EVS in Pomiechówek

Cześć everyone! I’m Alice and I grew up in Padova, Italy, where I graduated in Publishing and Illustration. I am currently living in Pomiechówek and I work at the Biblioteka in the culture center. The village is a small but really pretty place by the river, surrounded by a beautiful forest; it’s so good to be able to spend time in the nature! I’m fascinated with both Art and the wonders of our planet, and I think they all need to be treasured and protected. I’m hopeful my year here will continue to be as wonderful as it’s been until now, and I will try my best to give back the joy, support and inspiration I’m receiving from everyone in the project. I'm starting to get familiar with a very basic Polish but of course I can't form a proper sentence or understand what people talk about yet. In fact my first language assessment test resulted in A1-  What can I say... it can only get better from here :') I’m so thankful to be part of this project, especially considering the curre...

One of the things that scared me the most before coming to Poland was, without a doubt, the Polish language -and I bet it’s a shared feeling by most of the volunteers. It is truth that most of the languages spoken in Europe descend from Indoeuropean, but nowadays they don’t really look alike anymore. Polish, belonging to the Slavic languages family, has very little to do with Spanish (which derives from Latin) or English (German and Latin descent). Also it’s easy to spot some Latin-derived words in Polish, like “biblioteka” or even from French, like “parasol” (meaning umbrella), but these are mainly exceptions and the bulk of vocabulary and grammar forms have nothing to do with anything I am familiar with. Therefore, I was really worried about how would I communicate with everyone here, especially since Pomiechówek is a small town and I had no high expectations with people speaking English. Fortunately, everyone at the library speaks quite good English –and also Marine, the v...

Since I first arrived to Pomiechówek I was eagerly expecting the Christmas period. Everyone talked about traditional dishes, snow and temperatures below zero. However, the most repeated event throughout these three months was the Art Bazar. This is a kind of handicraft market that takes place twice a year in the sports hall, before Christmas and Easter, and it is one of the biggest occasions in town. It was celebrated on the 2 nd of December, so Marine, the volunteer at Pompa, and I were in charge of some of the decorations for the place, as well as for the cultural center and the library. Therefore the two previous weeks we were super busy developing ideas and preparing all of the designs. I think in the end it looked pretty well and we had lots of fun.  At the library there was also a lot of hustle and bustle since they would have their own stand to sell  books as well as paint children’s faces. Finally the day arrived and it was probably the most active day in...

July 16, 2018 Cześć ! My name is Angeline , I am 21 and I come from France. I started my EVS (aka European Voluntary Service) in the library of Pomiechówek, Poland, in September 2017 and this amazing experience will end in August 2018. 12 months in Poland... 12 months of discoveries, meetings, personal challenges and travels... 12 months with everything to learn, a culture shock and a language barrier to overcome and a new environment to adapt... But also 12 months sharing time with amazingly nice people in a place I will miss as soon as I will leave. 12 months, that's a lot to share with you, dear reader ! Let's go step by step and start with the beginning... After two years of French preparatory class focused on Humanities and a third year at the university to study English Literature and Civilization, I finally got graduated in English in 2017. Then I should have naturally kept on studying to obtain a Master and start my professional life... However, I dreamt ...

From October to December 2017 Cześć ! When you start living abroad, the first main difficulty you have to overcome is the adaptation to a new environment and a new culture. Poland is a part of Europe so the culture shock wasn't that violent contrary to Asian countries for example, but still, you need time to adapt. As a volunteer, my role was not only to discover and understand this foreign culture but also to share my own culture and my experience as a foreign volunteer in Poland with local people. Creating a presentation about my homeland was one of my first tasks at the library. I met many classes of Primary School and Gymnazjum (aka Secondary School) to share pictures and explanations about France. We talked about food (frogs, snails and stinky cheeses... but not only !!), landscapes, houses architecture, famous actors and singers and even famous international events and festivals which usually take place in France. Then I presented the place where I used to live...

October 2017 Cześć !  What do you know about Halloween in your country ? Let me give you some short explanations from my French point of view... Halloween is a celebration that takes place on 31st October - the day before All Saints' Day. In France, it's a day when we can wear ghost, witch, pumpkin or skeleton costumes to ask for sweets in the shops and houses or attend to a party. We can also carve pumpkins to put a candle inside, tell frightening stories, watch horror movies or play divination games... This celebration is more or less popular according to the countries where you live. This year, I wanted to make Polish children discover and enjoy this tradition at the library because this celebration is generally a great source of fun and joy for them and it was really popular in my country when I was younger. However, I forgot that Poland was a very catholic country which meant we encountered some resistance from people because this tradition was seen as disr...

September 2017 Cześć ! As time flies and I'm almost at the end of my volunteering, I'm going to share with you some articles about the main activities I did during my EVS in Poland to give you an idea of how I spent my time at work during all these months. To begin with, it's important to notice that I'm working in a library, which means I have the opportunity to participate to many different activities linked with libraries' international events. The National Reading Day is one of them as promoting the benefits of reading is one of the major role of a library. For this specific day, we decided to gather English language and reading promotion so we went to the Kindergarten of Pomiechówek to read a book in English. As I wanted something easy for children to understand, I chose one of the most famous stories I found: "The Three Little Pigs" ! I visited four classes and, each time, the children were really kind and interested. What is so good with ch...