#evsblog

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Another day, another volunteer! Here is the introduction video of Amine. He comes from Belgium and just loves music (and drawing as you can see) :D Looking forward to meeting you tomorrow, Amine!

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Last but not least is Nacho! :) He comes from a town near Santiago de Compostela, Spain, is passionate about sports and is not afraid of stepping out his comfort zone. Tomorrow a camino de Santiago (in the opposite direction) awaits him! :D

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Happy Monday EVS world! On 1st of September we will welcome 4 new fellow volunteers! Sounds exciting, eller? :D Today we will introduce you to Anna. She comes from Austria (even though she subtly wants us to believe that she's from somewhere else), she is a music lover and firmly believes that unicorns are real. Looking forward to meeting you, Anna! :) Enjoy the video :)

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My, Nata’s, 6 weeks in Borås

Perfect sunset on Gotland

Varberg

Yoga pose in Southern part of Gotland

Hej from me, Nata :) 

It has been 6 weeks since i came here to Borås to do my EVS. What can I say? All different feelings were there from the beginning. I felt both happy and sad to leave my family and friends, of course goodbye at the airport was overwhelming and hard to handle.

It was even harder because my first day in Borås was my birthday, so I was spending it with random people who should become my friends in the following year, at least some of them will.

The days were passing and I felt excited, excluded, exhausted and everything else you can think that starts with E ::)

I will try to write about something different every time, cause it will be hard to squeeze all of the things which are happening into one post.

This is just my introduction.

My expectations: to become fluent in Swedish and learn how to trust people and learn to be alone My fears: being excluded, homesickness, boredom

Visited places so far: Gotheburg, Varberg, Stockholm, Gotland, Fårö and many more to come.

Until next time, here are some photos of Swedish nature by which I am fascinated.

Nata

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Välkommen till Sverige!

Hallo everyone and welcome to my first blog post!

My name is Charlotte (or Lotta), I’m almost 25 years old and just graduated from university. So I decided I will do an EVS project rather than starting my master degree in Intercultural Communication right away. And in September I finally arrived in a wondrous town called Borås! For the next 12 months I will be working at Brygghuset, a “D.I.Y. arena” for young adults. 

During that time I would like to share my experiences with you to give you an impression of what it’s like to be a volunteer and how it feels to live in Sweden! If you have any questions feel free to comment, send me an email or follow our EVS Instagram account as well as my own. :)

Equipped with a huge backpack and a small suitcase I went on a scenic 12-hour train ride from Germany via Denmark to Sweden. I know it sounds long and annoying but it was actually pretty amazing! I got to go on a fairy with(!) the ICE and enjoy the beautiful Nordic landscape during the ride plus it’s eco-friendly and cheap! When I finally arrived at Gothenburg main station my two wonderful coordinators welcomed me with a super cute sign with my name on it like in the movies. In Borås the other EVS volunteers who already started their EVS project a couple of months ago awaited us with a super delicious vegan taco dinner. Because apparently that’s a thing here: Taco Fridays!

As you can already tell from this tumblr there are 7 more wonderful volunteers in Borås currently. I know I have 11.5 months ahead of me but the first weeks already went by so fast with welcome parties, goodbye parties, birthday parties, city tours, pub quizzes etc. that I’m sure it’ll be over faster than I can say “Knut satt vid en knut och knöt en knut. När Knut knutit knuten var knuten knuten”. 

Oh, and how could I forget about the most Swedish daily tradition ever: fika. It’s basically a fancy Swedish term for tea time/coffee break when you get to socialize and enjoy some yummy kanelbullar or other sweet stuff! Some people also believe, fika could bring world peace...

Actually, Borås is not that cold. It’s rainy. That’s probably why they covered the musical “Singing in the Rain”. But the good thing is that doesn’t stop people from starting amazing projects like the No Limit Street Art Festival! During one week artists from all over the world took over the city to create some amazing art work that’s here to stay. Our awesome coordinators also arranged a guided tour in English for us where we learnt more about the artists and could also see them paint and sometimes even talk to them! On top of that they also offered everyone to paint on an Open Wall so we EVS volunteers became very creative to promote our badass program as you can see below. ;)

All in all I had an amazing time the first two weeks especially because everyone made me feel very welcome – the other volunteers, my coordinators, my mentor, and also my new co-workers. So I would already like to thank you so much for all your efforts and for making this such an amazing experience for me! I am very excited for what is yet to come and hopefully whoever is reading this can benefit from it in some way. In my next post I will introduce you to my working place!

Vi hörs!

Charlotte

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-3 days to Charlotte hitting Borås! :D

She comes from Germany, loves sports (NOT!) and has green fingers. If you spot someone cycling along the Öresundsbron with a lot of suitcases this Friday, that will be her. xD

We won’t say too much now – we will let you get to know her from this video! :)

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Summer Activities Evaluation

Hej there all you wonderful people! This time I’ll be covering one of our legendary staff meetings! Given the illustrious close to the summer period this end-of-August, our enlightened administration decided it was time for a sizable portion of Väster’s youth leaders to meet at the picturesque Lönnen conference corner and share fika their thoughts on this summer’s trials and tribulations. For the occasion, last week, our awesome team of event planners, consisting of Emelie Nillson, Moa Forsberg, Tina Brodin, Anethe Tolfsson, and Ida Grindsiö, put together a series of fika games and team exercises to help us analyze and build upon our experiences.

Some salient points in pictures:

Round one: Randomized team self-appraisal. Known for its lack of actual fika, this process is dreaded throughout employee communities the world over. Seriously though, the point of this exercise was to grade and elaborate on our own contributions made concerning the development of our feriearbetarna (summer workers), mentoring outcomes and the cultivation of a professional work environment. Naturally, everyone had a lot to say. 

Hmm, that there’s some fierce debating going down. Oh, Hi, Emelie!

Note: picture taking, also a good way to get out of doing stuff, or so I’ve heard.

Round two: BrainChaos-storming. If you look closely, you might find DoomKart Destructo Derby right next to the kitchen sink written on the board! Yeah, we pull no punches when it comes to summer activities.

And the Highlight of the afternoon: FIKA, ostensibly not the only reason we I was there.

Omnomnomnom…so hungry I don’t even care it’s still wrapped!

Round three: Choosing your favorite Introduction Week methods, measures and activities. 

The veteran having his say, with yellow stick-on dots, a method of voting first implemented during Sweden’s fika-prohibition crisis of 1963, when the country’s reigning monarch moved to ban the practice in hopes of improving productivity among the working classes. Naturally, he was deposed and Sweden has been a Parliamentary Confikaration ever since.

(not pictured) Super Productive (swedish)mile-long questionnaire Emelie translated in its entirety for the only person there with a sub-par knowledge of Swedish: yours truly.

Special feature: Step right up and cast your ticket into the Brave Suggestions Box!! Bet they never found out which one was mine!

That’s it for now. Till next time!

Best, 

Cristian 

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- ‘I am going to write a blog post.’ - ‘Do that.’

After some time into their project, every EVS volunteer finds some favourite words or expressions in the language of the country where they are working: for example, Stefano’s favourite Swedish word is lagom and mine are fika and loppis. As a lover of languages and as a translator, I have noticed some interesting things about how Swedes communicate, both in their own language and in English.

One of the best – and funniest – features of Swedish communication is, weirdly enough, not a word but a sound: it is when people quickly inhale a little amount of air to say ‘yes’, express agreement or simply indicate that they are following you. As in my language (and I think in the rest of the world) you make this sound when you are surprised, shocked or just got scared, at first I always looked around to see if something was wrong when a Swede made that sound! And it is hilarious to see them sitting around a table (for example, at work meetings or in a café) and sighing as if they have no air left in their lungs!

Another thing I have noticed is the way they tell the time. For example, they say 'halv tio’ (meaning ‘half an hour before 10’) for 9:30, whereas in English you say ‘half past 9’. It is like they think half an hour ahead! You have to be very careful when a Swede speaks English and does not pay too much attention at what they are saying. It happened to me more than once that a Swede told me to meet them at 4:30 (they said ‘half four’ and I thought they meant ‘half past four’) but they actually meant 3:30 (‘halv fyra’ in Swedish)!

Last but not least is the phrase that I find most annoying and also in this case it is when Swedes speak English: ‘do that’. It is the literal translation of ‘gör det’, which they basically use ALL THE TIME to acknowledge a fact that someone has just said. Let me give you an example: if Gustav and Mia are having a chat and Gustav is so nice to prepare some fika and said ‘Jag ska koka kaffe’ (= I’m going to make some coffee), Mia would reply ‘Gör det’. Mia actually means ‘Ok, I heard what you just said’ or ‘Go ahead with it’ and that would be the end of the conversation. HOWEVER, the first times someone told me to ‘do that’ I found it a bit bossy and I always thought to reply ‘Yes, that’s what I’ve just said’. But you can’t be mad at them, they are just trying to be kind!

That’s all folks! I leave you with a funny video about how Swedes say ‘yes’ in Umeå – enjoy it!

Puss,

Chiara

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En räv på Norrbydagen

Hej allihopa!

In this blog post I want to tell you a bit about Norrbydagen (= Norrby day), which took place on 27th August in Norrby, the area of Borås where my EVS project is based.

This year the event was more special not only because Cristian and I were there (eh eh!), but also because the upcoming opening of the Nya Norrbyhuset (= new Norrby house) was announced! It is an allaktivitetshus (= house where different activities take place) and will be open in the New Year, marking a fresh start for Norrby and welcoming visitors of all age groups. Cristian and I are also part of the workgroup on the new house and it feels so special to be involved in the organisation of the Norrbyhuset with all the staff. We are all looking forward to the next year and cannot wait to take the ‘Arbete pågår’ sign off the house!

Förlåt, as usual I lost track of what I was saying. Back to Norrbydagen: on that day the sun was shining and Norrbyvallen was full of people and stands from different organisations in Borås. There were henna tattoos and face painting stands, bouncy castles, a stage where various artists performed, food stands, loppisar (= second-hand markets, one of my favourite words in Swedish along with fika), and a stand for Mötesplats with a postbox to collect people’s suggestions on activities in the future Norrbyhuset.

There was an EVS-themed table too! We had a large map of Europe that Lidia had drawn (so you might understand why Spain was the biggest country on the map) and Cristian and I painted with a question saying ‘Vart skulle du vilja åka i Europa och vad skulle du vilja göra där?’ (= ‘Where would you like to go in Europe and what would you like to do there?’), which people would answer with a post-it that they would stick on their chosen country. Some of the answers we got were: ‘France: to watch a match of PSG’, ‘Italy: to eat pasta and pizza’, ‘Spain: to meet Cristiano Ronaldo’ (both boys and girls wrote that!), ‘Northern Ireland: to go hiking’ and ‘Greece: to go fishing’ and many more.

But the greatest attraction of our table was the flaggabingo, a type of bingo that Cristian and I prepared which had flags from countries in the EU instead of numbers. We thought it was a good and fun way for the children to learn about the countries in the EU and we offered chocolate coins (Euros, of course) to the winners. We were very happy with the success of the activity (and also very tired!) as the children always asked to play again after a game was over.

As you could imagine, Norrbydagen was a day that demanded a lot of work and preparation but it was also super fun. I had delicious Somali sambusa for lunch, had my face painted as a fox, met a lot of children and young people I worked with during the summer and ended the day dancing on the music played by a Latin American duo (a total fake as they did not know how to play Macarena – I mean, are you serious?).

That’s all from me now!

Hälsningar från räven Chiara

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When you are an EVS volunteer on a budget and you desperately need to cut your fringe...

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MidEVSommar

I know it has been exactly 43 days after Midsommar, but I thought it is never too late to share our impressions (and pictures!) about this typical Swedish celebration.

As the name suggests, Midsommar marks the middle of the summer and the Swedes use it as an excuse to eat a lot of food – among which there is the controversial surströmming (funny-smelling fermented herring) – drink alcohol like there’s no tomorrow and make fool of themselves by dancing the Små Grodorna song around a maypole.

We EVS volunteers gave our best in celebrating this festival in the picturesque Ramnaparken, where we had fika with vanilla ice cream and strawberries, wore flowers in our hair and danced around the Midsummer maypole. After a lot of effort and begging I even managed to persuade Lidia to dance with us!

Hope you enjoy the video!

Chiara

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We also get to enjoy our new FAVOURITE  football team. IFElsborg!

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Hello guys! Here you have Danutė ’s video! As all of you can see, she comes prepared for the weather and she’s not scared of it! 

Everyone is looking forward to meet you, Danutė. I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time here in Borås!

Enjoy the video ;) Lidia 

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Dear people of the world, 

Here you have the best of the best in Europe: Victor’s Video!! I am sorry to say I get confused and don’t know how to call you, Anastasios, Victor...

I had to make the video shorter so it fit, but there is more to come, here we go!

Hope you all enjoy!

Lidia

PS: We had some technical difficulties with the videos but they are fixed now. Enjoy!

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Chiara in Boråsland

Hej lovely people of the EVS world,

This is my third week in rainy-sunny-then-rainy-again Borås, yay!

As soon as Cristian and I arrived, we received a super warm welcome from our EVS family and the people and staff of Norrby and other youth centres in Borås in a party with tårtor, saft and kaffe – it was more than we could ask for!

Lidia and Stefano took great care of us, as if they were our older siblings: they showed us around the city, told us the dos and don'ts of living in Guldbrandsgatan and answered all our questions regarding our work in Borås.

These three weeks have been so eventful that I will just list a few things that happened and what I learnt from them:

1.      If you are in Sweden, do as Swedes do�� but not too much! I was so impressed by the Swedes’ love for exercising that I ventured in a sweaty jog (continuously interrupted by me sitting on benches) in Kransmossen, a large park surrounded by a forest where people go to have a jog, a walk with friends/family/dogs and, of course, a barbecue! If you are not good with orientation, don’t do what I did! Don’t leave the signed path to walk into the forest, get lost and then ask a girl passing by on a mountain bike to help you get out of there!

2.      Be open-minded about food. Don’t pull a weird face and scream ‘This is absolute blasphemy!’ when you see someone eating a pizza with pineapple or chicken on it (which I always do), but be brave enough to try one. I had a slice of kebab pizza last week and actually it is not that bad – but you can’t call that pizza anyway, sorry.

3.      Make the most of the nice weather. When Cristian and I arrived, Borås was very good with us and gave us a sunny and warm week – it almost looked like we were in southern Italy (haha, jokes!). During these days we were always out – me trying to get a tan every time I had the chance –, exploring the city and having BBQs. Now that the typical Borås weather is back (i.e. you wake up to a sunny day, then it gets cloudy, then it rains, then it is cold, then it is sunny again – all this while you are having breakfast), we are happy that we enjoyed these sunny days and are hoping for more to come!

I think that is all for now and to all the people thinking about doing an EVS project, just do it! It is a unique experience where you can learn new skills and try new things but, please, just think about it twice if you want to have a kebab pizza!

Hej då från Chiara

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Stockholm blog #1

Hej dear readers! Here I come with fresh news from the capital: Stockholm. I was thinking about doing a couple of this, because I feel I have so much to say. There will be the social side of the On Arrival Training (OAT from now on), and then you’ll be able to read the more technical part of it. Don’t be afraid it was really interesting from my point of view and also satisfying and fun. Bear with me!

This is going to be one of those things you never expect from life but when it’s really happening you realize it was a dream of yours just you never thought about it that way. Imagine: you and 8 other volunteers (fastly becoming like family in the few days you have spend with them) running away from the pouring rain and get to the cheapest bar that a friend of a friend said it was nice.

You have it? Ok, then imagine one of your newly found family members says “There is karaoke at 10, should we do it?” Your first answer is HELL YEAH! But you have to wait two torturous hours for it to start and two (even three) seat changes after (and a 30 minutes hour delay) it’s your turn to sing. AH! You are crazy scared because of your stage fright, obvs. But you are not alone and every member of your group stands up to sing with you, GUESS WHAT:

Mamma mia!

See? I told you, you never have thought about it before but now you know. You have to sing an ABBA song in a Karaoke bar (in Gamla Stan) with all your friends and have a standing ovation after it because heck yeah, you just sang ABBA in front of 30 other people and they didn’t get offended of your choice! Why would they? ABBA is great.

After that you are bonded forever and ever.

The rest of the trip was a rollercoaster of running around, museums, sightseeing and nights of food made with the best of the Armenian and Ukrainian love, plus pasta a la Spanish because they say no one cooks best and cheapest like a Spanish in a hostel kitchen.

To the rest of you, lots of love guys! Hope to see you super soon!

Lidia