An international voluntary camp (Germany, Roebel, June, 19-30, 2009)

The last exam at university, 4 hours till the train to Berlin, the luggage is not packed yet… Ok, the trip is going to be very extreme, promising and interesting for sure! A long way is an opportunity to have a sleep, at last! In no time - morning and the voice of the train assistant: “Attention! We will be in Berlin in an hour!”. Then – the railway station where no problems with buying a ticket arise, because there are Russian-speaking people eager to help, a lot of them! Let the bags rest in a baggage room and… viva, Berlin! In 2 hours Natalli was already able to buy 2 pairs of trendy shoes, something to her niece and brother, some knick- knacks… at the same time I fell into muteness which is actually one of the symptoms of the tourist illness which is usually accompanied with a not arbitrarily opened mouth, thoughtless hand-waving, stupid interjections and hysterical laughter – that looks quite terrific indeed ))) still such a situation had place many times during our staying in Germany. Nikita left us in some unknown for us direction moving confidently and easily with a canny smile on his face and a mysterious face-expression… yeah, he left but he promised to be back soon. And he did! Still not in a white suit and not in a company of several long-legged girls as I and Natalli were expecting…but anyway we were happy to see him again by our side. For God’s sake, Nikita had still no idea about how many admirers were waiting for him in Roebel….

When we saw the apartments where we were going to live we were amazed, even shocked!!! In a positive sense, of course! There were the most comfortable beds (moreover 2 of us were lucky to live in a room for 3 people, so I was able to change beds, just for fun), shower and a toilet, heating – that was a real paradise all after our rented flats for students with cockroaches. In the first evening we had an organizing meeting where we were getting acquainted – I invited someone to Belarus at last, somebody invited me…ooh… everything at a great speed! In the same evening (or night?) we went to overview the sights with Tutku from Turkey. It was drizzling and we were talking about… Belarusian music! It turned out that it is known in Turkey – just imagine- some people from Turkey admire Pavel Arakelian and Apple Tea! Then we understood that we were light-minded to go for a walk in a town (even a small one with 6 000 habitants) where we were for the first time… We were looking for the road back to our place for a long time, luckily the locals helped us to find EngelscherHof, a building which is a former synagogue and which became a home for us during those days spent in Roebel!!

The next day Belarusians were the first to get up and come to the kitchen to help to lay the table for breakfast. The Germans told us: “You came too early” (just feel the irony in these words, to hear such from overpunctual Germans!).Extremely proud of ourselves we went back to the room to sleep for one more hour; then we were able to put cutlery and cups on the tables just in 15 minutes (that was called to be on duty)).

So, we were going to get to know what we were to do throughout the project. In the list of compulsory things to do were making postcards, preparing a project against racism and discrimination taking to consideration experience of different countries, and also many other actions such as seminars, games, trainings, meetings with the press, with local pupils… not talking about excursions to Rostock and Berlin, cycling tours (bicycles were of free access at any time of the day), a concert of a German band MELODEALER, the total benefit of which was increased by 1CD bought by the participants and then copied for all of us (the initiative of the Belarusian delegation!)). As you see we didn’t have to do any physical work, though there was more than enough of intellectual one. Very often we had to navigate free Internet for information, communicate with the press in the English language, prepare presentations about everything we were doing there, discuss the matter of racism and discrimination with other volunteers. We were able to explain to the Germans that Weissrussland is actually Belarus; they are the same countries indeed, and that we don’t write on envelopes Germanland instead of Deutschland, so… they shouldn’t translate the name of our country as well! To cut a long story short we were talking business, certainly if it were not some parties such as a freak party for instance, when we had to look terrible but we turned out to look terribly funny))).

We were given 2 days to make postcards. We coped to do everything in several minutes, and in our opinion we did it not bad at all! During the presentation I even was able to make a serious speech that we were able to show 2 ideas – one of which is evident and shown graphically by means of the inscription while the other idea is subconscious and can be perceived only after a thoughtful overview)). Postcards, seminars… certainly all that is very important, but frankly speaking the most important thing is that we were able to discover practically that it is possible and not so difficult to find the common language for so different representatives of so different countries. That was the time of looking for compromises and as a result – of having interesting, unforgettable, constructive communication. We justified stereotypes about cheerful and talkative Italians, punctual and pragmatic Germans, open-minded and a little bit rampant Slavs, kind-hearted Czechs and delicate Frenchmen. We were talking about tolerance, giving our own examples of discrimination of different times, looking for solutions to the problems, discussing the solutions which are already in action.

We were discussing the examples of different countries, were indignant or otherwise satisfied with them… And it seems to me that our situation which took place in Roebel where the representatives of the West and the East met together was somehow an ideal model of world communication and cooperation, and to my mind I was not the only one who thought like that during the project. After it I was convinced that solutions to numerous problems can be carried out through a constructive dialogue, or rather a polylogue.

And certainly we had an international party when each country presented its national dishes. The Belarusians cooked draniki and brought potato-chips, “Kommunarka” sweets with wishes inside the wrapping composed carefully by Tanja and Natalli, and surely there was vodka on the table. Everyone was contented! We tasted Italian Pasta al forno (in other words – noodles with ketchup), Czech garlic soup (a very hard thing indeed!), buhty from Slovakia (meat dumplings), French Crepes (there was misunderstanding between the French and Russian delegation because Russian pancakes and French Crepes in their interpretation turned out to be the same thing), the Estonians cooked something with a long and complicated name, the Czechs brought home-made vodka with them, the Italians made the tastiest coffee which I liked so much that drank 4 cups one by one and wasn’t able to get asleep that night. The last party was dedicated to Michal Jackson who died 3 days before during our staying in Berlin. Our international choir was singing karaoke of Michal Jackson’s songs; we were crying and honored the king of pop-music… to tell you the truth our tears were mostly dedicated not to the death of the greatest singer, but to the fact that tomorrow we will part with each other and with Roebel. 10 days is not a long period of time but that was enough to fall in love with the people whom we met and with the country, and definitely with the atmosphere of the cozy and calm German resort town Roebel.

Many thanks to the League of youth voluntary service and to everyone due to whom this trip was realized!!!!

Time spent in Germany is the time composed of the very moments of happiness, the time that will be remembered throughout all our lives!