Disreality

DAY 1: When I stepped into the train at about 8AM on a quiet Sunday morning, I had no idea what is waiting for me up ahead, so I was feeling a bit precautious about it. But the trip started really well - the picturesque train ride across frosty fields, filled with red light of the rising sun; foggy mountainslopes... Formidable! I arrived to Mâcon four hours before the get-together so I just aimlessly wondered around the town for a while, looking for a place where I could buy some beer. Instead of that I found an exhibition of Indian art... By the time I got back to the trainstation there were already some people waiting. Our young and sweet group leader Julie introduced me to others and we went to have some hot chocolate together. I was somewhat surprised because we were mixing French with English and nobody minded that at all (as I'm used to here). After 6PM we were finally taken to a small village that was to be our home for the week.

Now's the time when I should introduce the participants: Julie the groupleader (French of course), Julie ("the tractorist"), Eva, Caroline, Susanne (all three very nice and sweet girls) from Germany + Anna who was actually partly Russian (znachit svoja tak skazat - it was great to speak Russian again); 2x Joanna (both funny girls), Dominik (intelligent and talkative guy with his own world) from Poland; Sonia (extremely funny and honest), Montse ("the fatass", reminded me of a former classmate Gerda - always wanted to seem smart and be in the center of attention) from Spain; Vlad ("the cool guy" who talks a lot about nothing and doesn't get it when people laugh at him), Ela (very organisative, a future animatrice for sure) from Romania; Sonja (she really knows how to do everything, starting from cooking and finishing with helping cows give birth, doing everything with equal affection) - Austria; Maria - Slovakia; Tine (a funny and sparky girl/hestkuk who could really juggle) and Annbjorg (she looks like she has stepped out of one of Ilon Wickland's drawings) - Norway; Iveta (speaks practically no French), Ivars (deep guy), Elina (just too funny, i started laughing just by looking at her expressions and she has the great baltic sense of humor) - Latvia; Jan (probably the only one who actually got our "baltic" thing :) - Czech Republic.

The first impression of the people was great - we stayed up quite late, talking and getting to know each other. Everyone seemed very nice and sweet and friendly. I was very glad to be finally able to get away from Strasbourg and its pointlessness, to learn some new juggling tricks, to meet some cool people, to be able to actually communicate in French a little, to finally be a part of the whole EVS concept - the work, the fun, the people.. that had somehow passed by me until now.

DAY 2: Waking up was inspiring - I looked out of the window and saw brown vineyards on the mountain slopes, covered with grey fog and a lonely white pony on a hazy field in the dim glimmer of the dawn. From the early sleepy morning until noon we had to listen to a boring lecture about history of EU and different projects and so on. I didn't really listen and if I did - I didn't really understand. After lunch we all got on the bus and went to Mâcon where we visited a place called Cave de la Musique. It's some place where bands can send their music and maybe get to play there eventually and all the workers are volunteers.

After a brief tour there, we headed to a nearby old people's bar to have some beer. The rest of the evening was free and we bought 10 liters of wine to make it more fun. We stayed up very late again, learning and teaching diabolo-, juggling- and kiwido tricks; making plans of visiting each other; getting to know the others and so on. Swee-eet!

DAY 3: Started with another boring lecture about the French history and politics. It was followed by a small knowledge test, which our group failed miserably. Oh well! After that we did some art-action: scuplture, oil, drawing, the topic was French symbols. My group had to draw with charcoal (man, I hadn't done that in quite a while!) and it was fun. In the end I even got to help the other group a little with their oil painting. Lovely. After proudly presenting our masterpieces we all had an individual conversation with the animators about our projects and problems and so on. And during all this time we were also making our own little linguistic course, learning how to say different swearwords in as many languages as possible. (Hestkuk, aizveries jakli, pimpis, schwantz etc etc). Hestkuk (which is Norwegian by the way) became the main word of the week. I personally love the word 'cause you can use it for anything and at anytime. But it is best used as the beer toast ;)

DAY 4: This time we started off by making plans for our international meals that we were supposed to prepare on the last evening. I teamed up with Elina, Ivars and Iveta and we decided to make rosolje and baked apples (ahjuõunad). Another boring lecture followed, I don't know what was the topic this time... After that most of the guys went for a walk, but since I had seen the villages of Bourgougne before and know what they're like, I stayed in with Sonia and Elina just to lie around and listen to music. Then we had another lecture and some theatre action - our group (Elina, Tine, Ivars and Sonja) had to make two little scenes about the sending organization's rights and responsibilities. We made a marvelous scene, making fun of the s.o. malfunctions, but nobody got the joke (I don't know why - the pharting part was pretty obvious :S)... I guess it's the "baltic" humor that not many people get, but at least we had lots of fun!

After dinner we went to Mâcon again to play bowling, which I enjoyed even though I really sucked at it. I did get a strike once, but I was playing for Ivars at that moment. Bad luck. On our way back we discussed with Elina all the interesting intrigues that were going on between a number of girls involving the few guys of our group. It so happened that for example Vlad had somehow become quite popular and we were wondering who will he end up with. The conditions for some action were promising because there were two boxes of beer waiting for us.

And so we drank and talked, the company became smaller and smaller because one by one people went to sleep, but we still drank and talked. In the end there were just Jan, Ivars, Vlad (Iveta joined us again soon because she was going after Vlad) and me. I had a really fascinating conversation about everything in the world, mixed with making fun of Vlad and laughing at Ivars' jokes (he's seriously funny!). I got to bed after 6AM, but the night still seemed to have been too short...

DAY 5: Of course I didn't even bother to get up on time just to listen to another boring lecture! After lunch we drove to Cluny (I had waited to see it for so long and it's still as great as I remembered). There we had a little tour, looking at hestkuks and 3D projections of the old famous church. It felt a bit sad tho because I was so close to Taizé and I wasn't able to go there... Sigh. But on the other hand - Elina found 20 euros on the ground and although we were sure it belonged to someone from our group, we didn't say anything and bought some beer for it instead :)

After Cluny we headed to degustate some local wine. The whole place smelled like a bad hangover and the wine wasn't all that good either. We amused ourselves by pretending to know a lot about the smell, the texture and the taste (in a word - making fun of Vlad again).

After finishing our lovely probably-three-days-old dinner (the food was scary there and we had lots of laughs on account of it, so I couldn't really tell if my stomach was aching from the food or the cramps. For instance at one meal I found hair in my plate 3 times!), we played a little picture describing game, where they expected us to make it into a whole different thing on the cause of our cultural differences. It didn't really work.

The moon was full and very bright that night, which made walking in the dark and sneaking into a local church to enjoy some great masterpieces absolutely magical... Or should I say - enchanting... It's just really nice of the local people that they don't lock their church for the night! :)

DAY 6: Again some lectures, which - I don't even have to mention - weren't too interesting. After lunch they took us to Mâcon where we listened to some more not-so-interesting lectures. We also met a local volunteer who talked about her project. That was kind of funny for me and right after I told Elina about what exactly I do in Strasbourg, she found it very funny as well. Najah, actually it's sad, but since life is a flower, as we all know, it makes it easier to take things with humor. Especially while being far away from the reality...

When they finally gave us spare time on the city, we went to the shop and bought some beer. Still not really paying for it. By that time we had found out that it was Dominik's 20 euros so we generously offered some beer to him as well. Then it was dinner time and we all went to a "fancy" restaurant to eat. The food was funny again, but we were already used to it. Pas grave.

After getting stuffed, it was finally time to go to the Cave of Music to see a reggae concert. We had bought some beer with Vlad and Ivars (that is - technically Dominic bought us the beer), but it came out that we weren't able to smuggle it inside, nor did we have time to drink it. All we could do was put the bottles (I think there was about 13 of them) into the bushes and hope that the French teenagers won't drink all of it by the time we get back..

The gig wasn't too great simply because it was very reggae... So after a while of just standing there we decided to go and see if the beer was still there. Surprisingly enough - it really was! So we (Elina, Jan, Annbjorg and me) drank almost all of it, including most of Vlad's. We didn't tell him, but he didn't seem to care anyway so...

DAY 7: It finally hit me - the reality strike. I realized that I must leave the place and the people very soon to maybe never see them again, so I was feeling, what you could say, a bit sad. I ignored the last boring lecture, then we all ignored our last theatre assignment. After lunch we filled out a questionnaire, claiming that everything was perfectly great (including the food).

And finally it was cooking time. Unfortunately we discovered with the Latvians that there were no carrots (all used by the Spanish); no potatoes (which were taken by the Germans and which we stole back); the fish was wrong - instead of salted herring they got us smoked. Plus we had only one apple for our desert. Eventually we managed to make something out of nothing and I must admit - it wasn't the worst meal there :) After dinner we handed out our little presents 'cause each of us had drawn a random name and had to give something symbolic to the person. By a weird chance I got Vlad, so I gave him a bottle of his own beer that was left from last night.. (I know I'm mean, but what can I do!)

Our animatrice Julie had bought us four boxes of beer, which were opened almost immediately and therefor empty by 8PM. It's a good thing that we "put away" some of it for later. The bad thing was that Julie saw us do it... Anyway, to make a long fuss short: When we went to Vlad's and Ivars' room to drink the beer, everyone came up claiming "their share" and in the end Montse just took all our beer and yelled at us in her manly voice for a while, which was quite amusing. In the end everyone probably thought we had stolen all the beer and drank most of it, when all we did was just take our share. Luckily we still had the beer from last night, so we finished that one (hoping that we had managed to be the last ones with some drinks).

The last night was...well... I could say - unreal. I must admit that I still find it a bit hard to believe because the whole week was just so much more than I had ever expected! Everything that happened is quite difficult to put into words and describe. Not even very nesecarry I believe. But I can say that is was full of silence and laugther, irony, intellectual conversations and the full moon, loads of artwork and of course - probably the most important ingredient - dEUS...

DAY 8: Too sad to mention. Sitting on the train and watching the kilometers pass by, thinking of the growing distance between me and all the great people that I had met. And even worse - thinking about my stupid pointless work again... Sad. But still happy and very thankful for all that was and maybe will be. And now I'm back to reality... That's my depressionism.

dEUS "Disappointed In The Sun"