European Voluntary Service: Warmer and warmer

Wow, these two months started and ended in a very busy way for me, but each from a different end. Let me explain.

After the performances of Martina Kartelo, a Guestroom Maribor artist in residence during the end of April, we had to start preparing for Festival prostovoljstva happening in Slovenia, so also in Maribor. In the end, I felt pretty satisfied with how well the graphic materials turned out together with the video I made. I also managed to quickly jump to Ljubljana in the meantime to be a human library together with a handful of other EVS volunteers and met some new wonderful people who I hope to see again someday. Me, Ioana and Nataša also prepared a short game afternoon on topics of diversity, solidarity and prejudice that we did with a class of gifted children – it was so much fun! Those children made me feel a bit old. I was also invited by the Stopinje mesta group to photograph places in and around Maribor for their website to help travelers and tourists find interesting and new places to see, eat and experience – it’s a bigger project which will take some time, but I’m excited for it.

June started with me attending a trip to Sežana, a village close to the Italian border, organized by an animal rights group named simply Za živali! (For animals!) It was a chance to hang out in nature a little bit, see just how influenced by Italy the architecture is at the border, and also visit the house of a Slovenian poet Srečko Kosovel, who was concerned with animal rights and died very young.

After a few days of break, we started preparing the final pre-vacation picnic for all Infopeka volunteers – we wrapped books, added handmade badges and diplomas and had a lovely afternoon outside serving fruit and snacks and playing games. During the next week I managed to quickly jump to Italy to visit a friend – because of problems with transportation I could only stay for a day, but it was completely worth it, despite the crazy heat, mosquito bites and tiredness. I couldn’t have wished for a better first bigger trip while in Slovenia.

And of course, at the end of the month, the biggest festival in Maribor, Lent festival, happened! I’m personally not a concert or festival person, but I enjoyed walking around and seeing the buzz of everything – and, since I live right across Lent and Drava, I had free music to listen to during most evenings. We did a workshop for children in the city park using the sensory theatre technique (which Ioana told us about) and created a fairytale about children losing their eyesight (basically being blindfolded) through a curse and taking a journey to get it back using Nataša’s brilliant storytelling, different sounds and smells and guiding the children around and solving simple puzzles. It was hard to attract the first few, but after that, everybody was curious and wanted to try it. It was exhausting, but a lot of fun and even the next day I’ve heard people telling us that the children told them about how great it was.