On arrival Training 2019

So this month, which is the 2nd and a half month of me being here, I had the On Arrival Training (OAT).

It was held in Bakuriani, which, I would say, was the perfect place to have the oat in, because it is high up in the snowy, beautiful mountains, which pretty much sums up the environment of Georgia and Caucasus in general.

We were a small group of 12 volunteers from Italia, Latvia, France, Germany and Czech Republic. The trainers were from Azerbaijan and Armenia and the logistics guru- Shota (amazing guy) from Georgia. So a pretty colorful group with people from different places and cultures, which means a lot of opportunities to learn.

The schedule was all right- we start at 9:30 in the morning, end at 18:30 in the evening, with lunch, coffee and dinner breaks in between.

It's hard to remember how everything went step by step, because the whole experience was overwhelmingly positive and I can, honestly, say that I learned quite a lot. For example things about conflict solving, as well as giving/receiving feedback and non violent communicating etc.

The two topics/activities I learned the most from were:

1. Discussion about Caucasus culture.

I took a lot of notes in my head about the overall mentality and view of life of Caucasus people. And despite me being from north-western Europe, where the sense of time, sense of collectiveness and all these other kinds of values and traditions are radically different than in Caucasus, I actually see how knowing and accepting them can benefit me to improve my own mental health, life overall and the life of ones around me. 

The most simple example, off the top of my head, that I can give is that Georgian people don't really worry about the future(or time in general), because it is unknown, anything can happen suddenly, unexpectedly and it's pointless to worry about it. Which makes me also feel less anxious about the future. I don't know if this makes sense, but it does for me, sorry, haha.

Even more this applied during the traditional Supra(Georgian dinner, lots of food and wine), when the Tamada (the main talker at the table) was saying all these different toasts, which made me feel more appreciative of the things, people and circumstances of my life.

2. Workshop about motivation.

This was actually the last workshop of the training, it was held in the last day and has stuck the most to my memory. As a person who actually sometimes struggles with finding and maintaining motivation for taking actions or working towards my goals, I found out a lot of great tips and tricks for keeping my focus and motivation up.

The rest of details are kind of personal.

In conclusion.

There's probably tons of things I haven't mentioned about the OAT, because the information might still be processing in my head, and I'm sure it is, but. I learned a lot. It was a great balance of relaxing/learning in a non-formal environment. 

And, nevertheless it sparked a feeling of bright future ahead.

Progress daily,

Martins 'chuks' Piebalgs

Strategic EVS project “Corners of Europe” is financed by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union that in Latvia is administrated by Agency for International Programs for Youth.