two celebrations

Yesterday was truly a special day. It was both Ukrainian Independence Day and our volunteer Vera's Birthday.

In the morning Orest and Masha got quite patriotic...

But in the evening Vera was the center of attention.

Stockholm trip

A few days ago a group of our volunteers went on a trip to Stockholm by ferry. It took them all night to get there, but they weren't bored. Aga, Lika, Raquel and Orest had a really great time. What did they do? See for yourself.

Firstly, on the ferry they met so many new people from different countries. For example two specific neigbours from Finland. Raquel & Lika took a relaxed in the sauna, Aga talked with guy from France about movies with Louis de Funes and Orest just disappeard for few hours. In the evening they went to a disco. Beacause they went to bed very late, they almost overslept the arrival to Stockholm the next morning.

Our Volunteers started sightseeng the City from Vasa Museum. Raqel was very happy, because she found a flyer-guide in Portugeese.The most important exhibit was the ship from 17th century, the oldest in the whole world. It was bulit for a war with Poland. Luckily for Aga's ancestors it sank right after first contact with water. 

Old city in Stockholm is very impressive. Beautiful buildings, narrow streets, bridges conneting small islands, big number of monuments and well maintaned green places - it makes this city close to perfection. People there lead a really healthy lifstyle. You can see many of them jogging and riding bicycles.

Stockholm is full of tourists. Souvenires are everywhere, but for our volunteers the best keepsakes are great memories.

We Connected ! Part 2

Saturday evening we were just waiting for the concerts and performances to start. We were able to see Lika's and Raquel's workshop rehearsal on the stage and take some pictures.

 When it became more dark and more audience gathered, the festival started

Here are Masha's guitar lessons students. They wehe preparing very long for this concert and their teacher was very proud of them :)

It was already too dark for pictures when our trio performed, so excuse the quality. But they were the best and their daina "Tumša Nakte" got stuck in our heads for hours.

After the concert there was a party on the stage and it was a good opportunity for all of us to integrate and have fun together with local youngsters.
We're hoping next year's Connect will be as well prepared as this one !

We Connected ! Part 1

Connect festival is already behind us ! We spent the last weekend on the Stelpe's Open Air stage and at Stelpe's schoolyard preparing workshops and performances for the festival.

Everything started on Friday night with orienteering game in the forest. It was very exhausting and competitive and difficult at times with all those bushes and swamps in the forest. But it was also a great fun an a test of orienteering skills :)

Saturday morning sport games started. There were team competitions like volleyball and football and also individual disciplines like darts and stilts.
And of course our volunteers' workshops started as well.
Aga and Kasia were leading the art workshop. They created circus-themed photography background for the festival guests.

Art team at work. You can see Tina, Agathe, Oskars, Reinis, Vera and Zane painting the Strongman and Lion Tamer. Kasia and Aga had fun with them and they both think it was an extremly creative group of people.

Agathe and Tina with finished painting. Great job, girls !

 

Kasia & Aga. Work is done, time for fun !

More about oher workshops and festival in the next post :)

Happy B-day!

We had two birthday celebrations last week.

On August 13th we celebrated with our volunteer Lika. We went up to her room at midnight with a piece of pizza.

With the help from our friends and neighbours we prepared some decorations and our music producer Masha played "happy birthday" songs in different languages. We enjoyed the night and we hope Lika liked it as well :)

And on August 16th our coordinator Agnis turned one year older. The volunteers prepared a surprise gathering in the outside house.

Once again they invited our friends and neighbours, and put candles and decorations. When Agnis entered the house Oskars and Masha played guitars for him. It was really beautiful and moving.
Now everybody wishes they got to celebrate their birthday in Stelpe ;)

Cinderella big day

Saturday was the day of our premiere. We arrived early to the Open Air stage to rehearse a little more. We got to know many other participants. There were representatives from towns and villages around Stelpe - like Vecumnieki, Barbele, Kurzeme an other - all and all around 35 performances.

We had to be very patient, because our number was 33...

Here's the performance of four lovely ladies - Terese, Zane (our Latvian teacher), Inga (our mentor) and Kristine (our coordinator).

In the meantime Orest got very into his caracter of Prince Charming and he was greeting his fans. The average age of female audience was 40-60. Unfortunately I wasn't able to figure out which lady caught his eye.

And here's Toms, who was so kind to perform in our play as a Fairy. The lack of potential actors was one of our biggest concerns. 

We're still waiting for good quality pictures to show up on the internet. For now you just have to believe that our performance was excellent and regret if you missed it.

See you on Broadway!

Cinderella - behind the scenes

One of our tasks during this EVS project was to participate in local theatre festival. None of us is used to acting on stage, so at first we weren't too enthusiastic about this. We were preparing Cinderella play - it was extra challenging, because we couldn't use any words and the performance was supposed to be very short.

With time we started to enjoy the experience more, especially since we got fancy clothes from Stelpe's school. At first all rehearsals were taking place at our house.

Finally we were ready to practise on the stage - it was a completly new experience. We had to find our places in this big space and we had problems with turning our backs on the audience. But practise makes prefect and after many many repetitions we were ready for the show.

 Masha was the official hair stylist of our play - i.a. she created Raquel's/Evil Sister's beautiful hairdo.

More about the actual performance and festival in general in the next post.

everyday life II

We've been pretty busy lately, bo now it's time for another post showing how our everyday life looks.

Raquel is learning to cook - she's doing great. Last time Kasia was teaching her to prepare pancakes.

 And that's Raquel's "I flipped the pancake" happy face :)

 Lika is always ready for helping people. Here she's grating appels for a pie.

 Beware of THE CHAIR, it forces people to sleep. Vera was the first victim that discovered it's power.

Orest was the second.
Who'll be next?

In the meantime Aga made a new friend (village people style).
You need to know cows like to attck people riding bicycles to Vecumnieki. Ask Lika.

 Sometimes in the evening we get competitive...

... but in the end the truth is obvious <3

Post a poster

Festival "Connect 2012" is coming up soon so recently we prepared some posters informing local community about this event. It was a challenge, but we really enjoyed it. Kasia's design was more in modern style, Aga's more traditional and colourful. Lika and Raquel wrote text in latvian - it wasn't easy, but they did very well.
Successful team work again :)