Sunday 13th of July

A little bit tired because of the wedding of my cousin the day before, I arrived at the Oasis centre in Groot Bijgaarden at about 12 am. I didn’t really know what to expect inside of the centre: since the night before, 35 young and enthusiastic youth animators - coming from 7 European countries - had gathered inside of this centre to participate in a training course called Arty-Farti. For a week, these young people would exchange ideas and experiences about games and playing games, expression skills, values… All this under the guidance of 7 experienced Belgian trainers.  Personally – being one of the two Belgian participants – I had to contribute to this week by sharing the Belgian way of working and the Belgian point of view on certain topics.

I didn’t really get much time to discover the group and to get to know the different people in the group, since Guido (coordinator of the hosting organisation and my boss, Belgium) decided to put me in the centre of the attention from the moment I arrived. “Maybe you can start by telling who you are and what you are doing here. By the way, while you are talking, maybe you can tell the people something about Don Bosco Youth-Net as well.” Ok, there I stood, in front of a whole group of young people, at that time complete strangers to me, trying to explain who I was in the best English I had. This whole situation had one major advantage: at least the people in front of me would know who I was and what my name was. For me, I still had to learn all the names of the other participants, although I still had some time left to do that. The week had only started.

During lunch, I had the opportunity to talk to Ruzica and Mario (both Bosnia) and after lunch, we could start to develop our expression skills. I decided to participate in the drama group. In four days time, we had to create a final product which we would have to present on Friday evening. Luckily, we didn’t have to think about that on the first day. Instead, we could warm up with some verbal and non verbal expression exercises. After this drama session, we played some ‘new games’ and games about trust, to finish the day with a co-operation game (in which my hair was dyed in yellow), an evening prayer and some time to relax in the bar. Time for our foreign guests to get to know the Belgian beers…

Monday 14th of July 2003

Music started playing at 7.15 am this morning. This was the signal to wake up and to get prepared for the Morning Prayer at 7.45 am. Then, breakfast at 8 am: Coffee! The moments we spent at the table were the perfect time to have some chat with the other participants. In English, of course, but sometimes you needed to use your hands and feet to get something explained and when that didn’t work, somebody had to translate. Luckily, from each country there were at least two persons who could speak and understand English fluently, so it was quite ok. Persistent as I am though, I continued my conversation with Jana and Silvia (two Slovakian girls who barely understand English and speak even less).

After breakfast, the first Macstof session started. Macstof is a method to help you explain games. The method was explained to us and then we got to play some games, using this method. It was really nice to play these games from all the different countries. It gave me lots of inspiration for games I could play with young people in the future.

After lunch (this time I had some chat with Agnes and Zdenek from Czech Republic) we could again start with a drama session.  Joze and Anja (Slovenia), Peter (Slovakia), Patrik (Czech Republic), Antonija and Jelena (Bosnia), Adela (Croatia) and me (Belgium) were asked to think of an internationally known person. I chose Madonna, thinking that everybody in this group would know her. Well, thinking about a famous person is rather harmless, but I was surprised when I heard the next exercise was to dress up and act like the person you chose… (you can see the result on www.donboscoyouth.net). Madonna met other famous people though. Che Guevarra, David Beckham, Santa clause… they all were there.

After a second session on new games and games of trust, a good dinner and a little talk with José Angel (Spain), a fantastic day could end with a fantastic evening session. Each country was asked to tell us a typical story from their country and to teach the other participants a song in their language. We heard seven different languages, the atmosphere was great and the results of the singing were fabulous. As usual, the day ended with an evening prayer and time to socialize in the bar.

 

Tuesday 15 th of July 2003    

Third day, third drama session… Slowly we were heading towards our final product: a theatre performance for Friday evening. The working title we figured out was: Forest Gump and the seven dwarfs: the story of Madonna on a ‘zeehond’.  The whole morning we brainstormed about possible scenarios, bearing in mind that we would only have three hours of rehearsal on Friday. The session ended with a draft scenario which Gert (trainer, Belgium) would finalize. It looked promising…

In the afternoon, we played an informative game which had been developed by Jeugddienst Don Bosco and which will be published by Don Bosco Youth-Net by the end of this year. It certainly was not easy to play this game in an international group, because most of the game is based on language and communication, but the result was more than satisfying. People said some interesting things during the final discussion and most of the participants were positive about the game.

Later that afternoon, we again exchanged and played some games from different countries (second Macstof session) and after that we had dinner. During dinner we could mentally prepare ourselves for the evening of values: a discussion evening in which we would talk about the different values that are important in each organisation and the way they are seen in the different countries. This was a very interesting evening. Personally, the story of the boys and girls from Bosnia really touched me. These young people had been trying to start an oratorio in their city but unfortunately, they had almost no resources. After a long search and a lot of patience, they were able to find enough money to build some accommodation, but now they still don’t have any materials to play with the children (not even a table or a chair). Despite these hard working conditions, the boys and girls all were very motivated and convinced of the added value their work could bring. And that’s what touched me the most: to see how young people who grew up in hard circumstances, still have such a high motivation and are full of positive ideas. This really gave me new hope and a lot of courage, motivation and enthusiasm to keep working for and with young people.

As if we hadn’t been touched enough by this evening of values, the Slovakian delegation offered us a very powerful evening prayer. We had to make a web of friendship and some people said some very beautiful things. It was an overwhelming and breathtaking day, so the time to socialize and reflect on the day in the bar was more then welcome.

Wednesday 16th of July 2003

We all got the sleep we deserved, so in the morning we were once again ready to go. After breakfast, we started with a final Macstof session and in the afternoon we made a trip to the Belgian capital: Brussels. Guido showed us the most important things on the ‘grand place’ and also ‘manneke pis’. After that we got 3 hours of free time.     

Mario (Bosnia) who was very fanatic about football – being a very good player himself – had already mentioned a few times that he would love to see the national football stadium. So, together with Jelena, Ruzica, Jelena 2, Marina and Antonija (all coming from Bosnia) Mario and I took the metro towards Heysel. There I could show them the national stadium, but also the exposition park and the ‘atomium’, one of the most famous monuments in Belgium. Mario enjoyed to see the stadium, while the others took pictures from the atomium, a monument they knew from their chemistry books (the monument symbolizes the atom of iron). With these pictures they would certainly get some credit from their chemistry teacher…

On the way back, I showed Jeanneke pis (the female version of manneke pis) and we had a drink together with Vitko and Don Stjepan (they were the responsibles for the Bosnian delegation). After this refreshment, we joined the big group and returned to Groot Bijgaarden. People were clearly happy and enthusiastic about the day, you could see that on the train and during dinner. Veerle, one of the Belgian trainers, just couldn’t stop laughing during dinner. Probably because it is funny to see David as a dwarf, but the main cause could also have been the tiredness. Veerle was not the only one suffering from this tiredness.  That is why the evening was free. People who wanted could participate in the international quiz (which was a success) others could do what they wanted. After the evening prayer, also the quiz players could get their time to relax: in their beds or in the bar.

Thursday 17th of July

Some extra time to sleep!! Indeed, taking the tiredness of some people into account, together with the fact that the bus was only arriving at 10 am, we could wake up an hour later today (which does not mean everybody slept an hour more…). After the Morning Prayer and the usual dose of coffee, we all took the bus direction Oud-Heverlee. There we visited the oratorio and the participants got the time to discover it. The Belgian participants and trainers offered to be the translators if there would be participants who would like to talk to some of the children. This caused some really funny conversations and situations.

After the lunch we then paid a visit to Leuven. People who wanted could go with a guide to visit some of the most important buildings; the others discovered the city on their own. At 4 pm Lieve (a Belgian trainer) took some of the participants to her house and there we were welcomed very warmly by her parents and we got tons of Belgian chocolate. This was only a start, because at 6pm we were expected to be in a restaurant in Leuven to have dinner!

You would think that people get tired from eating so much. The opposite was true though: the enthusiasm on the bus back was huge and the number of people that were present in the bar that evening was bigger than ever. Strange, or could it be that the hour of sleep more this morning and the fact that people realized that tomorrow would be the last day also were a part of the explanation?

Friday 18th of July

The last day… But what a day! We rushed through the morning, rehearsing for our play. Gert had prepared a wonderful scenario; the only thing we had to do is to rehearse and to search for appropriate costumes.

In the afternoon, we had an evaluation and at 4pm there was the final celebration of the week. After that, every country had to prepare some food for the dinner. They got one hour! It was sometimes chaotic in the kitchen, but the results we got to taste at 6.30 pm were marvellous (although it is not so evident to combine sweet, salty and bitter things).

8 pm: THE MOMENT OF TRUTH: The expression groups drama and dancing could show to the others what they had been doing the whole week. The room where the performances would take place was decorated by the third group: paper and carton art. Drama could start: Forest Gump and the seven dwarfs was played like it had never been played before. Patrik – who played the main character Forest – was better than ever and the public thought it was hilarious when the trees started to run around after hearing Forest’s step mom shouting: “Run, Forest! Run”

After the theatre performance, the dancers could show what they had learned. Different little groups gave the best of themselves while they were dancing with their bodies, with hats, with newspapers, with sticks or with ribbons. As a final piece, all these elements were combined in a dance on the tunes of ‘Sanomi’, the Belgian Eurovision song that ended in the second place this year and that became a hit during this week. With the perfect atmosphere in the group, we went down to the bar to continue the dancing, but also to say goodbye to the first participants leaving…

The participants from Bosnia, Kroatia, Czech Republic and Slovenia left on Saturday morning at 6 am. The others stayed a little longer and could start cleaning up…

Saturday 19th of July 2003

Today I woke up with a strange feeling. The halls were more empty than otherwise; it was so quiet… That’s normal when you know more than half of the participants had already left. Still it is strange that people you barely know for one week, can make such a huge impression. There are a lot of things you can learn and a lot of things you get used to, but this feeling of emptiness after such a fantastic week is something you probably never get used to. Luckily, you can fill up the empty space with nothing but fantastic memories, a lot of learning and life experiences and the hope to meet again somewhere soon.

I will certainly be there next time!!

 David Wemel