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!
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.
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