In between our first week, we attended this International Food Day hosted by the EVS participants at the Youth Center in another city, Velenje, about 2 hours drive from Metlika. So we got to see a new city, visit this big and well-established Youth Center with its own hostel, and meet some of the other participants of the EVS Program all over Slovenia.
These were young adults from different parts of Europe –Germany, Hungary, Russia, France, Spain and thanks to the EuroAsi Project, there were us, the Filipinos and Indonesians to represent the other side of the world. I think that that is very valuable – to be able to make this exchange happen. We, the Filipinos however, did not get to cook anything –but we got to be part of it none-the-less. We got to help out in the kitchen and smell the aroma of different foods cooking, with the sound of different languages speaking (some in panic) in the background. We also got to know all of them and have dinner all together.
Later that evening, we were all invited to the MC’s bar/café (Mladisnki Center which stands for Youth Center) where three of the EVS presented their project entitled “Under the Same Sun”. In this project, the three volunteers would be hitchhiking across Europe from Celje, Slovenia to Amsterdam without spending any money for transport and accommodation and spending less than 5.00 euro per day, per person for food. They will be documenting their trip with the objective to (1) show other people an alternative way to travel and show that traveling is not as inaccessible and expensive as they imagine, (2) promote EVS opportunity in those places and (3) “build trust in the world a bit”. It was a very interesting project to me. I love that it encourages travel because I myself have this strong conviction that the benefit of travel is exponential –you never really know where and how far it will get you, how it opens your mind, how it allows you to meet people you otherwise would never meet. Even hearing about the project already opened my mind. It was an eventful day and it was concluded with karaoke –international karaoke! It was a fun evening.
The next day, the participants set off early to go to Tito’s Square where the event will be held. Each country was assigned a stand to set up their food booth. There was also an event going on in the square and there was a band, a parade of people in traditional costume and dance performance by school kids. The place was packed with people and we also went around trying each country’s food and talking with the volunteers. By noon time, the food was almost all gone and everyone was really full! After cleaning up, the participants gathered around to play some games together. We joined in on the fun too.
It was such a great experience to be part of this event especially because we got to meet so many new people coming from different countries and backgrounds with different interests and perspectives. For instance, I got to talk to one German girl, Sarah who I shared interests with. We both want to be teaching someday as a profession, and she somehow inspired me to really think about it and helped me identify what I wanted to study and teach if I did pursue it, which is “Cultural Anthropology”. Maybe yes, maybe no, but still, I will learn something from considering it 🙂
Chanieli, filipino EVS volunteer in Kud Plac, Slovenia