EVS club in Pécs (by Jc)

For people who don't know what is an EVS club, I'll explain it a bit.
It's a kind of meeting between volunteers working in a same country. In our case, there was people from Pécs, Budapest, Kaposvar , Miskolc, ect ect.
The volunteers are from different countries, we was around 27, from 14 differents nationality in this EVS club.
Our task was to reproduce a folk tale like a theater (I will try to get the video and put it here), mainly, but we had lot's of meeting, to talk about our life in the EVS, somes advices, and some activities.
In one sentence : A really good time ! Which was also the possibilities to meet lot's of kind people that I hope to keep contact with :)
Here some pictures of this event : click here
Jc

EVS Club Pécs (by Maria)

The last week, i had the oportunity to participate in the EVS-Club . It was in Pécs, a small town, but with an important cultural history. Pécs is a wonderful town and the people i met there had given me a lot of energy, ideas, motivation.....

Also, the activity program, we had in the club, was very intresting. The best part was when we had to do a small presentation for a theater!! It was very funny!!

This experience was one of the most important things for me, here in Hungary, because I met very nice people (FRIENDS)!

its getting to the end... (okay, not really, im just getting nervous)

Okay, there is still time until i finish my EVS, but i have to start to find a job after my voluntary-time. So i decided, to look out for german subsidiary companies. If i dont have any luck, i will also look out for hostels and hotels in the surrounding area of Budapest.
I already had some call offs from some places but i'm still in that exiting working-seek mood and i know that i will fight for a work.

Even until the last day of my EVS - Time.

MatzE

I am adapting

Somes days I have enough energy to do activities in Megálló, to learn de languages, to make homeworks of my university, to do things in the house...but somes days not...although it is normal. But in my case I can feel theses changes more strongly, more extremly... Why? It could be for tehe weather? :)
...I am adapting...

You have sometimes to decide things in your life that can change it, and I have this feeling lot's of times. Only I hope I don't mistakes!

We are going to do news activities in Megálló. I am very happy for this, but I can see that is dificult, because we need more coordination. I would like theses activities work, and it will be interesting, for us aswell for the asociation.

nice days and so on...

About these days in Portugal i will think primary about the car from my friend who hosted me, Rosalinda. Because we done our time almost always by driving through her country. At first i saw a lot about the coast, one time we drove from Lisboa to her city, just along the seaside. The sun always shining.
But personally for me, the last days have been very impressive. We drove through the mountain range of Central-Portugal. Specially the highest mountain of Continental Portugal, Serra da Estrela, was a relief for my soul.
I enjoyed this time, cause it was almost calm and different to the things i know and belong to. But also this travel showed me, that i want to continue explore oher sides of earth, but not just by travelling. By living.

Photographies von da voluntari@s

Hi everyone ! Here you can find somes pictures from our photo group activity.
Enjoy ! :)

Click here to look the pictures

The 3 volunteers :D

365 days of volunteer service

When I look behind me, I'm thinking "Damn! Already 2 months and half ! Was really fast". Then I can say I enjoy to be here, for the good things and instead the bad parts.
Lot's of people are scared to think about one year in a foreigner country, far away from all what you know, family, friends... For me, it was the exciting part, to being in a situation where the things would be even more complicated... But by the way I need sometimes to talk a little with friends/family on internet, to keep in touch, knowing what's up, just to reload my own battery, to feel better when everything goes wrong.
There is an other thing wich can be disturbing : the language.
Cause yes, here, I can't speak french, just english, everyday during this whole year... and cause of this, people who are able to speak my native language in Hungary are like messiah now for me, :p
This is not the only problem with language, cause in add of this, I can't also understand people... They talk together, laugh together, and you don't know what they're damn talking about..not a so good feeling, but motivate me more to learn hungarian more fastly.

If you sad, just keep in mind...

that you never will be confrontated again with the same feelings wich is keeping you down. Its always different, always. Even if you are dealing with the same problem again. You can count on yourself, because you have been already going through this. For me it is a kind of motivation, to managing it. I have the trust, to do it better, and if then is something going wrong, then, at least i have to take out everything which is just good for myself.
just have to trust...

The week!

This week is being hard for me. I am missing a lot of things of Spain… and I am tired almost every day. About the Hungarian, I am finding very difficult to learn it, as with the English I am better, I have moments that I don’t want to speak it.

Now, in our house, we have problems too, but I hope when this week finish, every thing will be well…

The best thing is that I am doing new activities in Megálló, for example, theatre or reiki, I am liking it a lot. Also, we are doing pictures of Budapest, of Buda part, and we are going one day in the week to do it.

Playing football in the courtyard

It's a little project what we do together (EVS-Megallo searching for intresting courtyards), because i never saw these kind of quad's yet. But of course, we also do other kind of pictures, for example going around the streets and shooting everything what's coming in front of our lenses.
And the last weekend, i was playing the first time in a football competition for megallo. It was okay, we didn't went on the first place and i don't want to tell which position we got. For me the first priority was to play and get demand for myself. All in all, fine.

Matthias

Just another movement

It's now the fourth time that i'm moving again into another House, and i like it. Another new place and area wich is somehow new for me. But this time it's in the place where i used to work. Because, for 2 month's now, Megallo is moving into another bigger house. In this situation, they decided to have the halfway-house in the old place of the association.
Actually i'm living with another guy there and i'm feeling fine, again. And who knows, who will come next.

Matthias

Fifty one days in Bp...

The second time that I’m writing a blog…but with one different…I’m writing in English! It was a impossible thing for me, one month ago…
I can feel a change with my language skill, because it’s getting better and better. I’m also improving my Hungarian language in lessons, although I’ve days that I’m very tired, because I must learn two languages.
About Megálló, I think sometimes my few knowledge about the Hungarian language is an impediment for that I can’t participate in the activities, for this I want to learn Hungarian fast.
Moreover, sometimes I’m sad, because almost everyone is gone from Munkácsi (my Home), and I can feel the change a lot. But although I miss them (my family too…) but it’s good to know that I have nice people around me.

Spinning Away

If someone done a Travel, than he can tell something about. Me too, but i was not travelling to recover myself, no i was going back to Berlin, to see my Family and Friends. Of Course it's nice and agreeable to see everybody again, just with the result that you leave this well-know world in two weeks again. I don't mean it in a negative way, it's just a easy pleasant melancholical fact.
Particularly the first three days, in Berlin, i was still surrounded from the everyday life of Budapest. You walk around the streets und you got the feeling that the Surrounding is still in a hungarian-speaking style. Partial, it's a funny and completely new Impression. Then you step into a shop, and you expecting the typical hungarian mentality from the salespersons and you realizing very fast, that you are stuck in the influenced strict all-day „Germania“. In the begining you see it with a smile, but after few similiar situations you are already taken from these habits. You talking and acting and expecting everything, like that this life in Budapest never happened. This hurts myself a little bit.
Then it feels good to be caught by Family and Friends, who are also acting with their usual habits, just with the difference that this is it why you are came back. The wellknown city is like it used to be, there is not to win anything, but the people are it, who giving you back the life you didn't had for a half year. And There it shows, that you living actually two lifes, because i realised in these two weeks that i changed myself in Budapest, my feelings and my behaviors are not the same anymore.
Somehow it is seems logical that you are discover these things in a place where you feeling home, only through it, you beginn reflecting the new experience and understanding it right.
There was the one or another moment where i said to myself: „Damn, you got everything what you need here, so why i have to go back to the, now a little bit, unknown foreign place. But his is it what's keeping me on the road, the unknown.
Because of this i'm happy to be back in Budapest, the momentary surroundings here is,at this time, great. Everything appears different, the sun, the air, my mind, simply everything!
Its foreseeable, but also intressting to feel who you missed and with who you are still connected and, also have to write this, wich one mean something to you.
These Weeks haven't be as it used to be. I was on a wedding from friends, met a guy from the pre-departure seminar who told me about his experience in France, and i was at a Barbecue from my family.
On the way home to Hungary i asked myself, how long it could be, to find my way back to the hungarian habits. This is a very fast told story; out of the train-noticed the hungarian language-back to the flat-meet my roomfellows-arrived; that's it!
Altogether, i can say i felt it like a salvation to be back again here, than to pushing for two weeks into the old knowing things.
So for me it's clear that i would like to stay here after the EVS-Time, i just don't know for how long.

Matthias

¡Bienvenida a Budapest!

Tengo que admitir que me resulta difícil escribir a un ordenador mis sentimientos (es una sensación muy fria...), así que pido perdón de antemano por si no doy lo mejor de mi misma...

Aunque aún llevo muy poco tiempo, considero que la ocasión que te brinda el programa de voluntariado europeo es una oportunidad que no se debe desaprovechar, por lo que de momento solo le veo beneficios. Además tengo la suerte de haber encontrado un proyecto que me llena en todos los sentidos, e intento no parar ni un segundo, ya que quiero absorber todo, recibir & ofrecer... y me gustaría seguir con este estado activo.

Creo que es demasiado pronto para hacer una valoración sobre la convivencia, aunque hoy por hoy me siento más adaptada que el primer día, y espero que la armonía siga creciendo. Siento el apoyo de mis compañeros (y su paciencia para hablar conmigo) y eso se agradece.

¡Y que decir de Budapest! Cada vez que tuerzo una esquina descubro algo que me impresiona más que lo anterior, es la capital, pero es maravilloso tener momentos en los que te encuentres sola admirando Heroes Square, notando el peso de la historia húngara, sin que ningún ruido, ninguna persona, se encuentre a tu alrrededor :)

Ahora mismo la única "barrera" que tengo es el idioma, aunque espero que con el tiempo se derrumbe, ya que como dice una de mis canciones favoritas "las palabras son el mapa de tu vida"... y sin ellas no eres nadie.

Maria

The Last 2 (new) Weeks

It was a kind of change, because many people i knowed left Hungary two Weeks ago and of course the new volunteers arrived. But i see already that they integrate themself very fast in Megallo and Budapest. They are open minded and very enthusiastic about learning the hungarian language.

And i think they coming now in the right time,because our association is planing to move into another house, so there will be a lot to do for the new place.

For myself it was a exiting but also stressfull time. You show them a part of the city, calculate the money and explain them how to pronounce „köszönöm“. The best of the day is at the evening, when we all sit in the kitchen, drinking, eating and then they talk about the complicated (funny) happenings that happened.

And about that, i hope they have more intresting storys to tell.

Matthias

Impressions and feelings !

Szia ! The first time I wrote on this blog, it's surely the most complicated article to do.

Well, I will start with my first feelings here.

I used to live in a small city called "Tarbes" in the south west of France, near Pyreneas mountains. Then it's easy to guess that Budapest is totally different.

Hopefully there are a lot's of calm places too and not as much stress than in Paris. It's a really lovely place, and I invite everybody who doesn't know here to visit at least once.

About my first week here I can say I'm goodly surprised about Megallo. People there, are kind and it's a pleasure to be volunteer here.

The hungarians lessons are really interesting thanks to Zita and Ildi who are good teachers.

For now, we're living in a appartment, in Munkacsy utca, near the Heroes Square (Hösök Tere), this is a really nice area. But we're too many in this Halfway-House.. then I sleep with Matthias in the living-room..

It's not the best to not being alone even a little moment for us, and not the best for intimity too.. Hopefully Matze is a good person who is easy to live with. I hope it'll be solved soon.

I finish my article on this :

I'm happy to be here in Megallo !

Jc

EVS Balatonmariafürdö

The Location for this EVS-Club couldn't have been better. A big area with garden, a fireplace, possibilities for sports, a big terrace, all this in front of the Balaton. Balatonmariafürdö is known as a touristic place but with short-handed inhabitants and in the near of a national park, which is placed in the county named Somogy.
I enjoyed it to be around with the other volunteers, because it was a harmonic and funny community. Of course, we also did a lots of programms together. But we also had programms about the EVS. To work with the others together was intresting, easy and i never felt any pressure from the leaders of the group. We also realized the topics in very different and sometimes in unusually ways. Many times we did breaks because it was continiuous hot. And what we did? Of course, have a bath in Balaton.
These five days at the balaton, were been very interesting and important for me because to handle with so many people from different countries and their temper and it will be memorized by me as a special and important time.

Matthias

One month ago: Our first EVS Club.

About one month ago we went, my colleague and me, to spend four days in the Hungarian Countryside to fulfill our duty/ or enjoy our right as an EVS Volunteer to have an EVS Club at our arrival, or close to.

Travel is paid (Except if you ask for a discount being under 26. In this case you will not be able to get a ‘samla’ (Invoice) and so your host organization will not be able to get your money back… Administration is always the best to create surrealistic and unimaginable rules in every country… I knew it but it’s still surprising me sometimes.) And nice because generally your first EVS Club is also your first occasion to travel around the country. For us it was. Nothing too complicated for me! Matthias speaks ‘magyarul’ (Hungarian) and there are loads of trains getting everywhere in Hungary (Even to Mártély and you can try to ask someone in Budapest if he knows it but don’t have too much expectations for a positive answer.). Sure those trains take more time than a brand new TGV (French high speed train) but they are nicer (As you can see on the pictures below.), generally more comfortable and less packed with people and even sometimes newer! And over all taking time to go somewhere IS something good… Yes, I swear it you should try.

Speaking about the place, Mártély, it's beautiful, close to the Tissza, calm and full of storks. Once again pictures can speak better than me.

So, what about the meeting in itself? I guess you already have an idea about what it was… Lot of speaking about intercultural learning, about EVS etc… Nothing really exciting in itself. Even less exciting because it’s was not new and some of the information we get this day have already been provided to some of us on the pre-departure meeting. I also was surprised to find in this meeting people that have already done the first one and who, consequently had been much more time in Hungary and must have been told the same things already twice!

Ok, I am French, I am complaining you must not be surprised. But what is (maybe) surprising is that I can recognize it was despite of those criticizable facts and maybe sometimes thanks to it this was a nice experience! Much different from the pre-departure meeting. Full of different people, from different countries, doing different things as a volunteer and in life in general, speaking different languages (some of them did not speak English which was good to try to promote the use of Hungarian in Hungary even between foreigners!)

Well all in all it’s worth it… Really! I felt like I was going back to Budapest even more aware that I have still load of things and people to do and to discover and that I could maybe some day be able to speak a comprehensible Hungarian!


Cultural day. Visit to Hódmezövásárhely's Emlé Pont


Cultural Day. EVS volunteers visit Szeged



Mártély


EVS volunteers at work!

The eCsOpFrFeEsEso Situation. by MatzE

I'm a fan of coffee and i like it in many different ways. So Hungary has also its own coffee tradition and in my opinion it is different to my homecountry. If you go, for example, to a supermarket you buy Coffeebones, there is always a machine there where you can grind the bones into powder. It was funny for me to use the right words if i want a good “normal“ coffee. There is a difference to Germany if you go in a coffeeshop and want to drink a coffee. So the first time when i ordered a coffee, they given me an espresso and i thought they understand me wrong so i didn't make any comment about it. But when it happened the second time i realised they used the word “coffee“ for an espresso style. These kind of espresso is much stronger, but have also a better taste. So you also can enjoy it, even if you don't wanted it.
A Failure is always the best way to learn.

First impressions. The second. By Marie

Sziasztok!

I am Marie, 24 years old girl from France. I arrived the 1st of March 2010 at Megálló. First time in Hungary.

I won't tell anything about how it feels to arrive after four hours sleep in a country where you know no one and which language is (still) completly mysterious. Everyone can figure it out. Or not... It's a very personal feeling and the thing is I kind of like it like some people like oil's smell or all those 'normally' unpleasant things.
The important for this blog are much more the feelings I had being in Megálló. And despite of the language and the tiredness. Despite even of this feeling I have sometimes to be much more someone they have to take care of than someone who contributes to the development of the organization, I can say I really like being here, I am feeling comfortable in here.

I thing this is due to the general philosophy of the organization. Here more than nowhere else you are accepted as you are, with all your weaknesses and qualities too. I was a bit afraid that not being an addict, neither an ex-addict nor a professional social worker, my presence here would not be understanding or accepted. Well, I was just wrong. Could be that it is not understanding because sometimes I also have difficulties myself to figure out what am I doing concretely here but I never felt unaccepted.

The only thing I wish I could change sometimes is the part of my brain that is trying to learn ‘magyarul’... I wish it worked faster; I really want it so badly that it makes me angry at myself!

Anyway, I hope I could manage by the end of this EVS to write something in Hungarian here. Would not be perfect but neither is my English... As I said (or not I don't remember) I am French and unfortunately we are not the best at learning languages!

Firsts impressions. By MatzE

I have already been in Hungary before to visit my Hungarian family. I used to do it at least once a year. But when I came this time I felt completely different as if people were not acting the same, as they did not speak the same language, even the food taste different. I guess this is because this time I have serious work to do, it was not holidays anymore.

It is the first time I am going to live for real in another country. I used to live in Berlin for 28 years, and I could find similar things between Berlin and Budapest. Like mostly multicultural atmosphere, anonymity, fashion and of course the 24h-Shops.

The first days at Megálló I felt very comfortable because Timi, OP and other people from my Host-Organisation provided me a place to stay and they gave me advices about the everyday life (restaurants, tickets and supermarkets).

They support me so good that I’m feeling really fine here in Budapest and of course in Megálló.