You are the writer of your own destiny...

“Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”

What do you think about your life? What kind of people are you surrounded with? Do they make you happy? Are they there for you when you need them? Do you laugh a lot? Are you having fun? Do you follow your passions? Are you living your dreams? Are you happy? 

Do you ever ask yourself questions like these? Or you are on autopilot like most of the world. Tell me, when was the last time you did something silly, but in the same time meaningful? Something like a midnight swim, a long walk along the seaside, playing with your dog, eating tons of sweets, gardening, visiting your grandparents, watching the stars, travelling to some random destination you know nothing about or walking around without a plan... Sounds funny, right? But it isn't. It's the small things that we do that make our life sweet and beautiful. Small things that you do and share with people who mean everything to you. People who make your life path worth exploring and enjoying. 

How would you react if I told you that all that is happening in your life is your own fault? Would you be surprised, angry, sad, happy, disappointed? It's hard to acknowledge this fact. It puts a lot of pressure on you. Responsibility as well. Are you familiar with this saying: 

Do you believe in yourself? Do you truly believe that you, and only you can change your life? Think about it. Life is too short to compromise.

"Find a place in your life where you choose passion over skill, adventure over comfort, intuition over logic, and faith over fear. As you begin to break free from all the “should do’s” and obligations, your new life path will be revealed, and with it all your heart’s desires will become a reality!"

We wish you a marvelous week :)

                                                                               

Here we go!

Last Monday we all started with our weekly routine: working in the office or going to the Migrant centre in the morning, having and preparing our workshops in the afternoon.....but it seemed that we needed to energize a little bit before starting the week and....is there anything better than an African dance workshop? It was Saturday morning, too soon but....we enjoyed it so much! It's amazing the energy that the teacher had, and how she transmitted it to us! We were dancing and jumping as crazy, we didn't mind the heat...just wonderful!

And we had to chill as well before starting the week, some of us accidentally ended sleeping in a wonderful beach under a thousand millions stars, others chose to relax at home, or went to the beach, as you can see we have many ways to do it.

The week started with the language courses, on Monday Spanish, and on Tuesday Italian. It's the first time for both of us that we teach, it takes us a while preparing the lesson, decide what to do, how to explain....a lot of questions come to our heads, making us even hesitate about our knowledge of our mother tongue. But I must said that we are personally enjoying the fact of teaching our language, and we find it very interesting and productive for our personal development, and also we are getting important skills that can be used in the future, a Spanish and a Italian teacher can be requested anywhere in the world, isn't it?

On Monday we have as well the Theatre workshop, where we started with improvisation exercises and some ice-breakers, starting to prepare the field for further activities we have on mind, maybe there will be new movie stars after this workshop, there is a lot of potential!

And on Wednesday took place one of the most lovely events we have done. Despite the ammount of time it took us, the problems organizing it, the continuous change of plan, number of participants and so on; we must said that it was amazing and perfect our Veggie Kitchen! The atmosphere was great, and we discovered very skill cookers! We had three groups preparing the plate, and we cannot say which one was the best, all of them were delicious....we couldn't even take home any leftovers of the tasty and wonderful caponatina!

Finally, to finish the week, we had a special guest in our radio show, Tune your souls. We had a very interesting person in the studio, he told us about his experience in India, and how he understood that you don't need to have loads of money to be happy, even in the slum you can. We also talked about music, the first years of Stevie Wonder, the power of the bassline, the musicality of reggae music.... A very enriching conversation that ended watching a fado concert in Phaneromeni Square.

And then was Friday, time to rest and to prepare the weekend, it's Cyprus, so September is still summer!

And that was it fellas! Stay tuned for next post!

So it begins

We have been here for two months now. So it was about time to have the On-arrival training. The main aim of this trainig is to assemble all volunteers who arrived approximately at the same time and to help them know the country, the project and all the things they should know while being new in a different country. They all meet in a nice hotel, spend some time together and have fun. But...
It turned out that we are the only new volunteers on the whole island. And we will have our private on-arrival training. Just four of us. In our office. After 2 months of living together. Where is the point, right?
Well, the point is that you can always know someone better than you do now. And to really think about why did you even apply for this project and what are you expecting from it can help you to put your mind in a line. Big thank you goes to Eleni for preparing the trainig for us.

On Wednesday our daily routine started. Quite big part of our project is to go to the Holy Cross Church and spend some time with refugees and asylum seekers. We actually learn a lot about intercultural differences. Their stories are not always happy, but for sure they are eyes opening and the strenght with which the people keep going without giving up is incredible and inspiring.

On Thursday our workshops have began. The very first one was Spiritual session. We talked about ourselves and at the end we did a short meditation. The goal of these meetings is to relax and discover something about yourself not only through meditation, but also through singing and drawing.

On Friday there was the Secret event. The secret was Paladar dinner, originally from Cuba. The idea is to gather different people and make dinner for them while they are socializing. Variety of people around the table was pretty wide but still there were topics to talk about. And then we played some 'get to know each other' games. It all happened in Oliver Twist Coctail bar. Very nice place in the City Plaza Nicosia, which is a perfect place to play hide and seek.

And then the weekend came. Some of us went to move their body in the rhytm of african dance, some of us stayed in bed to not to move their body at all and some of us went to the beach. Later that day some of us went camping, whilst the rest of us sticked to their morning activity laying on the bed or being on the beach.

The best thing about this diversity is that when we meet up again we share our adventures and it brings us together. And it makes us feel home.

Dissemination of the last week, time for BORA-BORA now?

Kalispera people!

How's life treating you? We are great, thanks for asking ;).

Although I am not quite sure if the answer would be the same if you had asked us this question during these last couple of days... Oh my God, our schedule was crazy! Fun but crazy. New people, new projects, new ideas, fun, laughs, love, lots of tears, goodbyes and hope to see you soon wishes. In exactly that order. Spread the word training was an exciting and educative experience, for all of us. Now we are proud to say that we know the meaning of the word: DISSEMINATION. It's an important word, please take notes. That belongs to the formal part of the training, the informal part includes words like BORA-BORA and some other that need lots of explaining to be presented in the right context.

Now, let me show you the formal part of the training. It was like this:

We look nice, I know ;). And serious. And busy. But we really were! 

Want to see the informal part too? Ok.

As you can see we had fun, but we were working hard too, so I think we deserve to have some good time :). Basically we have more "formal" photos than informal, the thing is that our lovely Cypriot mum has them with her, somewhere in the deep depths of her memory card... If you know her then you know what I mean ;). 

So, let's also say something about the training itself. We are gorgeous on the photos, but Spread the word was much much much more than taking photos of ourselves, good-looking people ;). It was about how to disseminate (I just adore this word now! When I know the meaning and how to use it :P) project results. In normal language: how to tell people about your project, how to share and implement your ideas in order to help the community. How to engage other people and start something fabulous.

We had a lot of different and interesting activities, we were even on the radio! We spent a lovely day on CCMC with Orestis, poor guy, I think he needs vacation after that day :P. Thank you Orestis for having us there and patiently explaining us how to deal with that alien equipment. Big thanks to our trainers too, they are also on vacation now :D.

Sunday was our free day. We were spreaded around the island. Some of us went to explore Larnaca, some to Limassol, some to Agia Napa, and some stayed in Nicosia. We had some other plans for the weekend but the Universe didn't agree on that so he prepared other things for us. Unfortunately, thanks to the Universe, donkeys will stay donkeys, at least for now. Why am I mentioning donkeys? Well, you have to read our previous post if you want to know ;). 

So yes. This was our week. Heads filled with new ideas, hearts filled with love and soul with peace. Why? Because there is hope. Thank you, you wonderful people! Young people in action! Young people who are willing to sacrifice their own free time to improve our world. Together with a lot of patience, creativity and wisdom. Keep up the good job guys! You are an inspiration to us all :).

We have to end this day/session/post with something good, as we were taught, so here it goes ;)

Have a great weekend! ;)

Anna, Doris, Lenka and Pablo