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As the time was playing with us, our EVS went so fast.

What an information in our brains:

Do I go home?

Sunday morning waking up in my bed, but here is my bed!

What a mix of feelings. 11 Months we needed to live in another culture, to learn a lot of new things and to understand another way of thinking. We discovered a lot of interesting things in the Portuguese culture, things we would like to see more in our own countries. Other things were not so easy to get used to. But we did our best. Finally, it seems we learnt, we lived,.. But it is time to go home. But nothing' s wrong, we're glad to take this part to our own countries.

Nobody said it would be easy, and at some moments it wasn't. Even Portuguese people are very friendly, helpfull and warm, at some moments you feel alone as a foreigner with your different point of view, values and standards. But dealing with it, is what makes you stronger. Not only to be stronger here, but to be stronger for the rest of your life. With happiness and a big smile on our faces, we can easily say that we go home with a full bag of a nice and different experience, which made us to grow up as personalities.

Thanks to the youth programs which give young people the chance to reach personal goals and especially a big thank for the people who helped us to learn.

We each take different paths in life. But wherever or no matter where we go, we take a little of each other, everywhere!

 

 

Walking on sunshine!!

The last days we changed our environment from Algarve to Alentejo. This nice possibility came out on our on arrival trainings, where we  met a Lithuanian girl, who is  doing her EVS in an ECO community. This place is called Centro Ambiental de Cabaços, Terra, Vento, Fogo e Água. The project is located in South West of Portugal in the region of Baixo Alentejo, Odemira Municipality. The population around is older and the literacy rate is very low. The distances in the region are big and the youngsters are isolated and have difficulties with reaching the places, because of the lack of transport. But economically a lot of areas from the region are based on agriculture and forestry areas.

20 Years ago, Emmanuel W. Gounden started to  build clay houses in the small community of Cabaços. “Here at Cabaços Eco-Centre everything flows according to Nature´s Rhythms and the sacred way of “Peace, Love and Harmony”. This is a philosophy we can all share as a spiritual way of life open to all.“ (Emmanuel W. Gounden).

http://www.cacabacos.org/page19.html

Our trip started in Monchique. From this top of the mountain we could see Algarve and an introduction of Alentejo’s environment.

 

 

On the way to Cabaços, we visited the lake Santa Clara.

 

 

We reached Cabaços in the evening, there we got to know the area of the Eco-centre in the dark. So in the morning we were impressed by the buildings and the big contrast with the environment where we are used to live in.

We spent the day around this area, overwhelmed by the beauty of the nature.

 

 

We ended the day with a yoga lesson where we learnt the basics of it.
 

The next morning we woke up with the sounds of goat bells and twitter of the birds. How good to escape from the sounds of cars, neighbors…

Thanks to the people we were with, we had the possibility to see a beautiful hidden turtle lake.

 

 We ended the day, seeing the life of the local people.

The next morning was the morning of coming back to our home Algarve. It was nice to meet new people, to live a different way of living, to understand more how the little things can make people to be happy, and just to enjoy the moment!

If you are here to help... Grab a shovel!

7 Months already passed and we still have 4 months to discover, to learn, to explore and to enjoy! Last weekend we had a chance to be in an event called EJA – 1º Encontro de Juventude do Algarve, we saw this event as a very important tool for  young people to get to know about opportunities they have in their country and even on international level (youth exchanges, volunteering...) The main aim was for the youngsters to create proposals which they support, so that the followed strategy will be the one the youngsters like to see in the future. Furthermore we can tell that this event was a mix from workshops, sport activities, working groups...
It is nice that people organize this kind of events to promote participation of young people in their region. And it is also very interesting that they spoke about opportunities abroad. We as European Volunteers were happy to see a few youngsters who were interested in international projects. And we had the possibility to tell them our personal experience during our staying as European Volunteers in Portugal. Anybody who’s interested for more information can check the following link: http://ec.europa.eu/youth/youth-in-action-programme/european-voluntary-service_en.htm

We can easily say that volunteering changed ourselves and made us learn from our mistakes. It helped us to get more experience on several levels. We became more respectful and tolerant, but this period of being abroad also learnt us how to be strong and self-assertive.

 

 

Belgian night

A few weeks ago, I organized a Belgian night in MOJU. I wanted them to get to know my country a little bit, so I talked about the place I live, typical food, habits, ... 

The members of moju were especially surprised about the fact that we decorate houses with birthdays, weddings,...

And than there was the Belgian beer. For sure I couldn´t take for everybody, but at least I could  make one person happy. So I asked one question: " How many cm is our famous monument ´the little peeing man´"? After everybody kept guessing, we had a winner: Nuno, the president of Moju was the lucky one to drink ´Leffe´

I liked the evening, because I felt that the members were enthousiastic. Thank you all for coming!!!:) 

Let the creative mind work!

Every Wednesday afternoon we participate in a creativity afternoon, given by a volunteer from Moju. The things the children make, will be used for several things.

P. e. for a festival in the summer. We make use of recycling and natural materials such as water bottles, pasta, tins, etc.

 We believe in the goal and profit of it for children. Seen from our point of view, it’s a very nice activity to discover and develop their creative talent. Working in group also promotes sharing materials and helping each other. Children can also realize how useful those materials can be. And not to forget, it can also be seen as a moment of relaxing. We like this activities very much and we are already looking forward to the next one: tomorrowJ 

 

 

Bora, bora!

 

Here we are again, with our casual life, yes – it’s winter here as well. Just the main difference that this winter is +12 degrees. We found a way how to enjoy Algarves beautiful places. Very often we take our bicycles and we go to the nearest beach: Fuzeta. Buuut, lately the weather doesn’t let us anymore, because it’s raining a lot. Because of this we were a little bit bored, but luckily our organization had a nice activity for us: watching the football game Olhanense vs. Braga. We were very excited to go and very lucky, because a few members of our organization had VIP cards and in that evening it was NOT rainingJ.

After this game, Ginvile changed her thoughts about football and she felt a sympathy for it. And Sofie finally got to see her idol from her childhood: Ricardo Pereira.

 

 

The nice conclusion of this period: the small details in this casual life, can make us feel happy. We feel that the members of the organization care about us and want to make this period enjoyable for us. THANK YOUJ

 

 

                                     

Beijinhos!

Euphoria

While checking the EVS-line ( phases of emotions during the period abroad), we decided that both of us are on the level of anger. So what to do about it? After a while of thinking we started to open the map of Algarve and we decided that we need to discover untouched places: Aljezur we’re coming. J Friday morning we took the train straight to Lagos and from there the bus to Aljezur. This was just a little trip of 3 hours. :P Destination: Praia de Monte Clérigo. Tortuous and hilly roads, we are stronger. J

 

 

When we reached the beach, the view overwhelmed us. We started to walk and on the way we saw a lot of nice places.

 

 

 

That evening we also went to Praia de Arrifana. There we saw a beautiful sunset.   

 

We were glad that we could stay in a typical house to feel the real atmosphere. Saturday morning we woke up very early (7:15 a.m.) to see the sunrise through the hills straight from our balcony. Okaaay, 20 minutes of waiting for the sunrise, the strong wind made our bones to shiver (yeahyeah, we know we had the possibility to come 20 minutes later, but people from the north are always to early).

 

 

After that we had a short powernap and then the day started with a loooooong walking trip through  Parque Natural Do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina with Praia de Monte Clérigo as starting point. It was 6 km walking through untouched places where you could let the silence speak, from the rocky hills and the huge waves to sandy dunes. Buuuut, how to know where we are? As usual we lost the way ( a little bit J ). After walking another ~4 km’s we found our place where we stayed.

 

Sunday, time to go home. But oops, there’s no bus? Okay, one important rule in life: NEVER SAY NEVER. The only solution: hitch-hiking. While considering who’s going to keep the paper and who’s going to do thumbs up, a car already stopped (3 minutes of work, we were so lucky). Woohoo we’re on our way to Lagos.

 

  

After ~30 minutes in the car, we went straight to the beach in Lagos for a nice picnic.

 

 

Bye bye different and nice weekend, we enjoyed you!!!

 

Ginvile & Sofie