#5 Ist EVS Seminar geil oder... ist das total Quatsch?

GERMAN UNITES

Naaaaah! Wie geht’s? This typical German greeting transformed our seminar in Hamburg into a whole-week festival of collective laughter. Most of us heard this verbally prolonged, sehr komisch yet awkwardly friendly syllable multiple times before, usually on a regular basis in our EVS workplaces, but only in the group of always-eager-to-joke foreign volunteers were we able to realize how common, and funny, this linguistic phenomenon really is. Naaaaah! Once said in the Seminar kitchen, there was no way back. The avalanche has been launched. All typical German phrases burst out free. And in that very moment the notion of ‘perspective’ hit me in the head again like a boomerang. Most German people do not realize these peculiarities about their language. We, as foreigners, do. And this is just one of numerous perspectives I experienced and understood during that crazy week in Hamburg. 

WILD YOUTH = PURÉE KNOWLEDGE

If asked to use three words to describe the Seminar, I’d definitely go with ‘knowledge’. The other two would be, I guess, ‘fun’ and… ‘oder?’. It is totally unbelievable how easy the information and skills exchange among young people is. Just give them a table and chairs. Bang! Job’s done. There’s so much energy, curiosity, will to learn, will to share memories and experience, to ask, to experiment. It may seem that it’s just a talk, but no. It’s THE TALK. For us it was natural to sit in the kitchen and share ideas, habits, our points of views, stories from our lives, it was like eating a potato purée. You just swallow, absorb, breath. Probably some of us thought of it as of a regular conversation. But if you try to look at yourself from out-of-your-body point of view, use CCTV camera, if you wider your angle a little bit, get a bird-eye panoramic view as you would stand on a hill (did I just fly too high with these comparisons?), then you’d be able to see how much valuable content was in these interactions. Perspectives, perspectives. Each of us learnt a ton of new things (language, culture, dancing, singing, drawing, Serbian swear words, time management and much more), part of them consciously, the other part inadvertently. All the workshops were awesome, but I feel that they were only to give a some kind of frame to our energy. We were like babies acquiring language, playing with everything/everybody around them. We were just 20 sponges immersed in multivitamin solution (I don’t know where I get these comparisons from today… Entschuldigung).

UNDDDDDD… AAAAAAAAND…

Laughter is contagious. Smile is contagious. Friendship is contagious and addictive. Our whole group was so cheerful and happy. Some of us claim that the aforementioned week was one of the best in their lives. I’m one of these people. This kind of emotions I can compare only to emotions I experienced when doing my voluntary service with international group of super creative people at European Championship in football in Warsaw in 2012 and to emotions at my beloved Woodstock Festival Poland (every year). Unbelievably friendly atmosphere, great people with numerous talents and skills, everybody eager to learn and teach and have fun. Hamburg time was so very special to me, hence…

…DANKE EUCH! THANK YOU! СПАСИБО! GRACIAS!

Basak, Claudia, Dasha, Dave, Dejan, Ida, Ines, Isabel, Klara, Krys, Marie, Nikolai, Nudzejma, Omer, Rita, Roberto, Yulia, Valerii, Zhenia. Friedrich, Ian, Marta, Magda (the reception girl), Robert. Dziękuję. EVS Seminar ist so geil!

P.S. A little advertisement. You gotta come to FREE Woodstock Festival Poland ;) You've been to some festivals I assume, but this is something else. What people say about Woodstock is that they don't go there for the bands. They come for the unbelievably friendly and positive vibe. There's so much more than music there. Theatrical performances, dancing classes, literally hundreds of workshops on making dreadlocks, toys, flags, using Twitter, on meditation, racism, singing, 3D printing, climbing, pottery, capoeira, children upbringing, happy sex life, knitting... Most of the workshops are in Polish, but you can always ask the organisers of the workshops about anything in English. But for getting to know how to knit you actually don't need any language, I guess. Anyways, for sure you won't be bored there. The festival is just next to the border with Germany, 80 minutes by train from Berlin. 1-2-3-4 August. A new perspective awaits you… <3

'The Most Beautiful Festival in the World' | https://youtu.be/NhADdmVnW7I