Monday, March 21, 2016

Daniele Fissa

Hello, today it's my first time I'm writing a blog. First of all today I'm sick, in the last few days the weather was windy and cold, and now I'm at home and I have a cold, sore throat, headache etcc..
Anyway, I'd like to talk about something positive and not about my health.
I would start to tell something about my mid-term training. At the beginning of march, Eva, Klara, Miguel, Teresa and me went near Tallin, in a place called Harju, as I said before it is near Tallin but in the middle of the forest where there is nothing, just some isolate houses, our "farm" and the forest.
We spent about three days in this place, and during that time we talked about about our Evs project, our goals for our Evs, and we played some funny games. One day we went for a hike in the forest an some branches striked my eyes and it was very painful!
This trip was tiring but at the end I felt very good, because I tryed a very close contact with the nature, where the silence and the animals are the only owners of this habitat.
Moreover, during this training I met amazing people, and I hope to meet them again in Estonia during my future travels.
After some days, Vitatiim organised the "karaoke evening". I like very much singing even if I'm very tone-deaf!!
Here I sing in Italian and to me it's an apportunity to promote Italian culture and songs.
In Narva (as in Italy) my favourite hobby is watching football. And it's very good if someone watches with me. When I watched football with my flatmate, Inter (the team I support) always lost, so now I don't know hot to tell her she's not welcome when Inter's playing!!
Anyway, some days ago Luka and Miguel come to visit me, we ate together and after we watched the football game. Luka cooked some chicken (that was very tasty), and at the end I was very happy because Bayern Munchen won against juventus!!
Now, I'd like to talk about my flatmate. Somone could ask the reason why I should talk about her.
Let me explain better. I think she's genius and she had an amazing idea. She wrote an email to Astri cinema in Narva, asking a strange trade, I mean she asked to get a ticket for free to watch the " Russian ballet" and she would have written an article and some advertises on the local newspapers.
I think the reason I'm writing this, it's not about how getting a ticket for free, but I'd like to underline the idea she had. Here in Narva the other volunteers and me have our money for our needs, but sometimes these money are not enough for all our wishes, in order to achieve that we really wish, we need to be creative and find out some other ways in order to get them. You probably are wondering if she got this ticket. The answer is yes.
Yes, she got it. I'm very glad to know there are people in Narva as in the rest of world can understand our feelings, and our needs and especially they can appreciate these kind of ideas.
In these days I'm thinking to travel somewhere in Estonia, and also in May I will travell in Russia.
I feel excited about it, but sometime it's hard to find the cheapest way and at the same time it is also suitable for my plans. I'm still working on it!!
Now I need to relax because I wrote too much.. I'll write soon again in this blog..
best regards.

Monday, March 7, 2016

What a weekend! - First post from Fruzsi

Finaly I got the time and the inner inspiration to write about my life here, in Narva. By the way, I am Fruzsi, I work here in a kindergarden as an english teacher. But no more facts about me, lets just bring feelings, events and thoughts to to world of this blog.

I spent this weekend alone in town, because my flatmate was in his mid-term training, The truth is that you don't get a lot of time all by yourself, when living with another volunteer. But that's fine like that. You have a special experience after such a long time, that you can spend by yourself. I think when we are alone, truly we never are. You may have no company at home or a specific person to go to a program with, but you are all the time surrounded by others. The same happened with me during last weekend. On Saturday I cooked myself a meal, went to the shop before, washed the dishes, nothing special. But when you are alone, somehow you ( or at least me) start to think differently, you sense your surroundings differently, you just hear better your own thoughts. The more intersting event took place on Sunday. But before I let you know about it, I need to tell the story behind this Sunday morning.

A few month ago I went to sliding with my mentor to a big hill in the near forest. We met there one of her friend, who borrowed us her sledge and we had a lot of fun. Soon we met another friends of this friend. One of them – all of a sudden – started to sing in russian some beautiful folk-song. In a few seconds two other women joined her and they kept singing for 15 minutes. Later they perezented some dance too and got us involved as well. It was a remarkable happening, the power of the songs on the top of the snowy hill, and the sliding with this friend's sledge became so far the best memori of mine. It was completely unexpected and I was in the middle of culture- shock, where I could admire some traditional singing and the beauty of simple human nature.

Later on I found out that this women belong to a group, called Suprjadki (Супрядки ). They collect russian and estonian folk-songs and perform on different occasions. I liked them so much that I decided: I want to join them. I tried to make a contact with one of them, with no result. Time gone by, but I did not want to give up. I wrote to their official e-mail address, and soon I got an answer. I visited a concert in Rugodiv ( house of culture), where they also performed. At the end I had to call the leader, from whom I got the answer to my e-mail. I tolked to her on the phone in Russian, though in our letter we talked in English. She took me to back-stage and kept talking in Russian. Somehow I was abble to follow the main plot of her words, which said it would be very hard for me to join, because they have about 500 songs in thei repertoire, and they learn all of them only after listening, plus all is in old dialect. But I can try and meet them next time. I was so excited about this positive attitude, which did not close doors in front of me, but opened one. So at this Sunday I could visit their rehearsal, which was held in Narva castle. I went to the main desk of the museum, where a lady took me to the room, where I was supposed to meet the group. I had to go down in a narrow and dark stairs, and it seemed quite hopeless to find anybody donw there, where everything just got darker and darker. But I heard noise from the steps above, turned back and find the gate to the room. We had a small chat ( I love to say this, that I had a conversation with people,because it is soo cool to think I could make in in a foreign language. Usually I just laugh on myself when I think of therse few sentence talks as a real conversation, but then I need to admit it, they were real one, and I need to accept the fact, that somewhat I am abble to communicate in Russian and I shall be proud of myself). Later all the members arrived, I took part in the warp-up excercises, listened them to learn new songs incredibly fast, and at the end, when the male members arrived and gave flowers to the women, in the occasion of the following day, international women's day, I recived one too, from the leader, who gave me hers. I said a big thank you and sang a hungarian folk-song to them. They felt sorry I have to leave, but I had to prepare a cake for my mentor's birthday, join the celebration later on, and today another week has started, which who knows what will bring to the sky of Narva.

Ps.: I am sorry, if there is any spelling mistake, or some words does not make sense at all. But today I walked thorough the whole city twice. Once personal issue, the second time to help a dear friend. I also went to work, and after that I went to see a free movie screening at the library. I had a long day. A life of a voulunteer in Narva can be unexpectidly chaotic and happy. Don't miss the chance to read along, and find out more about us!

Thansk for your time, folks!

Fruzsi