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

LIETUVA

Labas tiems, kam įdomu paskaityti J

Ilgą laiką mūsų tinklapiukas buvo pamirštas, tad pats laikas ir vėl parašyti bei prisiminti. J Šį kartą galiu rašyti ir lietuviškai, kas man labai patinka, nes noriu papasakoti apie tarpkultūrinį vakarą, kurio meto pristačiau savo prezentaciją apie LIETUVĄ!

Aišku kaip įprasta, dauguma galvoja, kad Lietuva tai dalis Rusijos, kad mūsų kalba tai rūsų kalba, kad mes tie, kurie ragauja vodką ištisai. Tad mano darbas buvo paneigti jų žinias, ir parodyti, kad šita maža šalelė, kažkur Europoj, šalia Rusijos, yra unikali, vienintelė ir tai mūsų tėvynė!

Tikiuosi, kad man pavyko, nes žmonės atrodė susidomėję, ypač patiko mūsų graži architektūra. Nors ir neturim tokio gražaus oro kaip Portugalijoj, bet turim kitus, nuostabius dalykus! Pats pagrindinis dalykas, kurį paminėjau, tai skirtingi metų laikai. Pietuose nerasi skirtingų metų laikų, kartais susimastau, ką jie turi. Tai  ruduo ir vasara? Ar vasara ir pavasaris? O pas mus aišku kada koks metų laikas, nors ir nežinotumėm koks mėnuo dabar yra. J  Na, o labiausiai jiems patiko kepta duona, bet kam ji gali nepatikti.  J Manau, kad savo pareigą (jei taip galima pavadinti) atlikau J Mėgavausi jų susidomėjusiais veidais.

Hello everybody ;)

Now it‘s my turn to write a blog without my dear flatmate Sofie! Hahaha! Finally! J And why? Because this time I want to write about my presentation in MOJU about Lithuania. All this time we weren‘t writing, because our life was going on the same row.. Without any changes or special events. Let‘s call it a calm period.

What about the intercultural night: I decided to do a presentation and to show a part of our small Lithuania. J People were paying attention to my presentation, they were interested. I thought that it would be nice to give a few riddles with a prize for them, so on that moment they started to be veeeery motivated! Ahahahaha, everybody likes presents. After a presentation it was the moment to try some traditional lithuanian food, for sure they liked the most „kepta duona“ – baked bread. J I hope that you enjoyed my presentation and the only wish from me is that finally people would know where Lithuania is located, which language we speak and that we are not a part of Russia. J

 

Our experience in a small paradise

It feels like holidays here in Portugal, but the weather is too strange for us: +19! Normally we are used to have a temperature below zero, but it’s easier to like this weather for sure! It will be the first time for the both of us not to wear gloves during the Christmas period J.

The children are having their holidays now, so MOJU is full of people this week. They’re enjoying their holidays and we try to help them to occupy their free timeJ. After 3 months we can say that they are used to have us around and we feel like we are part of the MOJU family. All of the people in this organization try to make us feel comfortable and we really feel appreciated.

Be you, be happy, be free!!

Thursday morning, 7 o’clock: alarm clock goes off. Lisbon is waiting for us! We leave the flat and go to the train station. 3 Hours of travelling and there you are Lisbon. Now let’s find the hostel – Pousada de Juventude de Almada. 15 Minutes of walking and we are in the right place. It’s the first time that we didn’t lose the way during our trips – youhu J.

When we entered the hostel, the view from the terrace overwhelmed us:  we could see all Lisbon! 

After a nice lunch we had the opportunity to meet with everybody who came to this on arrival training. People came from Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, Spain and Turkey. During their projects they stay in different parts of Portugal, but we are the only ones who stay in ALGARVE! (yeyeye) J

After a meeting in the training room everybody went for a nap after this traveling day.

Friday all of us had to present our project and we had the opportunity to get to know each other. Everybody had to talk about their projects and the emotional side of it. Some felt happy, others had some difficulties… It was very useful because everybody could learn from each other.

Saturday we were very lucky, because we had the chance to visit Lisbon. During the day time we did a walking tour with the whole group and we were very lucky to have a few people who already have been in Lisbon and who could guide us. After a long day of visiting Lisbon we went to a traditional restaurant, where we had a dinner. After this almost all the people stayed to check the night life in Lisbon. J

Sunday – What is the time??? JJ oops, we have to wake up. J Traditional Portuguese dances were waiting for us. After that we went to Lisbon again.

Monday was the most interesting day! We left the hostel at 10 in the morning. We started the day with making our own azulejos. After that we went to a farm, there we made Azeitao’s cheese - Queijo de Azeitão. The Azeitao’s Cheese is produced from the raw sheep’s milk. After making this cheese we had a lunch in the farm. What can we say: mmmmm, it was the best meal in those two months!!!! J Then we took a short nap outside on the grass, because we had to go to a place where we could taste wine (Moscatel de Setúbal). After that we thought that the day was finished, buuuut the trainers had a little surprise for us: Portinho da Arrábida! What a beautiful place!

Tuesday we had to say goodbye in the morning, because we needed to catch the train. What a nice train trip, but what an angry conductor! „Learn Portuguese“ he said to us. We know, but he has to learn to be as friendly as the other Portuguese people J  

We can say that we met wonderful people and we really learnt from them. All those days we had really good emotions and now we realised how much we love our project and our hosting organization – MOJU! J