Hello all!
Today I am writing with a big smile on my face because I will be telling you about my on-arrival training experience. The training was last week in a hotel in Sofia. Sadly, it was only for 5 days, I would love it to be so much longer. The first day we got free time for checking in and for having lunch. My first meeting with other volunteers was with 2 amazing Italian girls, called Claudia and Margherita. They were ESC volunteers in a human rights organization. We had an interesting discussion on the topic of Bulgarian culture and why they chose to volunteer here.
For the session after lunch we went to the conference hall where I was quite surprised to see around 30 chairs sitting in a circle, some of them empty. To be honest, I imagined that we would be 10-15 people, not 30, but back then I didn’t know how happy I would feel in the end of the training for meeting so many kind souls. The session started with introduction of the trainers. They told us that we are so lucky because this is the first on-arrival training which is face to face since 2019. The trainers were really kind, friendly and supportive.
There was a woman from the NA who told us about the SALTO website and all the opportunities for Erasmus+ trainings and cultural exchanges there. I was surprised to hear that many volunteers haven’t been neither to Erasmus+ exchange or a training and that this was their first experience with the programme.
Afterwards we got to know each other by telling what we find to be unique for each one of us. Some of us said that they can scuba dive, others that have started school when they were 4, or that they have 7 siblings. I felt that although we are from so many different cultures we were all so similar at the same time. Also, we did a few ice breaker name games. And as you can imagine they were quite hard for us since we were 30 people. We still didn’t know that we would connect so good and that in the end of the training we will know each other names by heart.
After dinner we had some free time so a few of us decided to play board games and we chose to play Dix it. Most of the volunteers were tired from travelling and the long day so we went to bed quite early. I had an amazing roommate from Georgia so I was happy and relaxed and fell asleep quite fast. In the end of the day I felt as being in an Erasmus+ cultural exchange or a training which made me excited for the next days since I have many good memories from all those experiences. I could feel that something good is coming.
This is all for today. Thank you all for reading! Next week I will continue with more interesting stories from the training.
See you soon,
Polin
