After a few days from my arrival, I finally met Matias Lamoro and Mariana Delgado, responsibles for coordinating all volunteers that SYnergia has. SYnergia currently has around 20 volunteers. In the past, volunteers have come all the way from Argentina and India. In fact, Matias Lamoro who is the volunteer coordinator was once a EVS volunteer from Argentina. This year, SYnergia received some volunteers from Indonesia for the firs time. My friend, Noventy, did her job shadowing programme here for about 3 weeks.
When Matias came back to Braga, he explained that Dian and I would work a lot in TOCA and SYnergia. For your information, SYnergia has some departments; espaco SYnergia (office work), TOCA (creative office, exposition area, audiotorium for concerts), Academy (sport centre). He told us that there would be tons of events waiting for us in the next few weeks. My first job was to help SYnergia make paper flowers that would be used for Freedom Day Celebration. That day is celebrated each year to commemorate the end of dictatorship in Portugal. I was tasked to participate at the event of ARRAIAL “Eu sou o SAMBA”. It was a great day for me because I saw some traditional Portuguese dances from northern Portugal. During the dance performance, the dancers pulled some audience to dance together. I was one of the audience who was pulled. Also on this day, we had a farewell party for the Turkish volunteer that had completed his EVS for two months.
The next day, I was informed that Indonesian and Turkish volunteers were given the responsibility to teach traditional dances from our countries to students of an elementary school for a school event called ‘festa da primavera’ or the party to welcome the spring. On the 26 of April, we went to school to meet the kids and teachers. When I went to this school, I noticed that there were multiple kids who could not speak and that they had to use sign language to communicate. This school also has some kids from different ethnicity (Romani kids). However those kids could get along really well according to my observation. The teachers also show caring attitude and treat all kids the same. For me, this school seems to be a perfect place where kids from different background can learn to integarate into country they were born no matter what race they are.
On the 26th of April, we had to bid farewell to another Turkish EVS participant, Busra. We had a party at the volunteer apartment.
From 27th until 29th of April, Turkish participants and I went to school to teach dances to kids. Ana, a volunteer from Romania helped me communicate with the kids as they do not speak English. I decided to teach two Indonesian dances. I myself not a dancer and cannot dance but that was one chance for me to introduce Indonesian culture to the people here in Portugal. The first dance that I taught was a dance from Papua called Yamko Rambe Yamko and the second was Kecak dance from Bali. Those two dances are very simple to teach to kids and thanks to Ana, she was a great help. Without her, it would have been more difficult for me to teach these two dances. We were allocated only one hour each day. Fortunately the kids learned very fast. They already mastered the dances on the second day. On the third and fourth day, we did a lot of rehearsals and finally that big day came. On the 30th of April, we went to school and brough some accessories and face paint. We helped prepare the stage and when the kids came, we painted their faces and put on some bracelets we made the day before. The first performance was a hip-hop dance and was continued with the Turkish dance performance. The next perfomance was Indonesian dances. I was nervous and thought that they would probably forget the dance moves but the kids did the dance performances very well in front of their parents. I was so proud of them. It was really fun working with kids and I hope that I can work together with them again before I go back to Bali.
Jerry Conney Otey – EVS Participant from Indonesia
Braga, Portugal