance than leaving their country and flee from war, unfairness, oppression.

On our city safari tour in our evs training we talked to a woman from Iran and she told us that she had to flee and that she cannot go back. But if she could, if the regime would be different she would definitely go there. Because it is her home and she loves it, even when she suffered there.

I am currently working on the flyer for our programme weekend from Tich Nhat Hanh in April.  I also read a book about him and actually I was surprised that I find it so interesting and inspiring.

This is a quote from him:

I have arrived – I am home

In the here and now- my destination is in each step.

I have seen now that it I have written it a little bit wrong, but out of any reason it was in my mind like this and that's why I don't change it now. I think it is hard to live in the hear and now, even if I really would like to - there are nearly always different things in my head, things I have to do in the future and things which happend in the  past. 
Only in some particular beautiful moments, I can give away all my fears and problems, give away my To-Do list and enjoy everything around me - see the bee flying from one flower to another, feel the warmth of the sun, hear the birds and the living nature around me and smell it. 

I am looking forward to our weekend to experience living in the moment with a group!

Good night dear day!

It was an exhausting one, with lots of broken things in the pottery and with my bike. Full of spring degrees and surprises ( I went to the toilette and when I came back – this is totally true- a little bat sat on my laptop!!! And maybe our apartment was already its home, but I was so scared and decided not to keep it as a pet and took it outside...).

I see you tomorrow then!

Antonia

A few reflections

Bildunterschrift hinzufügen

First a little about myself. My name is Hope, I am now 19, I come from south west England and I have been living in the Lioba Klooster for four months. These months have been filled with surprises and life changing experiences, some of which I will share with you in the following posts.
 I came here with few expectations, my life had been so full of passing exams and applying to university, that I had little time to really think about what the following ten months would involve. This may not have been clever, as in the first few days I was asked many times why I chose to come here, i didn't have a proper answer, but the truth is, it just felt right.

I am going to try and write every few weeks, about something that has happened in the last few months followed by a present thought.
Let me start with my first impressions, followed by how I feel now.

When I first arrived I was struck by the landscape, the never ending fields surrounded by water, and by all the bikes. I thought I had stepped into a stereotypical dutch dream. As I reached the monastery this dream became more beautiful. The old stone walls, the orchard laden with fruit, and the last few blooms of autumn flowers was what i first noticed of my new home. 
My next impression was of the people who would become very important to me over the next few months. The sisters and brother all greeted me with genuine interest, and welcoming greetings. I can tell you, that there is nothing that can make you feel more comforted then heartfelt smiles, and in those first few days, I really appreciated all the kindness I received from everyone i met. I now feel a part of this community, and completely at home here. I want to say thank you to everyone who has help with that.

 Of course there are challenging times, moments of boredom and feelings of anguish or loneliness but these are balanced out by the freedom and peace that can found in the natural beauty of this place. 
When ever I feel these emotions build up in me, i go for a walk or seek the company of the many special people i have got to know over the last few months. Yesterday for example i was missing someone and i decided that i wanted to share the beauty of this place with them through a few photos of the monastery and the sun setting over the sea.
Experiencing this made me feel so happy inside and i didn't want to be anywhere else. 
That the end of my first post and i hope the images make you smile as they continue to make me :)

                                                              Hope 

  

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

 - we are awaiting you with much love. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slcYzUIPSD4

from EVSers with love

Études

1.

There is nothing gentle about the winter here.

2.

There is this thing in the EVS, the Youthpass, and it is talked about like the Resurrection: in mentions, vaguely portentous terms, and no one ever really knows anything.

It is, purportedly, the list of capacities that one manages to acquire during the EVS program.

The keyword is non-formal learning, and the list of competences, starting with obscure concepts like “communication in mother and foreign tongue”, and ends with the similarly fuzzy “cultural awareness and expression”.

I am not even sure why I think about this now, but the whole thing makes me feel indistinctly uncomfortable.

3.

They say that the sad truth about all this is that you may be pretty and smart, but that will not necessarily make you a good person.

I think the only sad truth about all this is that the concept of good has run out of substance in our postmodernist times.

4.

The thing I learnt that will not be on any certificate: to reconcile postmodernist thinking with religiosity, new age spiritualities and activism.

The latters are in fact so similar that it is rather disconcerting.

5.

My friend’s third appeal for status was denied.

I don’t think I should ever learn to cope with this one.

6.

Everyone with some academic background tells me that the place where I live is an ethnographic goldmine. I did start writing up some kind of a furtive clandestine field note, but the thing is that life here is actually quite mundane, so doing anything of sorts is pretty difficult.

But: I started a research project with the refugee centre, and I am very much excited. There will be proposals and methodology and results and conclusions, and I will be going around collecting stories legitimately. I don’t think it will contribute anything to my “character development” by me overcoming a “personal challenge”, but “becoming a good person” doesn’t speak much to me on these terms, so I don’t really mind.

7.

The hearsay is that the picturesque Egmond Binnen where we reside has a brazen nightlife with what you might call a pub culture, so Ildi and I ventured in town at night with all the swag of nameless revolver heroes after having watched some subversive neo-Western haze. We had fun.

8.

I seriously intend to write something informative for future volunteers. You know, we carry on, our present lives, our broken Dutch.

- Thuy