Bílé Vánoce

With first snow came to Rychnow n.Kn. Lucie Bílá to give here a special Christmas concert called Bílé Vánoce. Together with Adam we went to the Trinity Church to listen her. It was a real musical feast!
Most of songs in her repertoire were in Czech but we recognized a melody in some of them, f.e. Silent Night or Ave Maria. There were moments when I had goose pimples – not only because it was terrible cold in the church. Her voice is amazing! And Lucie Bílá looked like the Snow Queen, dressed in white furs and crystal necklace.
I enjoyed myself at the concert last evening. And I'm sure Adam will subscribe to this.

***

All OKO-volunteer dream about bílé Vánoce. In 3 weeks we are going home for Christmas. ;) But currently we are preparing Christmas exhibition so if you want find out more about Christmas traditions in France, Germany and Poland visit us in Společenské Centrum.

Visit School in Solnice

This monday with girls we went to Solnices's school to animate "English lessons" to pupils between 12-15 years old. This was not a tipical english course We prepared some activities and games for them.

We made 2 groups, I was with Nicola and Joanna was with Christine.

First we started to play Bingo, then we asked them to sit in a circle, someone is always in the middle and this personne has to ask something (for exemple everybody who wears Jean) and people who were a jean stand up and change places very quickly before someone else take it. On my opinion this game was the most funny for pupils.

Then we purposed them to make a quiz about European Union, but only for the older.

It was really interesting even if sometimes youngest didn't really understand orders.

Presentation time

That was the motto of the last week. The aim was to inform young people about European Voluntary Service  and to share our experience with them. On Wednesday we had the first presentation in Rychnov, on Thursday we had two in Trutnov and on Friday one in Oko-Centre.
First Jitka gave them general information about this project - how does it work? what do you have to do? etc.

Than it was our turn. I was a little bit nervous in the beginning but after a while it made fun. We told them our reasons for going abroad, what we have done so far at work and how we spend our freetime here in the Czech Republic. After our presentation our audience had some time to ask us questions. Most popular question: "Do you like Czech beer?" ;)
But they were as well curious about homesickness, what we think about Czech people and why we have chosen Czech Republic.
I hope we could encourage a few people to go abroad :)

Máme novou kancelář :)

Yeaaaah we've got a new office or rather: we have now 2 offices :). 

Adam and Nicola were at their on-arrival-training so therefore Joanna and I were responsible for moving the furniture and decorating the room. 

Now we can use the old room for preparing posters and other handicraft and the new room for working at the computer.

We have as well 2 sofas - so you're very welcome to visit us in our new office :)

It's English time!

Few weeks ago: one of tasks designated to us is the assistance in language courses in OKO. So far I visit English classes for children in age 9-12 and I really enjoy to work together with them. I have to think about some activities for children (worksheets, games etc.) – something easy but not obvious and not boring. It takes time! Basically kids are really open and interested in everything I suggested so I have broken the ice surprisingly quickly. Nice one! And it's lucky, there is always teacher with me, so if there are some misunderstandings, he/she takes language mediation between us over.

Nowadays: Jitka, one of our English teacher, is absent from work because of her holiday and it was necessary to arrange cover, so I've taken up 3 her groups. Uhlala! I'm finding this task an exciting challenge! It's completely different when you are alone with 10 small monsters ;) in the classroom and you are there not any more just for fun (although we have fun!) but to really teach them. And how to do well without good Czech knowledge? Well, it's possible! ;) All my time is taken up preparing these lessons. But it's worth and I hope they like it. Because it's not only up to me how the lessons look like – I have to admit that children are really helpful and understanding when we have a problem with communication. They teach my new Czech vocabulary and I'm developing my speaking skills with every lesson – that's my biggest profit on this cover.

By the way: in this school year OKO formed also English class for 2-3-year-old-children. Lessons begin at 9 o'clock in the morning every Monday and Wednesday. And I took the opportunity to participate in this venture. The truth is, I had no idea am I the right person for this job? Children are so small! Jana, teacher responsible for babies' course, is nice, friendly and creative and she plays a leaning role actually. I just have to support her in action. We are playing, singing, running, jumping – we're having fun! It's really interesting to watch how kids are making progress. 

Trick or Treat?!

Halloween-time means exhibition-time for us volunteers in oko-centre. It is already our second exhibition - time is running really fast. This time we had already a little bit more experience and the preparation was easier for us. But nontheless we had to inform ourselves about halloween and learned a few new things about this day. Did you know that this celebration comes originally from Ireland? Or that it was first called "All-hallows Eve"? I didn't ;)

Besides doing some research on this topic, we had to be creative by making posters and games for our visitors. Yesterday and today were finally the exhibition-days and a lot of school classes have visited us.
It was hard for us to get up so early (how did we manage that in our schooltime???) but we had a lot of fun with the kids. Besides the exhibition we prepared some small games for learning the english halloween words and we made pumpkins. Here are some impressions of the two days:

You can find more pictures on this homepage

Have a nice (and long) weekend :)

On-arrival training

We (me and Christine) are back from our on-arrival training course. We spent 6 wonderful days in Rakovice - countryside placed in the middle of nowhere! - where we lived in an old castle together with one mouse (one is the fact but maybe there were more!?) and 20 other volunteers who are in Czech Republic for their EVS and who have come from all Europe and even from (attention! pozor!) Brasil. So now we can travel in the whole Czech Republic and have bed & breakfast for free. ;)
We've talked about our voluntary job, shared experiences, ideas, first impressions of Czech people, culture etc. and learnt more about teaching methods, non-formal education, communication, feedback and evaluation. I'm sure we can put all these tips and knowledge into practice now. Above all, we had a lot of fun during trainings days and I hope we'll be in touch with some volunteers.

By the way, there was no central heating - people in the 16th century had no idea about it, really ;) so it was cold. In fact it was freezing, especially when we arrived. First challenge was to make a fire in stoves and day by day we had to take care of heating, bringing wood and coal etc. Now it seems to be easy but at the beginning for most volunteers it was the impossible. Survival camp! But hey, who knows what waits for us in the future? I'm absolutely proud of my new skill. :]

Another duty we had was cooking (breakfast and dinner) and it was interesting experience as well. Firstly because we had opportunity to taste various European cookery and secondly because together cooking forms special relationships with a group - the kitchen is the best place in the world for talking, laughing and whatever!

And here are some pictures from training, so enjoy it!

we had each day a czech lesson. here we learn words for food and drinks

Cooking together

bonfire :)

another czech lesson. doprava? doleva??

last evening in the pub ;)...

PS The truth is, I missed Rychnov, my double bed, Wednesday's market... Does it mean I feel here like at home? ^^