Time Flies: One Month Down!

Cześć!

Here I am, ready to tell you what's new at school.

I would like to start by sharing the most exciting thing that happened on Tuesday, April 8th:

we celebrated the European Day where the other volunteers who are here in Białystok, doing what I do in other schools in the area, joined me at my school to organize activities for the students together! The students in question were 10 Polish kids from this school, along with 10 Bulgarian students who are here on a cultural exchange. What can I say, I'm still emotional thinking about this day!

The volunteers

Being able to do activities with the other volunteers, with whom I am building friendships, seeing the joy of the students while doing the activities we offered, and sharing things about our home countries was magical. We started by introducing ourselves and saying where we are from—Italy, France, Portugal, Greece and Spain—then we moved on to a quiz about our countries, to see what they knew about us, and I have to say, they passed the test amazingly!

After that, we danced together, teaching them a Spanish dance (the Macarena, I think you all know it), a typical French children's dance (Moussier Tombola), and then we ended with a Portuguese song called "Cabeça, Ombros, Joelhos e Pés," where they learned some basic words in Portuguese.

Then we moved on to games, where we introduced them to two Greek games, a French game, and an Italian one. We had such a good time, here are some small videos to show you how much fun it was!

We ended the meeting by teaching each other how to say "goodbye, thank you" in all our languages. It was such a beautiful moment, and the kids' enthusiasm for trying new activities really encouraged us to feel even happier about choosing to come here as volunteers!

As for the past weeks in general, I'll share a few photos of what we've been doing: a beautiful tower made of wooden pieces, built slowly with a lot of patience, it held up and stayed standing! Beautiful Easter-themed eggs and little bunnies and chickens, as we are approaching this holiday. A moment of sharing the name of some animals in English, Polish and Italian, and then, why not, a fun group dance. After all, country music always seems to get everyone involved, right?

Oh, I almost forgot! There were also the Kids' Olympics, and it was so beautiful to see some of them running while representing their class, with the rest of the class cheering them on from the stands. The kids had so much fun, look at them in this video!

Entering the świetlica and hearing the kids scream "Alice!" followed by a hug and an immediate request to play still hits me emotionally. It's amazing to see how with just a few gestures, we manage to get into their hearts, and it makes me even happier to be here.

And truly, time is flying! I've already been here for a month, and it feels like just yesterday I was in my room in Verona preparing my suitcases to leave—it's incredible! I really thought I would feel the weight of being far from my family and friends, the challenge of complete independence, and maybe even think I made the wrong choice, like many people probably do when they choose to embark on such adventures.

But I can assure you, that's not the case! Somehow, everyone manages to make me feel at home, and I now have a new family among the volunteers I spend most of my time with, as well as new friends here at school. So everything is exactly how it should be.

I think these are all the most relevant things that have happened for now.

Until next time!