Thank You 2014!

Bonjour a tous! 

I highlighted just a few minutes to write a post today, because  it's important for me. Even now I need to "run" to the supermarket and cook something, prepare "dinner" for our guests, but I'll write this post and after - all what I planned...

If somebody ask me to express your 2014 year in 1 word, I'd say it's CHANGES! 
A lot of changing during this year! I promise to myself right now that I'll write about all this "changes" in my life in few days.

Thanks for this unforgettable 2014! I'm thankful for all new people I met this year, unforgettable experience, life lessons that I got, thanks for my mother's, relatives and friends support during this not easy year.
I'm thankful that I'm right now and here!
I'm still upset about situation in my country, but - everything what happens happens for a reason!!! I believe in our bright future! 

1 more life lesson that I again confirm - Keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you! 

I have a habit to write new goals for new year on the beginning of January (as I usually don't have any free time in the end of the year). I have many plans and new goals and I'll spend few hours to writing. 
I offer you all to do the same - it's really works :) 

I wish all your goals to come true very fast in 2015! And the most important good health and hipness for you and your families! 

And now I'm very exited about this NY's night, because for the first time I'll spend it with a big group of EVSors in Paris...
We usually say in Ukraine "The way you spend New Year's eve is the way you're gonna spend the rest of the year". 

I believe that it gonna be unforgettable!!!!!! :) 

All the best in 2015,
Alexandra

Kinti élet

Üdvözlök minden olvasót!

Tóth Péter vagyok. A 4 EVS tag egyike, akik Párizs külvárosában élnek békésen, mint egy nagy, boldog család. Ez az első blogbejegyzés, melyet írok, és igazából fogalmam sincs, hogy kik fogják olvasni.

Ebben az első bejegyzésemben az itteni dolgokról szeretnék írni. Például, hogy miben más, mint otthon (Magyarországon). Mert végül is mindenki azzal nyaggat, hogy „na de milyenek ezek a franciák” J

(Szeretném leszögezni itt az elején, hogy én szigorúan az általánosítás ellen vagyok. Azok, amiket leírok, azok az én megfigyeléseim a városban, ahol dolgozok, a városban, ahol élek és a környező helyeken ahol járok. De abban is biztos vagyok, ha Lyon-ban lennék, Marseille-ben, Metz-ben vagy akár Párizs másik részén, nem teljesen ugyanezeket a dolgokat figyelném meg!)

Szóval október 3.-án érkeztem Franciaországba, a párizsi CDG reptéren szálltam le, és azóta vagyok kint. Én magyar vagyok, és nagyon szeretem a kis hazámat (talán elfogult is vagyok néha). De az az igazság, hogy tetszik, amit itt látok.
Az az általános vélemény, hogy mi magyarok szomorúak vagyunk, és keveset mosolygunk. Hát én nem vettem ezt észre, hogy itt más lenne (lehet, hogy azért mert az otthoni környezetemben is vidámabb emberekkel vettem körül magam, és ezért nem érzem a különbséget). Viszont azt észrevettem, hogy az emberek nyugodtabbak (a hivatalokban, a sportban, a közmunkában és az iskolában is), kevesebb a feszültség. Valószínű, hogy a magasabb fizetés is okozta ezt, hiszen az biztonságérzetet ad. De véleményem szerint nem lehet mindig mindent erre fogni.

Mondok egy példasorozatot. Lássuk az egészség témakörét:
Rengeteg embert látok sportolni, futni, biciklizni. 22 ezres a város, ahol dolgozok, és mindenféle sportszervezet a (judo-tól a teniszig) képviselve van. Mindenki űz valamilyen sportot. A túlsúlyos emberek valóban nagyon ritkák. Péntek este például a stadionba sok ember a sportot választja, buli és egyéb „kényelmesebb” kikapcsolódás helyett. Sőt gyakran az ebédszünetet is futásra használják, és ezek dolgok nem feltétlenül a pénzen múlnak. Pl a futáshoz az égvilágon semmire nincs szükséged, csak magadra és az elhatározásodra.
Az étkezésükre nem szeretnék részletesen kitérni. Mindenki tudja, hogy szeretik a bagettet, a sajtot, a bort és a salátákat. Összességében elmondható, hogy egészségesen étkeznek.

Szóval úgy gondolom, hogy nem csak a fizetésük más, hanem a gondolataik és a szokásaik is mások.

Ami a munkarendjüket illeti: Az ebédszünetek sok helyen 2 órásak (12-14 óráig), és sok bank is be van zárva ebben az időben. Reggel a boltok többsége 9-kor nyit (nem 8-kor mint Magyarországon). Lazábban végzik a munkájukat az emberek (Mondjuk ezt az USA-ban is észrevettem, csak ott gyakran azt jelentette, hogy nem csinálnak semmit)
A szelektív hulladékgyűjtés szerepe jelentős itt, és társadalmilag nagyon különböző etnikumok élnek Franciaországban, de ebbe sem szeretnék belemenni, mert még ezekről a dolgokról nem tudnék beszélni.

Ezeket a dolgokat figyeltem meg, mialatt eddig itt éltem. Összességében a kiegyensúlyozottságuk és a nyugalmuk fogott meg. Mivel idővel mindig minden változik, és én is. Elképzelhető, hogy a véleményem is meg fog, vagy esetleg más oldalról fogom látni a helyzetet. De jelenleg úgy gondolom, hogy sok mindent tanulhatok ezektől az emberektől.

A végére még néhány sort magamról. Az én munkám itt általános iskolákban, foci-, kosár- és atlétikaedzéseken zajlik. Önkéntes vagyok (uniós projekt által), aki segíti a testnevelő tanárok és az edzők munkáját. 3 másik önkéntessel élek együtt, akik Portugáliából, Ukrajnából és Litvániából érkeztek. Elég nemzetközi a brigád. Most nem írok többet magamról, mert a következő blogbejegyzésemben már csak magamról, az itteni életemről fogok írni. Ez körülbelül 1-1,5 hét múlva várható angol nyelven.

Üdvözlettel 

Peti (vagy ahogy itt hívnak Pierre)

Living abroad is a life lesson!

Bonjour a tous! (usually french people say that :)

It has been already 2 months since I moved to France. I can't believe...Time runs so fast!.. It seems like few days ago I was dreaming about EVS project, living abroad for a while, passing exams in my university, collecting and preparing documents for my visa, meeting with my friends in Ukraine before departure, packing my luggages for 1 year (so complicated) and taking a flight to Paris. Et voilà - I'm here :)

I've be listening to this song on an airplane just so it gets stuck in my head :)

I can say for sure that my life has changed by 180 degrees and I like it! New country, FRENCH language, people whom you don't know, culture, traditions, habits, mentality, lifestyle, etc.

I made a challenge for myself!

As for me, every young person should try this unforgettable experience! Communication, working in foreign organization, living thousand km far away from your country with different youth from Europe together, being independent, having minimum budget and resolving problems by yourself could definitely make your life richer in spiritual way...

Probably some of you think that it's kind of paradise - NO, it's not. We also have problems, difficulties and other things. But for those who know me personally - I'm positive girl who doesn't concentrate on negative aspects... Or I try to :)

Plus, living abroad independently you can discover yourself in the way you never think of and open new abilities! For example here, I have already found something about myself what I didn't know being in my country...

Peace. Love.
Alexandra (Sasha)

Second hand first impressions - Clichy-sous-Bois

(Versão Portuguesa)

So, truth is I still don't feel like much has changed. Sure, I'm in a new country, speaking a language I barely knew how to speak before, I live with people that two months ago I knew nothing about, I'm not a student anymore,... hm... what else? (Well, obviously everything changed). But somehow France surprised me with this sweet feeling of familiarity. 

Usually when I move, or even for visiting, The Doors sing to me in their tune of advice "people are strange, when you're a stranger", I think they mean to remind me that I'm the "other one", but it appears that this time they decided to be quiet: people are not strange, every day I become less of a stranger - don't get me wrong, I love the feeling of having my concepts of comfort challenged. And yet, this is not to say I haven't been facing a new reality, for sure I'm not in Porto, I'm not in Angola, I'm not in Cape Verd and for sure (!) I'm not in Krakow. Clichy-Sous-Bois is kind of a mix of all these places, and so many others, that I just realized this may be the reason why I feel so much at home.

Well, I do remember that "thing" pushing my stomach while I walked to Orange Bleue for the first time, how I was trying so hard to look the least uncomfortable as possible following the map on my smartphone, how the streets looked so "weird" and how much I was wishing to arrive to my destination as soon as possible. And the train, the train to Paris and the metro, felt really scary after sunset, or maybe even before. Luckly these feelings lasted as long as first times are concerned, and as far as I remember, The Doors never took the stage again.

One more time for the pleasure of it

The reason why my passion for Clichy-sous-Bois has been growing every day is hard to explain without throwing away a bunch of clichés that may fill the minds with these stereotypical images of my beautiful and so unique town, and so it is that I shall start by the things it has taught me so far.

One of the things that appears to be more a less general is that its inhabitants like to live there. I work with children and their families, mostly mothers, and it's frequent that these kind ladies, that from the first moment took the patience to understand my horrible "French" (I feel I can say it is French now, not so good, but also thanks to them, I can have conversations as an almost normal person), have told me they prefer Clichy-sous-Bois to Paris. The justification generally is that in Clichy people are nicer and, very shortly, they can be themselves. Another thing that also appears to be general is that people are indeed very nice. During the week, when the sun is up, the streets are full of life - children and families everywhere, but not so many cars actually -, there is a street market on my way to Orange Bleue every Wednesday and Saturday that is usually full of people, it's not a big market but I can buy most things I need and pretty nice fresh fish and vegetables much cheaper than in any store.

And then, in a smaller scale, Orange Bleue shows me day after day the art of doing things out of love and passion. I’m lucky to be in a team of highly motivated people, who are willing to give their best to the community and so it happens that their best is really good and I do believe their work influences a lot of lives. The center is a bunch of pre-made rooms, not very comfortable that turned into this thought throw, welcoming space for children and their families – and once again I realize that good walls don’t make the best houses.

It is true that I only know a small area of Clichy-sous-Bois, but my testimony is worth for what it is: a drastically different perspective from the pictures and speeches that Google gives you back in a search about the town. The buildings are not the best, there are definitely some problems concerning the high rates of unemployment, mostly among the youth, and multiculturalism comes with interesting and many times hard challenges, but the truth is that it is the fact that I live and work in a place where people have all the colors, where I can listen to so many different languages a day, where most of the time it doesn't feel like I’m in Europe that makes me wish for more, want to learn as much as I can, and give my everything.

Francisca

EVS - why?

Probably the resons of doing EVS for everyone are very different. And it is not very unexpected. Surprisingly, the reason for going in to this journey may change essentially in your own way during the time. And if I had a list before leaving Lithuania, now there would be completely different one. I believe, after 9 months (this is how much we have left) I will have one more list. Hopefully - the new one.

And it is nice to reflect how your own aspirations change according the time and experiences.

Nothing stays in the same and the shoes get dirty while you walk.

En voyage!

You've always been curious on how is it to live in the French Department 93? Well, here is your chance, directly from the lives of four young Europeans living together during their 11 months of European Voluntary Service!

We are on the way to our "On Arrival" training course. It has been one month and a half and the time has come for the world to know the exciting life of Department 93 (well, don't worry, there are some boring details as well!).

But first, for those of you that have no idea of what or where Department 93 is, in the map it looks something like this:

We actually live in Montfermeil (there on the right) and work in Les Pavillons-sous-Bois and in Clichy-sous-Bois.

Quality of life has been going up since we all landed in Paris on the 3rd of October, we got to experience a shity hostel with our friends, the cockroaches, and the strong smell of weed from the neighbors. Luckily we moved up, really up, awesome upgrade to our clean and huge 4 bedroom, with big kitchen, living room and garden, house, and everything was great, but Pierre couldn't wash his clothes or anyone else by the way, for a couple weeks. Internet was also a challenge, open network with low range, which was impossible to use when Alexandra was using Skype. Everything it's perfect now, we smell nice and the internet runs fast.

Our home in Montfermeil

One thing we all agree from the beginning: French stereotypes of rude people, not opened to foreigners, have shown to be exactly that - stereotypes -, at least in department 93. Everyone is so nice and kind, our house was furnitured with the help and good will of our new friends, and we got extra free French culture and language classes from the best teacher and our good friend Sebástien. Neighbors, bus drivers, people in the market, almost everyone greets us with a smile wherever we go - Francisca and Radvile are best friends with the fish men from the local market. Well, there are still a lot of people that look at us like aliens because we don't speak the language, but not in a bad way - oh and the fact that most people in France don't speak English, that one feels quite true.

Living out of Paris allows us to have a more comfortable stress free life, the prices are also quite affordable (transports are the most expensive thing, going to Paris on a week day costs us 2 hours and 10 euros), but still, the City of Light is ours any time. :)

If you want to know more about our EVS's read our personal posts that, if we are not too lazy, will soon come up :)

Alexandra, Francisca, Radvile and Pierre
(17/11/2014)