Gvantsa and Emelyn in Baccarat

Being sick is always a pain in the ass, even more when you are participating in a project which is supposed to be quite entertaining and active, so there is only one solution for this problem. Mama did not raise a weakling, we got to go through it and give everything we got.

The first real group activity was a tour through Warsaw by a former ESC volunteer and his dog. Saying dog might let some hearts beat faster, but this precious little furball was not in the mood of being touched and frankly, I totally understand it. Imagine you do this tour every freaking week with your owner and then all anew a group of wild volunteers appears, and 20 pairs of hands try to pet you. The tour was fairly interesting, and we learned a lot about the city and how destroyed it was, while constantly getting told that Warsaw is nicer than Krakow. It Is definitely not and every person living in Warsaw knows that.

While the week kept on, we did some workshops about the Polish language, being a volunteer and what to do when you start feeling homesick. On day though was more special. Botan, a Kurdish volunteer, had the anniversary of birth, so called birthday. For that Pia, Yolanda and I went to a bakery in the morning, buying a muffin while desperately looking for candles to stick on top. After a while we found them, entering the room cheering and screaming, wishing all the best to our fellow, resulting in a joyful cheer when the smoke of the blown out candle filled the air of them room, recalling memoires of own birthdays and cozy Christmas afternoons.

One memory which I will probably never get out of my head for it is way to amusing is when Guilia, Pia, Iliana, Yolanda, Maria and I stood at the subway stop in Warsaw, putting the phone into video mode and tried to sing the Chorus of the song “Miłość Miłość w Zakopanem” which goes: “Miłość Miłość w Zakopanem”- duh- followed by: “Do dodo Doo”.

Six people means each of us one word. After trying several times to get this right we finally managed, ignoring the weird looks some of the other people gave us.

Concerning Warsaw’s Subway system let me just say that it is amazingly cute, like coming back from a trip to a certain big US-American city this summer I was used to endless stops and even though you start in the city center it takes you at least 45 minutes to  the end of the train stops. Warsaw is a little bit different and way smaller, so the most lines had somewhat 10 stops and it took us 15 minutes to go from one stop to the nearly end.

In our last night we actually prepared ourselves to go out and have some fun drinking and partying but nope we did not. While seeing the pictures of the other ones in Krakow having fun with the new volunteers who arrived in our absence, we were in Warsaw, sick and tired sitting in the cold in front of a certain establishment our beloved boy visited as their whole On-Arrival group.

This does not mean that we didn’t have fun in this night, actually we had a lot, playing the game 21 and failing so hard every time that each one of us has been constantly drinking. We finished our On-Arrival with the feeling of having spent a nice week somewhere else but the knowledge in our heads that it might have been more exciting to stay with our amazing group of friends in Warsaw. At least we made some new friends in Wroclaw and Lodz which came in handy later on.

On our way back from Warsaw I realized that I run out of tissues, making it really hard to breathe if you are having a cold, resulting in the usage of my big towel to clean my nose. Disgusting I know but if you are going to be in the freaking bus for 5 hours you ain’t going to soak in the already way to dry and warm air of the bus trough your mouth.

I don’t know why Pia had this negative conviction, that none of our friends would be waiting for us at the bus stop, making me say all the time that they are going to be there to pick us up for sure. When we entered Krakow, I was already desperately looking for the other ones. First with a smile and the convinced knowledge that they will be there. After searching for a while this smile turned upside down and the ones so powerful and strongly build thoughts began to break down as nobody was there waiting for us. But we didn’t have time to be mad, not yet. Due to the closure of the toilet in the bus Pia and I had to follow natures strong call first before anything else could be discussed or one.

While I was standing in line a message popped up in my phone. Theo was asking where we are because they were here, making my heart jump out of joy and happiness. They were there, just late. As we left the toilet area and met Theo and the others at the entrance of Galeria Krakowska, hugging each of them for a long time because hugs are healthy and one of the most beautiful ways of expressing love towards other people, we met a girl we did not know before. Gvantsa from Georgia and Kübra from Turkey, Emelyn’s and my new flatmate.

Kübra ( we will later reveal when this picture has been taken)

Text by Sebastian, a volunteer from Germany, participant of the project “reACTogether” but also the support of the project “Mobility for Solidarity”.

The project “reACTogether” is organised within the framework of the European Solidarity Corps and financed by European Commission.