Radijo Klubas: Mid-term Meeting (Late news:)))

Not that it took me 10 days to review our mid-term meeting. Just as usually I share information not on time... But still...
10 days ago we came back from one of the most important (official) events in EVS life - Mid-Term Meeting with other volunteers. Mid-term meeting is a part of the 'training cycle' in EVS program and it takes place in the middle of the service. On this meeting you can share with other volunteers how your EVS is going on and maybe even find some interesting solutions to temporary problems in your project.Well, as we already are in the middle of our volunteering service in Šiauliai the time for mid-term meeting has come.

Rabea and I were not really motivated to go on our Mid-term meeting because it was very cold and we simply were too lazy to travel from Šiauliai to DaugirdiŠkės which is located near Vilnius.. So it's quite far away from our beloved Šiauliai and there is no direct bus or train connection. Also we have no problems with our project or with each other..so far.. In short, we couldn't see a worthy cause to motivate ourselves for mid-term meeting.

Now we are back and I might say that we really enjoyed our Mid-term meeting and 5 days which we've spend in Daugirdiškės.

We liked our group which consisted of 17 or 18 volunteers from all over the Europe and not only. We liked our trainers which have facilitated creation of a friendly and nice atmosphere during the meeting and not to forget - accommodation and food were also very good. The program of the meeting was also quite nice. It was flexible and also not overloaded. We've got some useful information about Youth pass. Most of the methods which were used to present our projects or problems during EVS were creative. We made some performances and some of them we'll remember for ever :D [Miki's performance for example.. Only participants will understand:P:P] Later on we cooked together for international dinner, it was really great! I helped a volunteer from Palestina Amjad to make Palestinian traditional meal "upside down", other volunteers cooked something traditional from their countries. Our dinner this evening was really international as we had food from Austrian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Czech and Palestinian cuisine. We enjoyed coocking and earting it a lot! :))) (I'll post some photos in the end of the article). Just one thing during this week Rabea and me didn't like was 1 hour walk in Trakai. Well, Trakai is beautiful place indeed and we really like it... but it was so cold, we thought we'll die there..:/ Other then that everything was ok :) We discussed different topics but in the end somehow concentrated on the topic "Life after EVS" as it seems to be the most important and actual affair for volunteers at this moment. I hope for some participants these discussions were useful and they found out some solutions for their problems or some ways how to lead their life after EVS. Well, for me the topic was not very important because I already know (more or less) how my life is going to be (or how I would like it to be) in 5 years. I plan to continue my studies (Public Policy and Administration) and find a job meanwhile in non-governmental organization which works on policy analysis. [Actually, there is another version of this story and by the way Rabea supports this version (about how do I see my life in 5 years). So I plan to become a housewife and I want to have lots of children.] We'll see which plan will work out:)))))

And I guess it will be a crime not to say few words about the place where our meeting was held. It took place in Daugirdiškės (I hope I wrote a correct name). It was really very nice village located in between Vilnius and Kaunas, and Mokimų centras Daugirdiškės is one of the nicest places for trainings or this kind of events. This center has three houses for different purposes. One is a quite big hall for trainings, another house is for accommodation purpose and third is sauna. So while one can have party after trainings, others who feel tired can sleep and they don't disturb each other. And of course for those who like sauna it's cool to have it there.

I'm happy that in the end our meeting turned out to be interesting and enjoyable. We met a lot of new volunteers and I think we've gained nice experience there. I wish to every participant good luck in their lives!

Manana

P.S. Some photos from our international dinner :)