The On Arrival Training Course.

In November, we went to Rozmberk to do the On Arrival Training Course.

This activity is very useful and funny at the same time. It consist in a big meeting with another volunteers that, like me, started the month before their EVS in Czech Republic.

Is funny because you meet another volunteers and this is really nice for make new friends and share experiences about their life in Czech Republic and why they decided to do an EVS. Is always great to find new people doing the same than you. 

But is useful also because,  in my opinion  one of the most important things that you can do there is share ideas for your EVS: Games, activities, projects... . So this is a great opportunity for that. Each person is different and we have different ideas than can help the others volunteers in their respective projects.

Also, we learnt a little bit about the Czech history  and language and other things like what is an EVS, what we can expected, our rights and also our obligations as a volunteers.  We learnt it with the leaders of this training course, they also solved it our doubts.

By the way, the place was really beautiful, Rozmberk is a small village between mountains. We slept in a castle and we walked around the place: big and beautiful forest and a brave river. Really nice place. I want to do canoe there in summer.  

Many different activities.

View of the river from the castle. 

A great start of month

That week was special for the volunteers of Hodina H. We did different activities related by Halloween and Dýňování (pumpkin's day).

Thursday, for example, we went to a school in Pacov, a town that is 25 km from Pelhrimov. Teachers prepared some games and activities and we helped them. It was very funny, kids really enjoyed the event.

Saturday, 1st of November, we had a very funny event at Hodina H. Children could draw, paint and do different activities related with pumpkins. Not only that, they also participated in a dress contest. This special day was finished with a funny walking around the town with the kids, with candles, costumes and this kind of things. For this walking, we prepared different stops with different challenges for them.

The day before, we cooked cookies for the kids with "babička", a senior volunteer of the town. I like cook so for me was really interesting and funny at the same time. By the way, we can improve our Czech trying to speak with her.

Last week was also really special, we went to the arrival training course in Rozmberk, a very beautiful place. I will tell you how was it in the next post. :)

In Pacov school, drawing with the kids  / Hodina H flickr

Babicka offers the cookies to the children  / Hodina H flickr

Cooking cookies 

My first month

Ahoj! Jak se máš?
Hello! How are you?

Well, I am going to tell you a little bit of what I did during this month here in Pelhrimov, working as a volunteer at Hodina H.

First of all, the first impression was really good, like  when I was here in May and June, I was doing a EVS short-term. In Czech Republic if you like nature you will love this country. Pelhřimov, in the middle of Vysočina Region, is wonderful. I don't know if you know this, but Vysočina means something like "highlands" in English so with this name you can imagine how is it. Beautiful lakes, big forests  and an amazing nature that you can visit walking in the different trails. The other day I walked 17km around the mountains close to Pelhřimov.

But I will tell you some of the task that I did in this 4 weeks. We started with the English Club in a school of the town and I have to prepare some games and activities for them. The objective is to have fun and also try to help them with the English Language.

Not only English, I started with the Spanish conversations. It consist in people who are interested in learn or improve their knowledge of Spanish and I have to help them. For me, that is my favorite task here. Who knows if I found my vocation?

We did the first big event of Hodina H since I'm here, it was at Ice Hockey stadium and it was very nice. In this event all volunteers helped the organization. Different kinds of games:  climbing, giant chess, drawing... and the kids enjoyed very much the races in which they participated, different races with different rules. You can see the pictures of this event in Hodina H Flickr.

Monday afternoon the Senior Club have their meeting. Each week they learn something new and they try to keep their brain active. We helped them with the preparation. By the way, it's a good way to improve our Czech because sometimes they asked us for something. At first, it is hard to understand what they want in Czech but some of them speak English.

This month, October, we did a lot of Czech lessons, so we learnt very much about this language. For my is not easy because a lot of words are different of Valencian or Spanish. The good point is that pronunciation is as you read, that's fine. I'm not very good learning a new language but we have a very good Czech teacher: Svetlana.  I like very much to eat and the food so the 80% of Czech words that I know at the moment are related with food, like 'Smažák' (fried cheese).

Is not easy to remember and to reduce in one post all the things that I did this first month. For this reason, I will try to keep the blog updated all weeks and I will not forget anything that I want to tell you :) .

In next posts I will speak about the local culture, food and the differences that I found between Czech Republic and my country.

See you soon.

Event at Ice Hockey stadium / Saturday 18 oct

Wonderful hiking in Pelhrimov

Hello!

Hi world!

This will be the space in which I will tell my experience as volunteer in the organization Hodina H in Pelhrimov (Czech Republic) inside the programme European Voluntary Service. I started this experience at 2nd October.

But it will be not all about my work as a volunteer. I also will speak about my thinks and my experience living abroad.

Fist of all, sorry for my bad english. I will try to do the best and I will sure it will be good for improve my knowledge of english. Anyway, may be sometimes I will write  in spanish or I will try to write something in czech. We will see.

For now, thats all. I say see you soon with the introduction that I did for the Hodina H webpage:

My name is Josep and I come from Silla, a town of Valencia close to Mediterranean Sea in Spain. I'm 26 years old.

I finished my university studies in Human Resources last year. I did some youth exchanges before and for me it was a really great experience. I wanted to do an EVS long term, and when I saw it was posible to do it in Hodina H, I said to myself "why not?, let's go to do it!"

In my leisure time I like hiking, riding mountain bike and to be in nature. Pelhrimov is perfect for that! Everything is green and forests are wonderful. In Czech Republic, landscape is very different than Spain.

I like to meet new people and their views of life. To meet new places and know the people that live in their places. Their culture, their society and, of course, the food.

Being volunteer in another country is, obviously, not to do tourism. Is an opportunity for discover something new, to live local culture and the human nature of the country. It means learn more about customs and traditions and to learn a new language. Is not a unidirectional process, you can learn a lot of the country but the community can learn with you.

At the same time is an good way to improve the capacity and personal skills that everybody have inside. I learn a lot of things helping the others. The personal experience is amazing, but is not only that, you learn a lot of different knowledge. In fact, I think is a great opportunity to gain valuable experience in various fields, which I could use in my profesional future.

See you at Hodina H.

Learning czech