My name is Ramon, I am the EVS in Utilapu Halozat (Service Civil International Hungary).As part of my project I took part two weeks ago in a summer workcamp in Tiszadob. I was one of the camp leaders in the camp so my responsabilty was on some how bigger than the rest of the volunteers. This fact did not avoid me to have a lot of fun, in fact , it was a great experience that help me to grow as person.
The workcamp took place in a beautiful part of Hungary, in a very important place regarding his natural resources, next to the river Tisza- second biggest in Hungary- We worked in a children house protection, mostly composed by gipsy children with behaviour problems. We were hosted in the same house were the childrens were living, so this gave us the oprtunity to see his daily life. The children house provided us with rooms with all the facilties and also they cooked for us, mostly hungarian food, given us the chance to try the typical hungarian food, very good but a bit fat.
The volunteer group was formed by people form many different countries. There were people from Bulgaria, Holland, Finland, North Ireland, France, Poland Italy, Hungary and Spain. A very diverse group which is one of the aims of a SCI workcamp, work together with people from different nationalities. Instead to be a problem, the diversity of the group was one of the best things of the workcamp, mainly because all the volunteers were very motivated and great poople. During two weeks we shared our lives, learning form each other, and at the end of the workcamp none of us wanted to finish the camp.
The chlidren group was composed mainly by gipsy children. From the beggining they were very kind with us and we felt very comfortable with them. Although we had problems to comunicate with them, we always tried to do a big effort in order express our feeling towards them. With the time, we got more confident with them and also they started to be more open towards us, by the end of the camp, the two groups were one so the departure was really difficult and very sad for both.
The aim of the camp was to improve a garden that the childrens had next to the house. Also, the volunteers had to prepare differnt activities for the childrens. The work in the garden was very hard because normally it was too hot but, at the same time, we had fun trying to do the work lighter. Our aim was too work hard in order to show the childrens the value of working, in some how we were an example for them. From my point of view, the two weeks with the children was very good for them for several reasons. As gipsy children it was very important for them to fell accepted by us, normally they fell the opposite from the sociaety. Also it was a great oprtunity for them to see other realities, in his daily life his relity is very small, but this two weeks they had the chance to meet people from other countries and as a result of this to weak up on them the curiosity of meet other places.They realized also about the importance of learning other lenaguages.
As a conclusion, I have to say that it is difficult for me to express everything that I felt during the camp in a language that is not mine, I hope at least I got close to it. It was an experience that I wont never forget. In order to conclude, I would like to express my gratitude to Illésné Áncsán Aranka and all the employers in the house, to the volunteers and the others camp leaders Pajkossy Kata and Snezhina Kozareva, and specially to the childrens of Tiszadob, thank you very much.
Szia and Puszi.
Ramon Gelabert Chasco
