Amazing trip with the tourism information center 🚂

 I guess you all know the lovely ladies from the tourism information center, right?
Lately they have been very busy and on top of that, they organized an interesting day trip, which I was allowed to take part in :)
The trip started on Thursday at 8 o'clock in the morning with some snacks.
I must admit I was extremely tired and due to the rainy weather not that excited yet but luckily my flatmate Eka, who can make anyone smile, took part, too.

Our first stop was in Valdemarpils, where we met Igurds Banķis - an very inspiring person!
To be honest, he was my personal highlight of the whole trip.
For twenty years, Igurds had been teaching kids from the streets and youngsters that didn't want to fit in the "system" different crafts, especially carpentry work.
They received a basic internship and learnt many life skills, including his philosophy about helping others and being a good person.
He showed us the school in which the kids learnt and lived and some of the objects he had created himself - they were amazing!!
E.g. this carriage, which he used on special events and a beautiful little train that drives around his garden  - but not clockwise - to symbolize that everybody should live their own rhythm.

http://meistarsigurds.lv/igurds/par-sevi/

Afterwards we visited a renovated Ance manor. Now it is being used as an open creative space. People can make their own scarfs, blankets and other pieces of art.

We attended a course in baking Sklandrauši there. 

It was absolutely adorable that we received one of our Sklandrauši in a pretty box with a certificate proving that now we are masters in making them. 

Then we went to Daba laba where I could prove my hunting skills! 

http://www.dabalaba.lv

Daba laba provides a hunting area, hunting classes and a fun ride on their "safari car" through Latvia's beautiful jungle 😉.

We really had a lot of luck because it was raining half of the day but the three hours we spent at daba laba the sky brightened up and the sun came out. 

Exhausted, after the adventurous hunting, our bus driver took us to the spa at Usme lake. The owner gave us a tour through his spa and informed us about all of his different offers. While he was continuing his talk, which I couldn't understand because my Latvian still isn't perfect, Eka and I decided to have a photoshooting at the lake.

http://www.usma.lv/sakums/

Truly tired,  we relaxed in the warm bus on the way to our final stop - a mini-zoo! 

It was cute, but somehow I didn't get quite as excited as the others who were running around in the chicken area trying to get the best picture of their favourite hen. The zoo basically contained a lot of different types of hen, turkeys,  some peacocks,  a few sheep, one suspicious goat and three very cute ponys,  which I liked most.

http://www.latvia.travel/lv/apskates-vieta/usmas-mini-zoo

All in all, it was an amazing daytrip and I'm looking forward to the next time the tourisminformation centre organizes one! 

Cute and crazy chicken 🐓🐔

(Post from Tanja) 😊

We will all enjoy a coloured Easter egg on Sunday, won't we?
However, have you got a matching Easter egg cup to eat it out of?

If not, this is what you have to do and what we did in Ligzda last saturday:
Create a cute or crazy chicken egg cup!

The kids (this time from all ages; 4-22) had a lot of fun designing some rather individual egg cups.

This is what you have to do:
1. Collect your used egg boxes.
2. Cut out a big part, so you can use the high middle of the box as the neck and head for your chicken.
3. Stick some eyes and other details on it.
4. Finished!

25. February: Designing carneval masks 🎭

(Post from Tanja) 

In Germany (nearly) everybody goes crazy around this time of year because it's "Fasching" or "Fastnacht" or "Karneval".🎉

It's a tradition that dates back to the 13th century.

Carneval, also known as the "Fith Season", begins on the 11th of November at 11:11 am and ends on Ash Wednesday of the following year with the main celebrations around Rosenmontag, which usually is in the end of February.
It has got three different names, each one used in a different part of Germany. The names evolved due to different traditions and other ways of celebrating.

Basically, carneval in Germany means
dressing up, partying all night long,
having different town-organized
parades and making fun of everybody
especially of politicians.

People can buy cheap costumes in
supermarkets, but if they have time,
they prefer to sew them themselves.

So of course, we had to make some in Ligzda, too! 😊
I chose to teach the kids the easiest costume: the mask 🎭


This is how you create one yourself :
1. Cut out any shape you want. Use hard, but bendy white paper.
2. Try the mask out and mark where your eyes are.
3. Cut out the shape of eyes.
4. Paint it with acrylic colours and glue on old material, buttons, etc.
5. Stamp two holes next to the eyes.
6. Knot elastic string to the holes.
7. Finished! 😊

18. February: Pretty purses 💰

(Post from Tanja 😊)
Guess why it's not very smart to buy a purse when you're still a kid or teenager!
Well first, because you shouldn't really need one
And second, because you can actually make one yourself!

This Saturday we created pretty purses by using milk- and juice cartons.

This is what you have to do:
1. Collect milk-/ juice cartons and clean them.
2. Cut off the top and bottom.
3. Make creases at the half of the long sides.
4. Devide the long side into three parts.
5. Make two creases  deviding it into the three parts.
6. Cut off everything of the third part except for one piece.
7. Fold the carton at the two creases.
8. Attach the velcro with a stapler.
9. Stick the two inner parts together with the velcro.
10. Colour it if you want to.
11. Finished! 😊

  

Creating valentine's day presents! ❤

This is a post from Tanja 😊
Valentine's day was on it's way!
Therefore, obviously we had to create pretty presents for our loved ones.

The kids made beautiful candle jars. Funnily most of them dedicated theirs to their mother. 😊

This is how you make them:
1. Collect glas jars and remove the etiquette with hot water.
2. Cut out a lot of hearts of special thin paper.
3. Cover your glas in a thin layer of decoupage glue.
4. Carefully stick the hearts on and completely attach them by placing more decoupage glue on them and then spreading it with a paintbrush.
5. Wait untilit's dry.
6. Cut out some hearts from colourful carton, make a hole in each one with a hole puncher and write a cute message for your loved one on it.
7. Wrap some wool or string around the top and knot the carton hearts to it.
8. Place a candle inside.
9. Finished!

4. February: Pen problem solved ✏

It's me again, Tanja  😊
Have you ever had too many pens and pencils lying around and no idea what to do with them?
Well, I experienced that way too often, therefore I found a solution:
Just put them in a glas or cup or can.  😉
However, that might look a bit boring, so you should decorate it.
That is exactly what we did this saturday at my workshop. The kids were allowed to use their own imagination and created very beautiful pencil holders.

This is how you do it:
1. Collect cans or glas jars and clean them.
2. Cut out a piece of material that is a bit bigger than the can.
3. Stick it on with hot glue.
4. Cut strips into the ends and glue them in.
5. Decorate it with everything you can find.
6. Finished.

28. January: Holy Labyrinth! ⤴➡↘⤵➡↖⬇↔

It's me again, Tanja  😊

Of course, we didn't make "holy" labyrinths in the religious sense. But we made labyrinths that are holy, because they have holes! 😉

It's a game that I used to love when I was a kid. It affords concentration, good reflexes and a steady hand. The aim of the game is to follow the track with a ball without falling into one of the holes. 

The kids were free to create their own track, designing their individual difficulty level.

And this is how you make it:

1. Find an old box or piece of cardboard.

2. Cut out two squares (20x20cm) and four rectangles (5x20cm) 

3. Cut a few square holes (2x2cm) in one of the big square pieces.

4. Paint all of the pieces.

5. Draw the track of the labyrinth.

6. Glue first the bottom and the four sides together with hot glue.

7. Then carefully stick in the top layer.

8. Attach some small walls in the labyrinth.

9. Finished 

21. January : Animals gone wild!🐘

(Post from Tanja 😊)

This Saturday, we made cute little animals out of toilet paper rolls.

Every kid was allowed to create as many as they wanted to using their own imagination. I only showed them two examples,  a fox and a mouse and was truly surprised what they came up with ☺

This is how you do it:

1. Fold in the top of the paper roll, to make it look like ears.

2. Paint it and glue cardboard, wool, eyes or other material on to make it look perfect.

3. Finished  😊

The reason, why we used the paper rolls, is because waste is a huge problem in the whole world affecting the ecosystem everywhere.

Waste often lands on gigantic landfills where it takes ages to rott.

Sometimes it is burned, producing a lot of CO2 at the same time, which is one of the main reasons for environment change and an increase of nature catastrophes.

So you should always try to reduce your waste. The waste, you can't prevent, you should try to use in a clever or nice way ☺

13. January : Speed dating with volunteers 🍵

This is me, Tanja and I must admit we didn't do any speed dating.

But it was sort of like it 😁

Karo, another EVS volunteer from Poland, invited several volunteers, including me, to join her event. She works in a huge youth center in Rezekne with Camilla (Italien volunteer)  and Melyne (French volunteer). 

This Friday, we, a total of nine volunteers from Poland, Italy, France, Spain, Holland, Turkey, Czech Republic and Germany gave locals the opportunity to get direct information about EVS.  The event was called CreativiTea and took part in the youth center. Each of the locals was allowed to talk to one volunteer for three minutes, before switching to the next. Therefore we secretly referred to event as "speed dating". They asked us questions about our motivation, our work,  free days, travels, money, applications etc.

Funnily, the most common question was: "Why Latvia?" 😁

Of course, we had tea and biscuits during the event😉

In my opinion, CreativiTea was a success, because many of the attendees were thankful and very interested. They gave us positive feedback and are thinking about doing an EVS, too. 😊

Creative Christmas Celebrations ❤

Dear everyone, this is me, Tanja 😀

My Christmas was very special for me and completely different to all the previous years. Therefore I would like to share this experience with you and add a report about the EVS Christmas event for seniors I helped out at. 😊

Most volunteers go home for christmas to reunite with their friends and family for the fest of love.
I, however, decided to stay here in Latvia and experience something completely new.
And I don't regret it at all!☺
So Thursday evening (22.12.) I arrived in Ruijena with another German volunteer, Moritz.
Why Ruijena? - because that's where the big party was going to be.
Actually, I only knew one of the hosts, Abdu from Italy. Therefore we started with a welcoming introduction round and I got to know Abdus flatmates Clemence, Yassin (both French) and Luca (Italien) and  Ani (Armenian) and Monika ( Tschech) working in Daugavpils. After we had traditional Latvian potato pancakes for dinner, we went to bed quite early because we had work to do the next morning.

Event in the senior center
Friday morning we made some cakes before Victoria (Russian) arrived. It was here nameday, therefore, of course, we all gratulated her.
As soon as Abdu and Luca's coordinator (another Victoria, but from Latvia) arrived, we set off to go to the senior center. Abdu works there as a volunteer.
After we had collected approximately 15 seniors, we introduced ourselves and thought them how to make tiramisu, a typical Italian dish.😊

One of the seniors had an accordion, on which he played happy Christmas songs. While we were waiting for the tiramisu to cool in the fridge, we ate the other cakes and biscuits and tried chatting with the patients. 

After we had eaten up the tiramisu and drunk tea, we brought them back again and tidied everything up. By the time we had finished, it was already quite late, but we were happy and satisfied about the event. 😌

That evening we went to the only bar, to chat about Christmas traditions, our work experiences, politics, especially the Russian politics, which was 

interesting for me, because I had never talked about

that with an actual Russian. 

That night we continued talking and playing games in their flat, which meant going to bed very late.😉

Christmas!

Christmas morning we started decorating the house. Monika and I made pretty snowflakes and Christmas crackers while Victoria created a beautiful Christmas tree out of paper. At noon, finally the others arrived and I must admit, that I was totally utterly surprised. Of course, I knew that we would be quite a few volunteers, but I honestly hadn't expected that many to come 😀

So we decided to devide in three groups, a pizza group, a salad group and a soup+desert group and prepare the Christmas dinner that way. Furthermore, Lam (German) introduced us to "Weihnachtswichteln" or "secret santa" , which is common in many European countries. It acquires you to pick one of the participant's names and sectrely buy a gift for them. 

Approximately at 9 pm we could finally enjoy our dinner! 

Afterwards,  we opened our presents, went for a walk, danced around the town Christmas tree, played a lot of funny games and got tipsy on mulled wine.
All in all it was just an amazing Christmas! ❤🎄
For me, the highlight was when Angelika (Georgian) took the guitar and started singing with her beautiful voice. It didn't take long until everybody chimed in.
Just imagine young people from 10 different nations singing together at Christmas in the middle of the night. 🎶
I will never forget that evening - it was just as loving, peaceful, harmonic and happy as the perfect christmas should be.