My experience of the teambuilding- a real life fairytale

Today, it has been two weeks since the day I started my project in Czech republic. But it feels like I´m already living here so much longer...Nonetheless, this time I would like to write about my first week in Ostrava.When I finally arrived at the student dormitory I´ll spent the next 11 months of my life in, an other wave of euphoria attacked me. I was singing and dancing through the whole apartment and went several times on the tiny balcony to totally freak out about my view on strange colored skyscrapers and industrial ruins which have already seen better times. Hectically I texted my new roommate who still had three hours of traveling lying ahead of her and tried to share my pure excitement about the flat ( " WE´VE GOT RAINBOW BED SHEETS !!!") and the people I´ve met so far with her. She was just as excited as I was and we didn´t stop hyping each other up. When she finally arrived in the evening, the arrival day came to a perfect end because we liked each other from the beginnig...

Both of us were really looking forward to meet the other volunteers who had arrived so far on the next day and our expectations weren´t turned down: From the beginning, all of us got along together really well and our first trips around Ostrava to discover the city already indicated that our group of volunteers will probably become a great communitity in the following months. But all of the new impressions and people, the unfamiliar size of the town and communicating in English was also really tiring. On the first evenings, I always fell to bed tired to death but I really struggelded with actually falling asleep. I had the feeling that my brain just had to work up so many things and all the new experiences were flashing through my head, which made it impossible to sleep early. So from the beginnig, I was always tired and it hasn´t changed until now, although I´m sleeping much better in the last days (*sleeping until 12.00-13.00 should may also not become my best new habit) . Nonetheless, every morning I wake up motivated and curious about what this day will be like.

All of us were especially excited about our first week of teambuilding .And our expectations were totally met! When we finally figured out which tram we need to take and climbed the little hill up to "Trendum", a lovely old parish house and an a little bit ruinous looking church with a small graveyard in the background appeared in front of our eyes. For me it looked like an enchanted place out of another time and I got a good feeling from the beginning. Our first meeting at the NGO was especially interesting for me, because it was my future working place while it´s just the coordinating organisation for the other volunteers. So I was really happy to be again  nicely welcomed  by the whole staff and I felt a warm feeling when I entered the training room with the wooden furniture,the yellow  walls and the huge cupboard filled with hundreds of boardgames for the first time...

In the next days, we learned a lot about Czech Republic, our projects, the language and also supervision and coaching. For me, it was the perfect start to my ESK because it was a good balance between some formalities like creating bank accounts and travel cards and getting to know the others and the principles of our work. The highlight of the week was probably our trip to the local zoo and an outdoor game called "Stupid Honza", an interactive fairytale game. It was amazing to see how well we worked together although we were knowing each other just for a few days. Also it really showed me that playing is not just a great activity for children but for everyone, and all of us had lots of fun trying to save the princess from the bad dragon...

But as good as this teambuilding was, I will also never forget the first weekend and the first free afternoons I spent in Czech Republic. We checked out the local pubs, tried some local beer- and weren´t convinced by all of them- and died of laughing in the evening while playing "Activity" and "Who am I ?" in the kitchen of the dormitory. Also we visited our first festival in this country on Friday and experienced on the one hand unusual czech hardrock played- or should I say shouthed?- by the band "TRAKTOR" and danced on the other hand to Clean Bandit´s "Symphony". And because you should never waste a weekend and everybody knows that there is no bad weather (just bad clothes) we went on a trip to Olomouc under pouring rain the next day. Although the weather was horrible and I had to make the experience that my "rain jacket" is just a windbreaker (* so I really weared some bad clothes for this weather), it was a great day in a beautiful city with a lot of colorful buildings, a folklore music festival in the middle of the town and LOTS of  interesting and not that interesting churches and squares. But when I exhaustedly fell in my bed with the rainbow sheets in the evenig, I felt happy and satisfied and probably the most important thing-  i felt alive.