Project title:Short-Term EVS:
Leave Your Trace – Outward Bound Croatia
************************************************
Project title: EVS DRAGON’S QUEST FESTIVAL, July 2018
I’m sending you photos of the journey to Hrvatska , below u can find the photos! We did the work , we had some fun , some troubles and so on.It was really nice time being there.It was really nice because we was sleeping in the woods, pure nature we was able to did all the work on time.The people who was coming to the fest was smiling , and was really happy.
Stefan Todorov, 27 years old
***********************************
Project title: To serve, to strive and not to yield
“To serve, to strive and not to yield” was long term project in 2017. It is not easy to describe everything in few sentences, so this time you can see Mirella’s impretion of her stay in Croatia in pictures.
Project number: 2016-3-LV02-KA105-001337
Project title: International snowfall 2017
”Every big journey begins with the first step forward” I couldn’t agree more!!!
by Borislav Elinov
For me, my big journey truly started when my nimble leg joint set foot on a plane towards Frankfurt Germany, and afterwords from Frankfurt towards Riga Latvia. You may say, and also agree, that this is somewhat indicative to all EVS journeys, correct? Yes you are, but for me, things were a tad different, or dare I say peculiar… or myriad of other lovely auxiliaries. For me this was my very first time on plane, my very first time outside my country of origin, and all of this completely alone, without any phone signal, or a map, or any aiding hand or voice to guide me.
For the majority of people here, on this page, this may sound quite scary or terrifying, and I could see that, I felt it myself, but what I did was quite opposere to what my head was telling me then, it told me stop!
be safe, donít try! but I did, I kept pushing myself forward relentlessly, saying NO! to every small fear or insecurity popping in my head, and I am extremely proud of that. On that day I truly understood that fear itself is more ferreting than the road ahead. My first stop was Frankfurt’s Airport or in German: Flughafen Frankfurt am Main, also known as Rhein-Main-Flughafen. My mind couldn’t fathom the size and perspectives of this marvelous creation of human ingenuity and strife.
The airport consumes more than 2000 hectors of land, it has 4 landing strips, 2 terminals capable of accommodating and service around 65 million people every single year. Truly a sight to be marveled at, true masterpiece of human dedication and science. With my arrival in Latvia I felt something quite enlightening, something I always though was true, but never had the chance to experience or validate to myself: the idea that the world is one big unified place, a melting pot of human experience, divided by borders as real as flying pink elephants.
In reality, when you think about it, all people share the same daily routine, they all have their morning cup of coffee, waiting/running after their bus to work, some miss it, some barely managed to hop on it the very last second, some are already waiting for the one that is late under the inpatient sound of the staccato of their shoe drilling a hole in the concrete. Sounds, colors, all of humanity sharing the same pallet of human experience, what a wonderful thing. I would describe Latvia as modest, ”the modest mouse of Europe” With a population of just 2 million people I guess the ego deflates or starves, I guess in some instances size does matter.
The capital of Latvia Riga is one outstandingly gorgeous place indeed, and very different from anything you see in Bulgaria culture and architecture wise. There the medieval anglo-saxon architecture style rules the city skyline, indicative of the rest of the rest of Latvia, but where the capital shines in extravagance, the rest of Latviaís shares more modest and practical way of doing and building things.
The place where all of us were situated was interestingly names ”Vecpiebalga” a small town with not a lot of buildings around really, but those they had, even they were not much were ascetically pleasing and well looked after. The population was of no mo
re than 600 people, not a lot by any Europen standards, but the interesting part was, that even though the population was small, the town did not lack any convenience. One could find a bar or a good supermarket without any struggle, and be contempt with the goods and services provided.
The region of Vecpiebalga shares a common geography with most Latvian cities and landscapes, the highest point in Latvia is just shy of 300 meter, which makes Latvia very spacious with small portions of forests and small bodies of water popping everywhere around the landscape, this makes Latvia extraordinary beautiful during the warm seasons. I’ve heard they have, and are very proud of their endless fields of flowers everywhere, pity I was not there during the summer to experience them, but if you are considering visiting Latvia, do it during the Summer.
I was fortune enough to share my lovely Latvian experience with 13 other people from all the parts of Europe. I’ve met few friends from Greek and Cyprus, they were one of the most warm and nice people one could have the pleasure to cross paths with. I also had the privilege to meet two lovely spiritual butterflies from the great country Norway, people with the most fascinating ideas and thoughts and perspectives of life, their lovely minds felt like thousands constellations exploding inside a single point on the top of my fingertip, how could one not adore such pleasantries? I’ve also met two very warm and passionate people from Spain ”ole ole ole” I also had the pleasure of experiencing few extraordinary, beautiful, strong, amazing (every flattering adjectives) ladies from Portugal with great style and straight in abundance. Last but not least, I also met an Italian kid with a guitar and soul as warm as morning pasta, and a heart made of sugar (but never mixed). later I made him my room mate, and he was the best at that.
Our task and duties in Vecpiebalga was to make Life ther
e a bit more colorful and happy. Our tasks were numerous in nature, from visiting schools, youth centers, kindergartens, making children and youngsters alike happy and more positive, with myriad of different crafted by us activities, varying from games, to treasure hunts, sports activities, and everything culminating in the end with a big talent show for all the people of Vecpiebalga and neighboring villages.
The biggest chunk of our labor was dedicated towards building the event known as: ”Internationl snowfall 2017 talent show” and of-course participating in it as well together with the youth of Latvia.
Our duties during our lovely month regarding the talent show varied from making decorations, parts of the main decor, decorating the whole thing itself, organizational tasks, to crafting our own acts for the talent show itself.
Our participation in the show was vast, some of us had their back stage duties, one of us was a presenter, another a judge, others had to participate in the show itself. We had a Greek dog trainer, a Portuguese belly dancer, a Norwegian hero beat-boxer, an Italian Portuguese Sunny duet, everyone of us had their small part during this grandiose event, and we did well, we were amazing!
In the span of 30 days I’ve learned a lot of things, I saw that in Portugal angels walk around with their feet strongly griped to the earth, always with a small plastic bag in one tiny hands, singing Sunny by Bobby Heb as they go about, others were filled with boundless love and bright dreams of a future with a curtain one that they can not breath without. I discovered that one man can have the dedication and the will to walk 780 km by foot just to find himself in the salty waters of Spanish riviera. I was able to see that one misunderstood soul can find solace through the glass of a camera and the power of his boundless drive to learn and understand and speak out would what he thinks it’s right. I saw a tiny dreaded soul always fascinated by the sky, so enchanted by it, as if someone was waiting there for them, and maybe that is true… but not yet!!!
A lot of friendships were made and that was the most beautiful and sad thing of it all, for me the whole experience was a productive one, I found what i was looking for, I realized a lot of stuff about myself, and I will not tell you what those things were, because its different for everyone, some of managed to find love, others already had it and were quite contempt, others were too busy looking for themselves, and I guess some of them managed to find what they were looking for, and they did, and they bough it home with them, some had a different fate, some were forced to leave at the doorstep of a numbered terminal, with a big bag of luggage and even bigger hug goodbye, and a ticket to with last destination world.
You can see a video here.