Time flies so fast!
We are already in the second half of the third month of this year and so far it was just craaaaazy and so much of things have happened.
We enjoyed some snow, soft like marshmallows, falling from the sky and crunchy as merengues when we step on its a bit frozen bits. We walked a lot discovering more and more of local nature, we climbed frozen waterfalls with joy and indescribable fear in our eyes, with lots of slipping down and screaming. I have tried even skiing for the first time in my life and with the beauty of the golden hour, it is simply incredible. We danced sometimes as not to freeze so much when waiting for the train to come back home or simply called our movements “dancing” when we swing our hands and legs and body when trying not to fall after slipping. There was a lot of music and incredible people around us each and every day bringing us joy and new ideas and endless motivation. We visited Prague a few times and we are already waiting to come back there for longer.
We had some cool time in Volunteers Mid Term meetings with other volunteers - even if online it is great to see other youngsters in the same bout and just to share our thought of what crazy or strange things we notice in this country different from our home ones. To your surprise, I would mention different boxing for spices, passion for outdoor activities and sports, colourful blocks of flats, taking off shoes inside the house and wearing socks with flipflops and then shorts in winter. And it is just very few things about which we have discussed!
The very great experience was also to attend classes in a little school in Sloup with students of grades 1 and 2 where each day is a new miracle filled with lovely childish joys! It is a great honour to speak with 5 children or so about at least 10 different topics at the same time in mixed English and Czech and even Lithuanian and Italian language of ours, full with body language, mimics, signs and usage of all the possible tools around us (including a Google translator, which I also must mention, we use comparably rare and that is just great!). After each such Friday in Sloup, we were dead tired yet so energised at the same time and motivated too, that even greater joy for me was coming back home to Česka Lipa by foot those 8 to 12 kilometres (depends on how many times I get myself lost out of the way wandering no one knows where)...
Even though I would always much more prefer present lessons going to school and meeting children and teachers face to face, I cannot describe how cool it is to have online lessons with our students. Each day we can be prepared to the maximum but never fully prepared in the end as then there is just a bunch of lovely moments every day where we all learn together and laugh our heads of from silly misunderstandings or technical glitches and unpredictable stuff like this! There is no greater Czech language teacher than our students, who have the patience not only to learn from us but also to teach us how to correctly pronounce or write and translate random Czech words and I adore that as it makes our work even more meaningful and friendly cooperative.
And just look at that - it is already spring! With lovely birds singing outside the window and with little flowers starting to bloom little by little here or there soon we will all celebrate Easter. And then we still have FOUR MONTH of our volunteering experience! Seems not so little yet also already too little, I must say. So let’s just smile at the beautiful sunshine behind our windows and let’s go on more and more adventures, of course, staying safe within opportunities of the currently existing global situation. Nobody says that the great adventure must be walking barefoot through all the Asia or something. It can be also wandering through the greatest worlds of books and movies, and one other’s eyes or smiles, even through the screen of our phones or computers.
Life is good, with all the crazy things in it, as all the greatest goods of our lives depend on us being kind and cheerful to ourselves…
Hugs and kisses and best wishes
as always
Yours
Aušra from Lithuania ;)
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