EVS in Pomiechówek

Hello everyone! Last week I took part in my first ESC training at the Agrykola Youth Hostel. Together with 15 other volunteers from all over Poland, who like me have "just landed" here, I spent a whole week in Warsaw. We had the opportunity to learn and gain a lot of new skills and experiences through this training, but also shared what abilities we have already gained during our stay here.  But most of all, we had the chance to meet many new people and their cultures. There were volunteers from Spain, France, Italy, Turkey, Georgia, Ukraine, Latvia, Germany, and Greece. Through this whole week of spending time together during sessions, team building activities but also just eating lunch or going out together we build up lots of connection with each other. We shared experiences or challenges we face in Poland or talked about things like culture shock and how to deal with it.    An important part was also learning more about Poland, its culture and language. In the morning...

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...

The   27th of March is the International Day of Theatre. Fortunately, this dramatic art is recovering the importance it used to have in our societies, and more and more people enjoy with the different performances available nowadays. For this reason, the library decided to organize an event for children about theatre, specifically about our already famous orange box, the Kamishibai show. In case you don’t know, kamishibai is an ancient Japanese theatre art that literally means “paper play.” It consisted on wooden boards with illustrations drawn on them. The narrator would change the slides and go on telling the story. This theatre was very popular from the 30s till the popularization of the television. Therefore, Marine and I did our version on cardboard, and chose the stories of “The Ugly Duckling” and “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, for they are tales that everyone is familiar with and we needed that since we narrate them in English. We also prepared a li...

The 8th of March is International Women’s Day. Surely, everyone remembers this date, but I discovered this year that each country celebrates it in a different way. In Spain, it is a day for the vindication of women’s rights. There is a female strike and huge demonstrations in the main cities. The number of participants keeps growing every year, reaching 370,000 in Madrid. That is why I was very shocked when, just after arriving to work, two strangers (delegates from the mayor, as I was explained later) came in the library with a bucket of tulips, gave a flower to each of us and three kisses. We also had some sweets from Mrs. Ewa. Apparently this is super common in Poland; every women is congratulated on this day and usually receives some flowers. Marine and I also decided to do our bit to contribute on this day, as part of the activities organized by the Culture Center. We did a presentation -translated by Ania- about Influential European Women, focusing on people or fac...

As foreigners living in Poland we -Marine and I- also like to travel and discover a bit more about this country and its culture. That is why we were so happy when the cultural center in Górzno invited both of us to participate in the activities they had prepared for children during the winter holidays. In case you do not know, Górzno is a cozy little town close to Brodnica, which is close to Toruń. Marine had already been there in a conference about theatre so that is how we met Krzysztof and Agnieszka, the couple who usually manages the workshops in that cultural center. So there we started our travel on Sunday. Being Górzno a little town, it took us forever and four different trains to get there. The man was waiting for us at Brodnica and took us to their home for dinner -at 17.00, I will never get used to Polish timetables, but it was  another proof of Polish hospitality ♥. They are a very nice family and own a goat farm, so that they can make cheese and grow veg...

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...