When you are an EVS volunteer and someone tells you that you can travel to a new city, you say yes, even before they are finished. It almost doesn?t matter where it is, or what you have to do; it is an adventure and you apply. The opportunity to get to know another city, more local people is awesome in itself! And just to be more awesome, it was a language weekend with kids and teachers who speak English. If you have been abroad, you know exactly what it means that you can actually communicate with someone about more than where you can find the bus station?

So, just to get all the facts straight, this language weekend was already organised for the third or fourth time, and EVS volunteers from IB-Polska were taken as assistants/helpers so the children can see that there are people in this world, who could learn English at a reasonable level, so it is really not impossible. The whole thing started years ago, with two Kasias being friends during university studies. Kasia Nr. 1 was our Polish teacher in IB-Polska, and Kasia Nr. 2 became an English teacher. They kept in touch and once the idea of a language weekend was born and Kasia Nr. 1 offered the volunteers to help. That is how all of us ended up in Ostrzeszów/Odolanów.

Everything was arranged, we just had to travel and give the best of us. Friday morning (8^th of May) we left Kraków and just after 8 short hours (including waiting of course) we arrived at our destination. The children already know some of us, so it was really easy to connect with them. They were interested in what we could say and that made us feel needed, which is always good. We had tons of games, fun, we visited an adventure park, had team-building exercises, we had to build a tower out of newspaper, and during all of this, we were speaking in English to the kids. That is great, because they were learning without even knowing it! They were very much interested in our presentations about our countries, they participated in the games enthusiastically. We tried to prepare different kind of presentations, not the usual boring ones about the cities and sightseeing stuff. We involved Ukrainian music, Romanian flag, famous Germans, fun facts about Hungary and a mother?s perspective of Bulgaria. It was heart-warming to see that although it was about studying, the kids considered this as an opportunity to broaden their horizons about Europe, volunteering and opportunities. We had an amazing experience with all the interest, love and passion showed towards us, and I think it is safe to say that we would do it again in a heartbeat.

Article about language weekend was also published in local newspaper Ostrzeszów Info.

Story by: Annamaria Hetyey

Photos by: Katarzyna Smiejczak