There's no denying it, these bloggers are bound to make you jealous. Whether it's their guts, their energy or their tan you admire, overseas volunteers have got plenty to share with you about their remarkable work in fascinating countries. Read on to find out what you could be missing.

All | Ashley | Natalie | David | Sheila | Jonathan | James | Abi | Fiona | Community_Action_International | Project Mongolia | Sarah | Emily | Dana | Selina | Lucy | Hannah | Sally | Lucille | Martyn

« Previous month (Jul 2011) | Main | Next month (Sep 2011) »

Wednesday Aug 31, 2011

Poland - Belarus

This morning we woke up in Poland having slept through Germany overnight on our first sleeper train experience!

After a night of mixed rest, some enjoying the rocking motion, others with an added earful of Polish snore, we all wake up slightly aching from our heavy rucksacks.  The train feels familiar, we've made it our home already.  It's comfy and clean. As you can see, we were all packed into the first sleeper train from Koln to Warsaw]

Poland is somehow different, OK, it's very flat, but there's something else that I can't pin down that gives it that underlying feeling of foreign.

Out the window we saw loads of small holdings, tractors, corn, fields to the horizon and big huge skies…  

The few towns that we do spot are colourful and look relaxed and every now an again we speed through big ugly industrial factories.  People seem to mostly live in flats, using the ground around as a communal outside area.

We quickly arrive into Warsaw, where we are hit with a barrage of smells - fags, piss and exhaust fumes. Luckily we decide to leave our very heavy bags at the station and explore as we've got some time before our connection.  

The further we get away from the station the more beautiful the buildings get.  We head towards the old town on wide pavements and pass through occasional squares that are beautifully ornate.  The buildings have amazing detail, yet seem sturdy and indestructible, everything's spotless.

We found a little square to eat in, whilst trying to persuade Kyle not to spend half his money on a fox fur hat!  People are really friendly and curious, it's a shame we don't have more time...
The tram takes us back to the station, past the huge Palace of Science and Industry (?) a present to the city from Stalin!

We find our way to our next train which will take us from Warsaw, through the rest of Poland, Belarus and eventually to Moscow, Russia.  First impressions of the train: thank god it's only for one night!
A rather larger than life Russian beauty literally pulls us on board and barks us down the corridor.  It smells like old men and more fags and the decor fits nicely with the odour...

After settling it's really not that bad.  Three beds in a cabin along with a handy sink-come table.  Izzy and I get the place to ourselves and spread out.

The hardcore Russian stewardesses get softer and nicer as we trundle through the rest of Poland.  I think they scarred us at first to set the tone.  They supply us with hot water and a few taps on the bum!

At the border between Poland and Belarus they bark us back into our cabin, we obey and in come 2 sets of passport control.  The guards don't smile and don't give anything away when they stare you in the face to check your ID.

After the passport guards have done their thing we come to the strangest train experience of my life!  Because the tracks are different widths in Belarus and beyond the whole train shunts into a warehouse.  Men scurry around below attaching, detaching, bolting, unbolting bits of the train.  Bizarrely this is also an opportunity for some ladies to sell raspberries!  Then all of a sudden the carriage lurches and we slowly begin to rise up into the air!  The train is lifted up so that they can get underneath and do their thing.  Unfortunately this business takes a while and because the toilet flushes straight onto the tracks, the loo is locked shut for a couple of hours, so I can't remember much detail as I was concentrating on other things!

Anyway, after the excitement of hanging in a train wears off, we begin to see some of our team occupying themselves in activities only performed when you're cabin bound e.g. waxing mens legs for fun and breaking things (how do you say 'sorry - it was an accident' in Russian to a big scary lady)!

We eat a meal of nearly cooked noodles, miso soup, some nice fresh salad and finish off the raspberries.
It's easy to feel tired on the road and although we do a lot of sitting down on trains, somehow we're all knackered quite early.  I sleep really well apart from a few times when I'm lifted in the air by a bumpy bit of track…

Next stop Moscow… Can't wait!

Posted by Project_Mongolia ( 2:55 PM )
Link to this post Comments[0]

And it begins...

Some of us started in Aberystwyth, some in Borth, some in Mach and some in Cwmbran, what matters is that we all made it to London Euston by the same time!

We arrived in Morden (south London) to enjoy some overnight hospitality from Kirsti’s aunt and her partner.

After an unbelievable feast, which might carry some of us through the entire 8 day journey, we set-to discussing guidelines for the trip (no shaving other people, always wear protection, don’t drink in the day etc) and filling capsules with turmeric. Reminiscent of a scene seconds before a drugs raid, in a front room in Morden last night was a table of people happily lining up their pills and counting them into sandwich bags, excitedly discussing how not to miss a train and how best to deal with rabid dogs. No one can say we are not prepared.

Anyway, turmeric capsules at the ready and each with our rucksacks we traversed the London tube system, some of us for the first time, to the National Science Museum. Through crowded noisy hot tubes and up escalators we emerged in the cool calm of the museum to go on a whirlwind, all-interactive tour of climate change.

After our brief visit to the museum we hopped back on the tube and set off from St Pancras station to catch, as Taliesin put it, our first ‘real train’ from London to Brussels.  We’ll then get a high speed train from Brussels to Cologne and later on tonight the overnight sleeper from Cologne to Warsaw, expect a nice little video tour from our budding film maker Anthony!

Post by Isabel.

Posted by Project_Mongolia ( 2:39 PM )
Link to this post Comments[0]

A Welsh and Mongolian Team

Who are we?

We are a team of Welsh & Mongolian young people who are passionate and optimistic about our future. 8 of us are young people from all over Wales, we have 3 fantastic youth workers and the rest of the team we will meet when we get out there.

What are we up to?

We are embarking on a journey to Mongolia by train, brought together by a shared passion for positive youth action whatever our backgrounds.

Why?

By taking on issues head on we believe that outbursts of frustration, like the riots we have just seen, can be avoided and empower young people to feel more able to participate in decision making and in their community.

How?

In Mongolia we will be sharing our collective skills with the Mongolians keen to start a youth environmental movement in a country already affected by climate change.

Us Welsh lot will have a unique opportunity to see the effects climate change first hand which we will use when we get home to inspire others to take action and get involved in the sustainable development projects of Dyfodol (our parent organisation).

Also, we are an organisation core funded by the Welsh Assembly Government so we are trying to use our contact with the Welsh Environment Minister to benefit the young Mongolians relationship with their Government and Environment Minister.....we'll see!

We'll be blogging individually, some in Welsh some in English, and if you want more info on Dyfodol or our other projects check out www.dyfodol.org

Isabel, Anna, Kyle, Rosie, Melody, Sannan, Twm, Kirsti, Robin, Taliesin and Anthony

Posted by Project_Mongolia ( 2:18 PM )
Link to this post Comments[0]

Travelling - close enough for comfort!

The journey to and from France was integral, not just because, otherwise, we would have never arrived or made it back, but because a group of fifteen of us were put into vans and a ferry for about 12 hours of travelling time. When you're stuck with people for that long, you do bond!

We were lucky enough to have a few meet ups before this trip so we weren't strangers but we were by no means best friends. Suddenly I had found myself stuck in the YMCA's Motivate Van at four in the morning with a group of people I didn't really know!

People's spirits aren't normally that high at 4am but there was an empathetic feeling between us of I'm tired, you're tired, let's get this show on the road so we can all get some ruddy sleep, yes?

So the group split, we all found our seats and prepared for sitting in the same position for several hours. The first thing I seemed to bond with people about was travel sickness. Three of us in the van had taken tablets with us and rather than settle your stomach, they just seemed to knock you out for several hours so you're oblivious to travelling at all. I have to admit I probably missed out on a lot of bonding opportunities while in the van due to feeling I had just taken Ketamine.

It took four hours to get to the ferry, and when you're stuck like sardines for several hours conversation does start to flow, even if it is forced at first. After everyone had had some sleep, the humour started to flow, instead of individuals on their iPods we were all listening to the radio and singing along or quoting Family Guy jokes. This may all seem rather dull in comparison to the fact we were going to France for the week but in some ways it was the best part. It was the part where we had started to get to know each other and started discovering the dynamics of the group. We were all getting a rough idea of how this group of people were going to fit together in France.

After four hours to get to the Ferry we could all finally stretch our legs and both groups could get together. This was now the second hurdle of bonding. Two groups had travelled in separate vehicles so now was the chance for everyone in the group to connect.

Once again more sleeping was done but the main subject of discussion between us all was our agreement that the food and drink was overpriced and tasted less than pleasant. There is nothing like a good old rant to get everyone to unite. People had started to get their cameras out now, we felt close enough to take pictures with each other and actually tag the other person when it was inevitably uploaded to Facebook.

One such example:

Amy Cooper and I sitting on the Ferry.

I think I was coming round from the effects of the horse tranquiliser travel sickness tablets.

So after a relatively calm journey across the sea we all piled back into the cars ready for the Sat Navs to direct us to Agon-Coutainville. This is a minuscule town in Normandy, a place so tiny that every other French person I've asked has not even heard of it.

Our driver Ron stayed the perkiest out of us all and despite driving on the other side of the road and missing turnings we all finally made it and were on the road to start our Case for Reconciliation.

We all felt much more comfortable together. We had made it and it was the start of a truly exciting week. However, before we knew it, more vans had arrived. They contained a group of French young people and one German girl. We had almost forgotten that the Case for Reconciliation was not just about us...

 

 

Posted by Sheila ( 1:47 PM )
Link to this post Comments[0]

Thursday Aug 25, 2011

From boredom to enlightenment

Hello my name is Sheila and I'm 20 years old. To be brutally honest, I started volunteering out of boredom. I wish I had a more momentous moment or some sort of epiphany that led me to volunteering but alas, I did start because I felt I had nothing else to do. (I know that's not particularly inspiring yet but bear with me.)

I had just finished my second year of university and going from such a hectic schedule to suddenly three months of nothing was quite daunting. I did consider a part time job but wanted to spend my summer doing something I would enjoy with people I love. One of my friends works at my local YMCA and during one of my "I have no idea what to do this holiday" rants, he suggested I join some projects they were doing.

There were many different aspects to the YMCA projects I was involved in. One feature was the talks we were given. Each week a speaker came in from a charity or organisation and we learnt about what they do and how we could help. We received talks from a representative of a local women's refuge, the housing department of the local council, the citizens advice bureau and a spokesperson of the charity 'Save The Children' to name just a few.

One task that we undertook from these discussions was to write a booklet about leaving home for the first time. Many young people had said that although they wanted to leave home they had no idea where to start. It felt brilliant to be part of something that was genuinely helping young people.

As I do creative writing at university I thought it would be helpful to get some real experience at copy editing. So as well as being inspired I was also getting experience to put on my CV. The booklet was published and distributed to local charities and organisations and it is very valuable to my CV that I have been credited as a copy-editor on a published piece of work.

I was completely inspired by these talks and felt enlightened after each one. The world isn't considered that friendly a place most of the time, but being spoken to by these inspirational people reminded me how much good there is in the world. Volunteering has reminded me how incredibly lucky I am and definitely made me a happier person!

My favourite project that I took part in was a cultural exchange to France which was a Youth In Action project. A group of young people from the YMCA took part in A Case for Reconciliation – a project which aimed to unite different cultures and discuss common issues that we felt young people had. We spent a week in the small town of Agon-Countainville in Normandy and I never would have thought that in just a week I would have learnt so much and made real friends for life! It was a life changing trip.

 

Posted by Sheila ( 12:18 PM )
Link to this post Comments[0]