Although this is late, I still wanted to tell you about the retreat event I attended in Poland.
In mid-January, our group of YAGM volunteers met up in Wisla Poland for our mid-term seminar. There are 5 of us American YAGM program volunteers, combined with the 4 German volunteers in our group, and we were also joined by our fellow YAGM in Germany, Toby. Our group met up with two other groups: Slezka Diakonia from the Czech Republic, and Evangelical Lutheran Diakonia from Poland. There were about 20 of us all together, and the retreat lasted for almost a week. Some of the topics we covered in our seminar sessions were cultural identity, successes and failures at our projects and placements, conflicts, our relationships with people, the values hierarchy (something we discovered being abroad).
So here are some of the highlights and/or activities we did during the week:
-Went for a horse ride on the sledges
-Walks in nature and a trip to Aqua Park to swim
-Had a bonfire, drank cider and ate Polish sausages cooked over the fire
-Trips into Wisla to visit the downtown area and shop around
-Playing “get to know each other” games
-A group country presentation, complete with a skit that represents specific and quirky things about our country
-T-shirt making
-Making posters out of magazine cut-outs for our individual placement sites
-Drawing a stereotypical “German” and “American” in our separate groups
-Discussing possible negative scenarios that could happen at our placement, and how to solve those problems
-Creating songs and skits
-Group worship and music
-Watching the movie “Crash” and discussing stereotype issues
-Looking at our own individual experiences for the year and making a pie graph to display the “things we didn’t realize about ourselves” and how big of an impact those realizations have had on our current lives
It was a really great experience! I enjoyed being here with these other volunteers, getting to know about them, hearing about their experiences as well. I really appreciated the time we had to relax and reflect, and to cover a bunch of these topics. Back in January at that time, so many of these issues were going through my head, like failures and successes in our placements, stereotypes, problems and solutions, and etc. And the timing of the seminar was really great, because I had just finished my time in Koseca and was struggling to make sense of what had happened and why. I found some needed peace at the seminar, being able to share my ideas and struggles with my fellow volunteers, and I was able to head back to Hybe refreshed, and more ready to start a new life after it.
If you’re interested in seeing some photos from the seminar, please check out this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059488&l=2ae77&id=184900177
Thanks SO MUCH for reading and keeping up with my happenings!
