Septiembre en Kaposvar

When I arrived to Kaposvar bus station the entire volunteers team and Niki were waiting with a smile and arms opened, they went with me until the flat where I was going to live in: Big flat! a 4th floor without lift in a pretty old building, next to the main door there was (and is) and sofa that's seems have been rescued from a rubbish container, and inside the flat there are four more that looks similar than this one that we use as chairs in the dining room. It always smells.to gas. I share room with Greta, a nineteen-year-old italian talkative girl. My bed is small and instead of a real mattress it has a sort of fine sponge. Really uncomfortable. By the moment the rest of Big flat’s team is three more european volunteers: Mert, Etienne and Raigo, plus a nice hungarian student with a sweet voice who is no so often at home and when he is, usually is without shirt and burping while he plays with his computer

Old volunteers wellcome us kindly, we went together for some drinks, the stay with us while we first arrive to the flat, the told us their own experiences and surprisingly after few days I had headache because of all i was learning about the situation in their countries (thank you Mert for your patience telling me how is life in Turkey) and because all the effort I had to do to esgrime in English my point of view having philosophical discussions with Dominik.

Two first volunteering weeks can be summed up in team building dynamics in and outside the office. They were appropriate to break the ice between us, but I miss some more content about the work we will make and about the groups we will work with. As far as I know during this month at least two volunteers felt uncomfortable during their job because how they were treated by the groups they were working for. In my opinion it would be very useful give some instructions during this firstly training course about how to deal some situations. Because mostly a volunteer always want to be kind and polite, and that's great, but sometimes he should know how to stop a situation that makes him uncomfortably in a assertive and educated way, in order to do our job properly and at the same time having as few risks as possible.

Kaposvas is a small city but lively, when we arrive there were a festival so we could enjoy some concerts in the streets. Few days later a honey market arrived and the main street was ocupated by bees.

During the first days a handsome guy from Vodafone company arrived to explain us that we must contract with a telephone company because without it we wouldn't have and hungarian telephone number, and without it we wouldn't have an hungarian bank account, and without it Compass wouldn't be able to deposit the money UE sends them to us. So I choose the cheapest option and formalities started until now, 9th of october, when my credit card is still unusefull.

Second weekend we were here we made our first volunteering activity, play with children of an hospital workers during their family day. Also army musician were there, zumba teachers, limbo competition, people having lunch every where. I was great for me because I could work with my colleagues and strengthen bonds with them and because after fifty times you learn by heart how to do a unicorn in any child arm.

We also had a lesson about the 8 key competences and a test to evaluate ourselves. The third week we also stay most of the time in the office, Niki asked us to make working areas with two volunteers in each one. Daria and me choose Creative&decoration department. they told us what the want: paint walls and doors, change everything to give the office a better looking. We spent next days thinking, searching and planning, checking the materials we need and the ones we already had. we also wrote a document with our ideas and pictures and updated it in trello, we met Andy and she was agree with our plans BUT suddenly painting plans were refused and they prefered the volunteers to changed by hand sofas and wardrobes position in the office.

This week we went to do an Infopoint in a High school to do Compass and language clubs advertising. Language clubs are kind of speech support- games in our mother language offered to the students, they are not free. I have this rejection about getting money from the user of an activity that a volunteer is giving free. Moreover when this activity is not an specific way to obtain resources for a timely goal that had been told to the user.

I think it was in the third week when we received in cash monthly money, and also when we started with hungarian lessons, by the moment we have had only two so thank god hungarian people know some English and for the power of nonverbal language. This week we also went to a career near the lake with some hungarian kids, ate pogácsas, look after the kids games in the competition and hide ourselves if we wanted to smoke because is hardly forbidden show it when kids are around, we don't want to give them a bad example!

After that Compass asked to us to prepare a presentation about our countries and sent it to Niki by email. Done, sent and never used.

They also gave to us a cleaning manual, asked us to make a timetime with the chores distribution and sent it to them, after that they came to the flat to check the cleaning, which make me wonder what kind of bad experiences the could have had in the past.

Nowadays I am in two language clubs, one with Viki, a girl who is moving to Spain and knows much more than she believes, she is so lovely that she gave Alvaro and me a piece of her mother apple cake (by the way I still want this recipe, it was so delicious!), and with three adorable kids, I enjoy them so much that they make me doubt about rejecting give more lessons while they were not free.

It was so funny I started being vegetarian when I arrived and few weeks later in a tombola after a career I won a huge salami.

This week activity was to go to a pavilion with kids from local high schools to advertise Compass and Erasmus+ and to mingle a little and participate with them if they asked us in the activities they had to do. I enjoyed very much because at last I could dance Shakira song with public, and because the team I joined were so nice that they lost part of the afternoon trying to teach me some of Hungarian.

The only free weekly day I asked for in September, of the two I could have, was to be in the beautiful city of Zadar in Croatia. We had another free day and we all went to Budapest with the other half of the team that had had their training course there.

We spent one of the mornings in a gym, half of it looking how a muscular guy explained how to use each machine and the other half playing running-pinpon game.

Of the three times I have been at Art faculty stepped two of them went to parties that I do not know if I wanted to remember even if I could, and if one day I see the photos I always deny that this was me. The third time was to see how was the reality of companies and people looking for jobs. For some reason we did not have the stand that was supposed about Erasmus+ so we spent the morning wandering, talking to some people from the stands, especially those who had something to snack on, and listening to Andy directing. I tried to communicate with the prison booth because I find it very interesting to be able to know the reality of the prisoners in this country, but it seems that it is not possible for issues of data protection of inmates and security of visitors. The only thing allowed is to make a group visit to a part of the facilities that is empty.

I lived a wonderful day of deep cleaning of the whole office, walls included, I do not know very well why, if it is one of the competencies I must develop or if it is something I forgot to include in my voluntary agreement.

Anyway, general feelings after a month here? I spend too much time in the office. I have a great team of colleagues with a lot of potential and energy. We are not part of a specific project. I have set as personal goal to draft a good project for the host household of women and I have hopes of having some support from Compass. We are too many volunteer for the workload that the Foundation has. And I have not very clear that the funds that the EU gives for a foundation with fifteen volunteers does not arrive to rent apartments with real mattresses.

I applied for a project to work with young people in risk of exclusion and I feel that I am not working with any specific group, just participating tangentially in all sorts of activities the Foundation has.