Romania EVS story of Tamaz

Volunteering in local school

Hello , my name is Tazo . I did my 1 year  EVS project in Romania, in organization called YMCA . Organization staff was friendly and helpful during this time. We did lot of events, trainings, that was fun to participate. My project was about working with children from the ages of 5 to 14. I went to schools in the city , nearby village and to gypsy children in Romani Center. I had one project partner , her name was Salome and she was from France. After couple of months working together we formed a really good team and working was really fun. Here is a picture at one of our schools .

Beauty of  nature in Romania

Except us there were other volunteers in my town . I met good people , which are now my friends and we keep in touch after our projects. After work, on weekends and vacations we went hiking, swimming, travelling in Romania, made dinners together. Living and understanding people from all around the world is a really great experience. I managed to learn Romanian language , to know more about other countries and traditions. Romania has beautiful nature , I went there with the intention to see as much as I could . This is the picture from Transfagarasan , we were heading to Moldoveanu peak.

Tazo and his travel mate during free days of his EVS service time

To sum it up, I am glad that I did EVS. I gained lot of friends and positive features during this time . I encourage people to do it, because it`s a good adventure.

Tazo

GYE note:
Tazo Kvitashvili done his EVS service in Romania from April 2014 to March 2015 in the frame of project "YOU(TH) ARE GOLDEN".
His sending organisation was Association "Georgian Youth For Europe". 
Hosting organisation: YMCA Romania. 

Please find links to have a better idea about the  project outcomes and activities.

http://ymca.ro/2015/2-european-voluntary-service-volunteers-are-finishing-their-service-ymca-romania-_-youth-are-golden/

Some of  videos created by Tazo and project partner:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTzdoS65tjo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1K-cmOFsZI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWVRxHN0E7A

DO YOU WANT TO GO FOR EVS AS WELL? VISIT US!

GYE office is located in Batumi str 22, Rustavi city, Georgia. We are open for visitors every working day from 11am till 6pm.

Salo Bye Bye :'( Keti welcome party :)

Few months ago our beloved EVS coordinator Salome decided to leave GYE and move on with her life. We, volunteers, were happy for her since she will probably get an awesome job as a tour guide but on the other hand we would miss her a lot since she was “our coordinator, our friend, mother and sometimes a daughter (Armonaityte, 2015)”. Luckily for us, Alex made a reasonable choice and picked an amazing new EVS coordinator for us – Kety. Since farewells and welcomes are always a good opportunity for celebrations, we decided to celebrate in a Georgian style and all together. The original idea – to have a classic supra - eat and drink until you puke, was nice enough, but when Gigi came with an invitation into his house in Sagarejo, it was abandoned immediately. Idea of spending a night in Georgian village with all our friends, some sashlik and nice vine was so exciting for us that the whole organization met on Sunday, 29^th of March and moved to a nice village of Sagarejo, about 40 minutes of marshrutka ride from Rustavi.

Weather did not allow us to discover all the beauties of Tochliauri but the day was saved by Rosto who prepared the fireplace and Lembit who brought Scrable. After few hours of intensive preparation our main cooks – Achiko, Vaxo, Alex and Vato finished the dinner and all of us together could finally enjoy a proper Georgian supra starting with amazing cheese and bread, continuing with chicken cooked and chicken baked, sashlik and ending with traditional horn drinking. After heartbreaking toasts delivered by our toastmaster Achiko teambuilding and fun continued till the late night.

I have to say, that meeting such a nice people at such a nice place while enjoying an awesome food was a very pleasant experience for me and I believe that for all volunteers and staff as well. GYE proved once again that in contrary to other associations, it is not just an organization but a small family and people involved are not just colleagues but good friends. 

So, what are your impressions of Georgia ?*

I have been in Rustavi for 1 month now and if I am not homesick, I still don't really feel at home here. But actually I kind of like it because every day comes with its challenges and I am slowly adapting to this new environment and its weird weather. Yes, weird, because we had a little survey of spring in February and then, suddenly, the big white snow came. Only for one day. After that the sun came back and as I am writing today, the rain is pouring its sadness down on us.

My opinion of this city is kind of divided. If I like its old part with its nice architectures (even though some of the buildings are almost falling down) I don't really appreciate the new Rustavi. But I think that it's something common to most of the cities, the old town is often nicer than the new one.

My Georgian is really really reeeeally limited for now and it's too bad, not only because it makes it difficult to ask for something in a shop or whatsoever, but mostly because sometimes you want to talk with people even if it's about something irrelevant. Every time someone tries to have a talk with me I feel completely helpless because I can't give them any answer, I would like but I can't.

Well, enough of this melodramatic mood. Every time a Georgian asks me my impressions of Georgia, they expect me to say that I don't like, for instance, people staring at me, being rude or anything else. But the truth is that it's the same everywhere so it's not the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about Georgia. When I say that I like this country, some of them are surprised. I mean, it's quite normal for me to appreciate its beautiful landscapes, its dishes (I'm in love with the lobio), the nice people I meet, and all the little things which remind me that the life here is a bit different than the one I have in France, those are some of the reasons for why I am here.


*question people asked me a thousand times

Are we there yet?

A little bit of prehistory:

So here I am, an ordinary 23 year old girl, trying to think of whatever it is to just finally get out of her shell and enjoy life to the fullest. Simple as that. Good thing that some damn lucky people can actually enroll to one of these programs for the young and go to places that normally be out of reach for us. So, as of right now, I'm officially an EVS volunteer in Georgia. FOR A WHOLE YEAR! And here it is. My life awaits. After a very long time of organizing things and trying to get everything in order my experience begins. And let me just say, that I'm not going to try to sugarcoat anything. And hey, whoever might be reading this, I hope one lost soul (with a cute little rebel, dying within) can find another one. Hey you, yes you, I like you already!

Day of my arrival to Georgia, Tbilisi. October 2, around 4:30 am. Three other (local) volunteers Nini, Maxo and Rosto, that will be our mentors come to pick us up from the airport. We wait for another volunteer from Slovakia, Livia, to come and then head straight back to our apartment. Aaand here it is! My new home. The city of Rustavi, which in the past (Soviet times to be precise) used to be an industrial city, built just for factory workers. The part where I live seems like a time capsule and reminds me one of those stories that my mum or my granny used to tell. Let's just say (and I'm going to be honest about it)... well I guess in times it's going to be grey. While the city is actually divided into the New and Old Rustavi and turns out to be not so small of a city, there is something right there in the air, and you can feel it. The city needs life. It needs to live again. Or just finally start living. You can feel this in people's eyes when they try to look at you with this curious look, asking "Who are you?" and "What are you going to do in here?".

I share a flat with two other volunteers, Lembit, who comes from Estonia and is an extremely smart guy, and a girl name Livia, who I feel sometimes is my lost twin sister. In the next few days we went out to explore the city, and gosh, let me just tell you how excited I actually was! One small thing though, when you do travels like this one, well, not really travels, but living experiences, or how should you call them (?) it's important not to get your stakes too high. Simply because a) cultural shock does exist, and is in fact not a myth b) you're actually dealing with life. Not just super fun trips around the country or big parties (FYI, I do not consider myself a party person). Not at all. It's life, people. Life with ups and downs. Anyway, our trip to the supermarket was in fact the funniest moment of all. So far.

Can you imagine you walk to a SUPERmarket, and there's no electricity. Like no electricity. Like cashiers working with candles on and things like that? One thing I love about Georgians is their ability to adapt to these practical things. No electricity? Fine, I'll just get a candle. No water today? (Yes, it happens) Fine, I have some over there in kitchen; I've filled all the empty buckets just last night. Wonderful, isn't it? Let me just say, that so far my experience with people is very limited, but yes, if you ever heard about Georgian hospitality and how helpful people can be, yes, it's true. I'm sure there's much more to people and I'm sure so many life lessons await me. I just hope I'm ready. So much of chaos within an order. So much of order within a chaos. But hey, you can't have everything, can you?

Or take the amazing trip to the Istanbuli bazaar, where people go to buy everything. Such a rush, I'm not even kidding! Maxo helped us figure things out there, but the amazing part was him introducing us with his friends and family on the way to the market; stopping to say hi, or wave a hello to everyone he knew. I mean normally you would just go to the market in your neighborhood and that would be it. You might say hi to a friendly face, but not more. Well, at least for me that would be it, nothing more. Instead, we were politely introduced to everyone and even had a friendly ride with a car, making our way shorter. Such a friendly guy, I'll tell ya that.

And then there was Tbilisi... God bless this city, it's amazing, y'all. So amazing :). And hey, Tbilisi is a very beautiful city, did I tell you that? Loved it. Totally took my breath away. Just like that. But I guess I will be needing a separate post for that.

We finally started learning Georgian, which for me is the most difficult language ever, especially the pronunciation. But the mentors that we have are really nice to us, they're really helpful and thoughtful when it comes to understanding us.

Next week I will begin teaching, which for now is my main task in here. So far I'm just trying to prepare and see how it goes. I don't know much about Georgian mentality, but a guy name Erekle, who will help me with Spanish in here once said that Georgians are proud but shy. I didn't experience that myself, but I guess time will show.

Hey, and about time - time runs differently when you're away, you know that, right? Every minute of it is just screaming different things at you, saying "Life is so odd and beautiful, go out there!".


Bye for now. Or as Georgians say, nachvamdis.

Here Comes the Sun.

After the cold Winter and rather iffy Spring, I’m glad to finally be soaking up the Summer Sun. Rather surprisingly for an introvert and recluse such as myself, I have been spending a decent amount of time outside in the “fresh” Rustavi and Tbilisian air. My trips to the capital are becoming more frequent and longer, the usual peruse around the Dry Bridge market and nearby shopping centre is always a welcome break from Rustavi.

The English conversation club has finally finished after many months of thinking up new topics for talking about with the locals. I believe that me and Ania have made a difference and an improvement, even if it’s only a small one.
by Elliott Cunningham

A week or two ago was my first visit to the GYE Eco-village called Pona, I was rather surprised and impressed by the size of the place. Three buildings, a camp site and a huge amount of land seems to be owned by GYE and a few of the locals. The task set for myself and our Estonian short-term volunteers was to continue the construction of a fence to cordon off the land. The first day was very successful but I underestimated the power of Georgian Sun and consequently ended up resembling a roast turkey.

Skipping forward a few days, I headed off to catch up with other Caucasus EVS volunteers for our Mid-term meeting in Bakuriani (a skiing resort to the west of Tbilisi). It was fantastic to see the “On-arrival-lot” again and to see some new faces. I’m mildly ashamed to say that I got absolutely plastered on the first night and was wearing sunglasses indoors for the next day. On a more sober note, we we had a fantastic trip on the local train down the mountain to Borjomi Park for a walk around in the real fresh air.

The most recent adventure here was our trip to Racha for a camping and sport weekend in the mountains. Some GYE volunteers, our Coordinator plus two bus loads of Georgians and a few other interesting characters in a camp, competing in Rafting and Kayaking. The weather was fantastic (I used SPF 50 this time so remained my pale self) and the atmosphere was great. My team and I paddled hard and destroyed the opposition in rafting .

Finishing off the weekend by chilling with a group of Georgians round the table and campfire was wonderful. We left the camp the day after, bodies aching from exertion, minds and phones full of new memories and contacts.