Month: September 2019

Our last week passed by us so quickly we did not even realize. Day by day the center became more colorful and more joyful. The great atmosphere that we made by dancing, singing, working, communicating and smiling filled the room. We were tired in the last day of work but we encouraged each other so we can finish happy the center. The opening day approached us so fast, we were not ready to say goodbye to each other and go home.

At the opening we had a raffle, a lovely girl that came to sing for us, and lots of food, drinks and games for the people from the neighborhood that joined us. The KAMATE team aka purple team is now spread in all different countries, but we are still talking and helping each other.

We were a great team and with this diversity we had made this team so cool. We converted any fight to a material for memes and we all have an amazing feedback of these few weeks spend as a little family.

The final week came. We had a long journey together. It was full of unforgettable moments, joy, fun and at the same time, many hardships, and a lot of time spent working. But in the end it didn’t matter. Nothing could compare the happiness we felt when we saw all that kids playing in the center, the young people using it and starting to make a karaoke moment in the day of the opening and all the locals leaving in peace after all the challenges we had in the beginning of the project. I can’t put into words what I felt. I couldn’t decide if I’m sad because we already finished and the time flew by me, or be happy of what we’ve achieved together.

            But this wasn’t the hardest moment of the week. The hardest part of the project was when we finally had to say goodbye to each other. It was strange. I don’t know if I will ever see them again or if they will visit Romania after this project but in that moment I just wanted to stay a day more and talk more and enjoy more time together.

            Anyway, they are already home, staying with their families. Talking to them about this experience. Showing their friends photos of their stay in Romania. The old and cozy life is back again, but a little bit different. We all learned something about people and ourselves, about solidarity and we will remember those moments and will use all that we have learned to make a better world, to teach people new things and to make a better future for everybody.

This week started with less energy than the previous one because our first thought when we got at the youth center was: ‘ oh no! scratching the walls again ‘.

We kind of struggled with the walls for almost 2 weeks. Lucky us, 2 volunteers came and helped us! One of them is a nice girl, Emilia, who brought us some home-made chocolate to cheer us up. The other volunteer is Mihai who came with his tools from work to help us finish faster. With their help and kindness, we managed to finish in time cleaning the walls and began to fill the holes with bricks and cement.

We split in groups, one group will stay inside to take care of the walls, the other one will be outside to take care of the vine, the ground and the door. Now the windows are free without leaves and the door is ready to be painted. Also, we cleaned the ceiling, fixed and leveled the soil outside. For the fence, we had a long discussion for the color we are going to paint it, not by consensus, by voting.

This week has been quite tiring, but all the fatigue was worth to see these beautiful results. We learned how to communicate with each other in that way to find new solutions and how it’s better to work together.

In every week we find new problems, but now we have the ability and the strength to fight through them, together, as a TEAM!

This week began with a conference about what is happening in this project and a lot of nice people came to speak and to see what the first wave teams did. At the end it was a cool concert too.

This week was the first one we started to work in the center. We started to clean the space and the walls. Today we are gonna have a concrete floor too. At some point we had problems with some materials because we didn’t know how to use it. Mihai (president of FITT) came with some people to show us. We are really sorry for Mihai because we throw some dust on his clothes but we hope he managed to clean them. Ayman left too. Every week someone is leaving because of problems and we just hope that we will manage to finish our work. The saddest part is that Ayman couldn’t come to the goodbye party which was really nice and everybody had fun. I need to say something about the opening events from the other teams. Everybody was surprised and amazed for what they did. They made some really nice spaces and gave us so much hope. I appreciate what they did and I think everyone will miss them a bit. On Monday we will move in the hotel from the 3rd floor of the youth house which is closer to our center and it’s really nice. That’s all I can say about this week. A really hard and beautiful time with our team and the other teams too.

Week 3 started real good on Tuesday, we had planned a meeting to discuss the things we need at the youth center. First, we managed to bring some furniture from the donators to the youth house and after that we started polishing and painting the chairs and the closets. Together we’ve made some nice-looking furniture. One of the guys had this nice idea to paint on a black table a chess game. We finished our work pretty quickly, so the next days looked more easier. But oh, we were wrong. 

Finally we found out what hard work is expecting us inside the youth center. We managed to get almost all the paint down from the walls and clean a bit the inside. As on the outside, we got down some graffiti and some cement from the white walls and cut the bad grass with our hands. After a bit of time, some children came to us and said that they will collect money to buys us the necessary materials to remake the youth center. Close to the weekend, the children came again with their mother to bring us joy and muffins made by them. 

This week passed by us really fast and we ended it with happiness at the goodbye party where we exchanged gifts and spend some time with the others volunteers.

Article no.1 from the green team-community engagement week

The community engagement week was really exhausting. For the first time the team had a common meeting with the old teams and we had a nice time together. We heard a lot of good and funny stories. The sad part is that Carmen, a member of our team, left us because she had some problems. 

The next days we had the street action. The first day was difficult because people were thinking that we want to promote some religion. In time we evolved and in the third day people started to greet us. We were surprised that people came to our event because at some point we thinked that nobody will come. The truth been told they were just twenty-something people but for us it was a big surprise. People already came with some donations and we are grateful. About the personal time, we didn’t have so much time so we spent the nights with the rest of the volunteers in the yard of the dorm. The cultural night was a good moment for us to enjoy each others presence and we found new thing about some cultures, we laugh and at some point we had an emotional moment from the Russian team.

Our team has some little problems with communication because we are so distinct and we have different points of view. We have some spicy discussions but is not a problem because at some point we compromise or cooperate. The best part, in our opinion, is that nobody is holding a grudge. I think that this is a good challenge and I’m happy that we learn new things ever day. We had a discussion with Nadia this week about some rules and we clarified some things. I think in time everything will settle and we will be able to build a beautiful and cozy youth center