Midterm seminar in Istebna
By Celina and Ania
Our seminar started on Monday the 22nd of January at the main train station at Wroclaw where our train was promptly late, making us miss our next train and resulting in us being late to the seminar. Luckily, the organiser put some amazing dinner away for us so that we could end our day on a high at least.
In general, we focused on our experiences that we gathered in the last few months and what kind of emotions we encountered to process our voluntary service so far. To help us portray our emotions we were asked to create a collage of pictures which ended up being a pretty fun exercise. Furthermore, we learned the definition of non-violent communication and how to apply it in our normal life. Of course, some paper work and organisational talk could not be evaded but that was only a small part of the seminar. We also talked about key competences that we can acquire in our voluntary year and learned about the smart goals method.
Another part of the seminar focused on getting to know more of the culture of the southern part of Poland. We spend an afternoon in a lace museum in Koniakow learning about the local tradition of making lace and how it is passed on from generation to generation. It was a refreshing experience hearing the owner of the museum talk so passionately about their tradition and the efforts she went to in order to preserve their lace and the connecting history. She told us about a project she initiated to make the biggest lace in the world and mentioned that this record is in the Guinness World Records. As part of the culture program, we also learned how to make our own pierogi and spent a fun evening cooking together.
As most of you probably know, Istebna is situated in the Polish mountains. Even though the weather wasn`t the greatest (it was windy and rained a lot) we took the bus to the highest bus station and then walked the rest of the way up the small mountain to take a look of the amazing view. It was a lot of fun to walk up there because the wind was so strong that you could actually lean against the wind. The view from up there was great even if it was a little cloudy. On our way back from the mountain we ate some regional cheese in a local restaurant and then went to a wool museum where they actually had sheep and a goat. The animals were extremely tame, and everyone could pet them which was the highlight of the trip for me.
On Friday the seminar was already over, and we went back home to Wroclaw. This time luckily without any delays.
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