Looking outside the box

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. These famous words by John Lennon are especially valid for an EVS experience. After three or four months as a volunteer you start to develop some kind of routine. The same way to youth center, the parties with other volunteers and even the small irregular things -a ridiculously delayed train- become predictable.

Just as some planned things won’t fit in the pattern. In July I spent a week as a 'native English speaker' at an adventure & language camp for children in Muntele Mic . I was not allowed to speak or understand Romanian for a week. The world upside down, but a good experience to see how my fellow volunteers have to deal with children. Out of the blue, Irishman John appeared with his bike on the last day. On his way from Budapest to Istanbul he passed the camp. You can find the result of our spontaneous meeting here.

Romanian alpinist & camp organizer Coco Galescu and me, picture taken by John Hennessy

I already wrote about Mostar. My trip to Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia was another example of an experience you wouldn't find in a random Romanian village. Another language barrier to cross. The visible past. The amazing seaside. The way people drink their coffee. One thing remained the same however: the ever-returning question why, for gods sake, I'm staying in Romania.

So far, my EVS stage has been quite a local project. This changed with one phone call from Millennium Center. Am I interested in going to Greece? Not once, but twice? Hmm... From the 6th until the 16th of september a youth exchange called Creativity 4: democracy & participation takes place near Thessaloniki. As a group leader I already had the chance to visit the place, and the countdown towards the project is running.

The group leaders of Creativity 4

Another clock is ticking as well. The official end of my stay is coming near. On the 20th of september I'm flying to Amsterdam. What will happen next? In october I'll return for another youth exchange. And then I just might stick in Romania. Who knows? I'm getting used to surprises.

Time is flexible

Only a few days in Arad and I already have to admit that the title of this blog is not entirely accurate. Romanian time is very flexible and not necessarily always flying. Sometimes it walks, it crawls or it takes a tram. Sometimes it's caught in a traffic jam on its way to one of Romania's new palaces of consumption, the hypermarkets. And occasionally it stands still.

It happened when I had to wait in a minibus at Ferihegy Airport for the last customer to arrive. Four hours is a lot of seconds. Since friday I'm discovering Arad and surroundings. I arrived together with Estonian girl Kaie and we're waiting for the rest of the volunteers for our project to arrive. This means that our one-week on-arrival training will start this friday and that we still don't know where we will end up after that. O sa vedem, we will see. A large part of the project is carried out in three villages (far) outside Arad: Covasant, Abrud and Suplacu de Barcau. So far we visited the first two, to get an impression of the work in the local youth centers.

Two funny facts to conclude: the first pub I visited here is called Time to Time... And the clock of the city hall plays Vangelis on every hour (but don't ask me which song it is).

Arad City Hall